Thursday, April 14, 2011

Great Week with Noonday Team

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The above photo is the Panamanian Baptist Seminary Building which the team was yesterday afternoon. The Class that I am teaching is on Church Planting. The text is of course the Book of Acts. 15 Students were there to learn how and why and what to do about how to plant new churches. How to give your personal testimony was emphasized and practiced by the class including the special guest students from the USA.DSCN1829
The visit to the Seminary gave the team the opportunity to see first hand the great need for help in the areas of maintenance and repairs that the buildings are in desperate need of at this time. Painting, Plumbing,electrical and concrete work are badly needed to improve the quality and atmosphere of this place of learning and life change.
The team will be starting their 4th day in Panama and have now become well adapt at prayer walking, mapping, the culture and the need of the city for churches. The team has been able to see the strategy of the missionaries and now are in the last two days of this trip looking for ways and the places that they may be able to plug into the work of the Urban Panama Team.DSCN1812
Yesterday also included a mapping of about one square mile of city streets. It was a unique experience as the team had traveled the area but there was so much that was not noticed until we actually walked thre through the streets with a very intentional goal of seeing what is there.
What was found? People lots of people. Lots of businesses and apartments. And mixed in are lots of nice homes. It is not uncommon for a beautiful home with a nice fenced yard with lavish landscaping to be next door to a 40 story high rise apartment building. You can see this in the top right corner of the photo of Linda walking with mapping in hand. And across the street from here is a fence where there is yet another high rise under construction.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

New UP Team Blig

Tina Louderback and Audrey Tucker of the UP team are doing an UP team blog.  The focus of the blog is for mission team's churches, families, and friends to be able to see the work that the teams from the states are doing here in Panama.

http://urbanpanamateam.blogspot.com/

Start of Seminary - April 6, 2011

Last night was the start of Seminary classes.  I am teaching a Church Planting class.  I have 16 students in the class.  This is very exciting because last year the Seminary only had 9 students.  Teaching the Seminary class is a little different than teaching in the Church Planting Institute.  The main reason is that the students get grades.  For all my friends that had Dr. Lee for Old Testament at BCF, I am having a "pop-test" at the beginning of each class.   "Please, take out a half sheet of paper."