Refreshment

I really enjoyed last weekend. We headed up to a place called El Valle, which is a 2 hr drive from Panama city, in the interior, mountainous area of the country. Some friends of ours had a house up there and graciously opened it up for us to go to.

El Valle is very tranquil, pristine, and surrounded by fresh wilderness. It is a refuge from the hustle and bustle of living in Panama City. When you are there, you cant help but relax. I felt like my soul especially needed some of that refreshment and a break from everyday busy life.
God encouraged me so much over the weekend. Simply through the hospitality of our friends, the beautiful mountains and foliage, and also His Word. One verse that specifically came alive for me was Zeph 3:17, which says,

"The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."

This verse connected with my heart for a couple reasons. Firstly, it was a great reminded that he is mighty to save. He is able to save me, students on campus, and people in the world. I needed to hear that after having a long week on campus, where it seemed like nothing really happened and students were indifferent towards spiritual things. The second thing was that He delights in me and quiets me with his love. I felt very precious, treasured and secure. It reminded me of how a father and small daughter relate with eachother. She feels so free to be herself as she knows her dad loves her, and feels safe when she's around Him. God wants me to have this close relationship with Him too. To put it simply, I felt very loved.

On Sat, we also went to the beach. This picture hopefully captures a small part of the tranquillity and peacefulness of the interior of Panama:

On a side note, this quote summarizes what its like outside right now: "its raining dragons and horses." -Jose Andres
(this quote is the Panamanian equivalent of its 'raining cats and dogs.')
Its been pouring outside non-stop for about 3 days now and things are pretty wet.

MORE Dominican photos...

I've posted yet some more pictures from the Dominican Republic Project on facebook. And, for those of you who arent facebookers, here are the links to see the albums:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=178444&l=c4833&id=618945586
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=178548&l=636ba&id=618945586
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=178551&l=0a468&id=618945586

Enjoy!

Highlights of the Dominican trip...in pictures.

1. Marquis, & Isaac's first time on a plane. Smile, Laura!

2. The Dominican Republic Flag.

3. At the entrance of Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo - our campus for the week!

4. Showing the Jesus film to 250 people in a poor Santo Domingo neighbourhood. Lorenzo is sharing his testimony in this picture

5. Lorenzo, Steve (not pictured here) and I evangelized in the Facultad de Artes all week. It was encouraging to see the transformation in Lorenzo over the week

6. Marjorie, a Dominican student I got to share the gospel with, and I

7. On Thurs night, we hosted a fiesta, complete with music and a few student testimonies. Laura is sharing her testimony here.

8. Me, Lorenzo, Juan Louis, Gleny and Steve - Juan and Gleny were two students our faculty team shared with

9. And finally...Our VE team: 7 Panamanian students (Marquis, Joanna, Isaac, Lorenzo, Laura and Abraham); 3 Panamanian staff (Oliver, Duby & Secondina); 6 Canadian STINTers (myself, Lindsey, Raquel, Juan Carlos, Steve and Derek) and 2 film crew (Selegna and Juan). Leyla and Prospero, the two Dominican staff members also joined us for this picture.

Its finally here!!!

I cant believe it is actually here....today is the official start of Dominican Republic Missions Project 2008 (Oct 31-Nov 9)!!! This afternoon, 7 Panamanian students, 3 Panamanian staff and our STINT team of 6 are all going down to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic via a stop over in Costa Rica. God is going to work in so many ways, impacting both our lives and the people of Dominican Republic.

Here are some more trip details...

Saturday, Nov 1- training and orientation of the city. The training includes sessions such as sharing your personal testimony, evangelism brainstorming and practice sessions, spirit filled life...
Sunday, Nov 2- church in the morning followed by an afternoon/evening showing of the Jesus film in a rural community outside of Santo Domingo
Monday Nov 3- Friday Nov 7- Each day we will be heading to the UASD (Universidad Autonomia Santo Domingo) campus for evangelism and outreach activities. We'll be focusing in the humanities and arts faculties with the goal of reaching as many students with the gospel through various means and then engaging in initial follow-up. The hope and prayer is that by the end of the 5 days on campus we will be able to turn over a committed group of Christians (both new and old) to Layla and Prospero, the campus staff in the Dominican.
Evening activities this week include: a training session for students from the Dominican Republic, sharing the vision for Vida Estudiantil at a private campus, and a wrap-up party for all the students from the Dominican.
Friday evening and Saturday Nov 8 will be spent debriefing and bright and early Sunday Nov 9 morning we head back on a plane to Panama City!

This trip truly is a dream come true in so many ways. Thank you so much for your prayers, thoughts and partnership!!! I am so blessed to have such an awesome support team, and definitely couldnt do any of this on my own. You've made an impact in my life, the lives of Panamanians and now in the Dominican Republic.
You guys are great! Blessings, Karina

Today

Today I was reminded that God has a way of working things out in His way and timing. And, He often has a sense of humor....

Just before lunch, Raquel, Lindsey and I were going out sharing. We thought that since we were a group of three, we would share with another group of say 2-3 students. We headed to the Science faculty and proceeded to approach one group, but they were going to class soon; we then approached another 2 girls, but they were studying for a midterm; we yet again approached another group, but they too were also busy doing something. By this time we had reached the entrance of the Biology building, and were semi-disappointed that we had been shut down so many times (usually students here are so open to talking, even when they have things to do!). So, we proceeded to pray and then walked across the parking lot to pass by the Science cafeteria. As we were walking down the path, we saw a girl sitting alone and decided to go and talk with her. She was a super sweet Catholic girl, and as our conversation proceeded, her friend came and joined in. And then, her boyfriend also came and joined us. The conversation was great - we talked about everything from spiritual things, to general talk on Panama, to things like marriage and choosing churches once a couple gets married. Even though I did not understand most of the conversation, I left our meeting feeling very encouraged. Not only did God provide us the opportunity to share with a group after all, he also orchestrated us to meet some students who were solid and serious in their Christian beliefs.

Please pray for next week as we meet up again with Yisa, Joel and Idalises: we have set a follow up meeting with them on Tuesday at 12pm, and want to challenge them to get involved with Vida Estudiantil.

Semana de los Valores (Week of Values) at UTP...

Sometimes I forget how busy life gets down here! We are finally back to a more normal schedule, after taking a two week theology course in addition to our work on campus. The course was pretty interesting, yet at the same time it has felt good to be back on campus on a more regular, daily basis.

Looking back over the past couple weeks, one large highlight was the Week of Values at the Universidad Tecnologica de Panama (UTP), that took place Sept 23-26:

God opened so many doors on the UTP campus this week!! Right from the time we (Vida Estudiantil, VE) were invited to participate in the Week of Values, up until the end of the week, we were amazed at God's provision and work. Each day when we arrived on the UTP campus, we had a brief time of prayer and organization, and then were linked up with a member of the administration who took us to our assigned classroom. I was amazed to see these administrators simply usher us into the class and announce that we had something important to share with the students! Our campus staff team was able to present the lectures along side all of the Cruzada staff from other ministries, which was a unique opportunity. Some students involved in the ministry also took part in these lectures. I was in one lecture where a student from UTP was able to share a brief story about his involvement with VE and how the Gospel transformed His life.

On Wednesday, we also had the opportunity to throw a concert in the main courtyard entrance of the campus, and had an information table table set up. At the information table, we got to use an innovative evangelism tool, called Soularium ( see http://www.mysoularium.com/ for info). How this tool works is students look at various thought provoking images on a table or wall, and then answer questions on their life, spiritual walk and view of God. The images caught the eye of many of the UTP students and we were able to ask them the various questions, followed by a 4 Laws Gospel presentation.

(Left: The band playing at the concert; Right: Soularium in action - Tania and Raquel talking with a student)

The concert was both an outreach opportunity to share with a large crowd how they can know Jesus personally, and also to increase awareness of Vida Estudiantil presence on the campus. Just after the concert, a girl named Jeaniris came up to my partner, Marielena, and I, and was very interested in knowing more about VE. She explained how she was a Christian, but felt like her present relationship with God and going to church was all very mechanical. She wanted to be challenged in her faith and taught new concepts, and wanted to get involved with VE. It was such a privilege to be a link and resource for students such as Jeaniris, in their walks with God!

Overall, during the week we were on the campus, 586 students were exposed to the Gospel, and 83 were interested in getting involved in Bible Studies. Praise the Lord!!!! This task, however is pretty big. Please be praying for the staff team as they begin the follow up process of meeting with students who indicated an interest of knowing more about knowing God personally.

crazy opportunities....

This week we've had a slight change of plans, compared to our usual days working on the Universidad de Panama (UdeP) campus....

One of the other Universities we work at, Universidad Tecnologica de Panama (UTP), is having a "Week of Values and Morals," throughout the campus. As a part of this, the campus administration asked Vida Estudiantil late last week if we wanted to make presentations in some of the first year classes. Our national Panamanian staff jumped at this incredible opportunity, and so this week we get to visit 30 first year classes!!!

We are talking in these classes on successful relationships, and then wrapping up our talks with a gospel presentation. Overall, by the end of the week, we will have presented in about 30 classes, to over 540 students.

Wow.

My new family, home and place of work!!

The past few weeks have been filled with settling in here in Panama City with the new team (my new family), into our apartments (our new homes) and starting on the campuses last week (our new place of work). Here are some pictures of each of these:

1. Our team, or my new family for the next year!! I love these guys.

Back row: Me, Raquel, Lindsey & Steve. Front Row: Juan Carlos & Derek (aka. Juanchito & Diego) .

2. Our new home! Our kitchen and living room....

I am so thankful for the apartments God led us to...His hand was definitely involved in the whole process! While searching for our new homes, we were having a hard time finding places for reasonable prices, as the real estate market in Panama had increased quite a bit over the past year. And, to make things even harder, we needed 3 bedrooms in each apartment. Then, on one Monday, we viewed and said "Yes" to both 3 bedroom apartments, within our price range, within one hour!!! Thanks God! Our respective places are within a 10 minute walk of each other, near a grocery store, banks and one of the major roads in Panama City (Via Espana).

3. And...our place of work: THE CAMPUS!

We're primarily working on the Universidad de Panama, and also spend one day a week on the campuses of Interamericana, Universidad Latina and UTP. Juan Carlos and I are specifically working in the Science Faculty on the Universidad de Panama and spend our Wednesdays on the Latina campus. Here's a pic of us with the Science faculty's mascot: Juancho the giant crocodile!

We have ARRIVED!

Hola from Panama City!!!
We arrived safely on Monday, Aug 18th at 1pm, after about 8 hours in the air. It felt so good to see some friends at the airport and to touch down on ground.

Right now we have a couple weeks of "settling in", where we need to find a couple of apartments to live in (one for the guys and one for the girls), get used to the climate, culture and our new city.

Just over a month until orientation time!! Thats pretty surreal.
I've been looking forward to the start of our STINT year since the fall, and it is coming up so very fast! Some days I am super pumped, and other days bring a bit of anxiousness and fear. But, in it all, God has everything looked after, and all I can do is trust in Him.
Ps. 56:3
"When I am afraid, I put my trust in you; In God whose word I praise..."

On the news front, we have a 6th team member! Juan was accepted to join our team.