Archives for November 2008

Finding American Thanksgiving Items

November 27, 2008 by ecoach 1 Comment

We are planning a second Thanksgiving feast for family members here in Panama.

Brenda has several relatives in this country and has invited a total of 12 people for dinner (we discovered tonight that we don’t have enough chairs). Pictured is last year’s thanksgiving dinner.

To share a little of our life in a foreign country, let me share some of our adventure in planning and American Holiday meal while living outside America.

Remember, we do not have a car so we simply can’t run errands like most of you. A trip to the grocery stores is not as easy as getting in your car and driving to minutes to the nearest one.

Also, please read these as stories, not complaints. It’s easy to put a tone of voice into writing.

1. Sweet Potatoes.

Brenda wants to make yams with marshmallows. Three groceries stores didn’t have them.

Either

a) the Americans in Panama bought them all (like not finding black-eyed peas in Wal-Mart on December 31 at 10pm) or

b) the store may not cater to Americans so there was no “stocking up” on normal inventory.

c) Sweet potato is not a popular food and just not stocked in bulk.

Thus, the attempt to locate sweet potatoes resulted in having to settle for finding some in cans. At the 3rd store, Brenda found some.

2. Pumpkin Pie Filling.

If you live in the USA, you likely take it for granted that come Thanksgiving, you can find lots of seasonal canned goods like the filling for pumpkin pie.

I can guess that pumpkin pie filling is not a common flavor here.

Four grocery stores later, we finally find a can of imported pie filling. It wasn’t located where we thought it would be (with the other pie fillings like cherry, lemon, or blackberry), but located above the freezer case next to the Imported Pop-Tarts and Triscuits.

It is so huge that it actually made three pumpkin pies for our early thanksgiving celebration.

3. Silver Queen Corn:

Simply put, can’t get it. Corn on the cob here tastes nothing like corn on the cob in the USA. We just don’t eat it here.

We have bought some frozen corn on the cob, but it’s institutional quality and not a big hit with our family.

Though we can’t expect to have the same benefits of living in America, there are some things we simply miss. Silver Queen Corn is one of those. During our road trip in Summer of 08, we asked for lots of Silver Queen Corn.

4. Ready Made Pie Shells.

Shopping in two cultures shows a big difference when it comes to frozen food, or ready made pre-frozen items. Here, we have not run into Lean Cuisine frozen meals, or anything of its kind.

Likewise, we have not encountered pre-made pie shells in the freezer case.

This means making them from scratch.

While that is not difficult, having the ingredients on hand when they are needed is not always the case. For example: shortening. We had run out. Last night, we discovered that we didn’t have any in the house so that means yet another trip to the grocery store.

An Early American Thanksgiving Feast

November 23, 2008 by ecoach 1 Comment

Our friends invited us to participate in a Thanksgiving feast. It was a week early, but that was not of any import.

The celebration of a uniquely American holiday with 24 friends from 9 different countries meant a great deal to our family. We are a few thousand miles away from our immediate family where for years we’d gather around a common table. To be welcomed into a new local family is indeed an honor.

Our host family had lived in the United States for a few years and grew to like and understand the significance of an American Thanksgiving dinner. Even though they no longer live in the states, it is a holiday they choose to celebrate. We have noticed that many churches have adopted the holiday as a day of thankfulness to God for the blessings of the year.

While it is not a holiday that involves a 4 day weekend as it is in the US, some churches have had special feasts and banquets.

Brenda organized the children to do a little drama that told the story of an American Thanksgiving. She made crafts for cornstalks, pilgrim hats, and plates full of food. They were awesome ideas.

We enjoyed a big turkey, pumpkin pie, as well as some green bean casserole and corn. One thing we do miss from the US is silver queen corn. There is no replacing that sweetness with local corn.

The fellowship around the table was fantastic. Nine different nationalities. One of the blessings of being in this country is that it is also a national melting pot of immigrants. While Spanish is the common language, many come to Panama in search of a better future — economic and social. There is lots of economic opportunity in this country, even in the midst of such extreme poverty.

To see the full photo album (23 photos), visit our Facebook Photo Album.

November Newsletter

November 18, 2008 by ecoach Leave a Comment

Our November newsletter has been emailed out. If you did not receive it please sign up for the Walker Family news (subscription box in the right panel).

As we approach Thanksgiving, we want to express our thanks to many of you who have called us, emailed us, and even visited us here in Panama. Many of you have given generously to our support and we consider ourselves privileged to serve in this country and seek to fulfill God’s call on our life.

We need this!

“This is relevant”
“We need this here.”
“Where can I buy your book?”
“You have some awesome ideas.”
“Wow those are cool. I can use that idea.”

This is what Brenda often hears as she teaches workshops for Sunday School Teachers and Children’s Ministers in Panama.

She’s been given the joy of training workers at a couple of denominational conferences, and her workshops have been well received. The gratitude that overflows at such moments affirms our calling here in Latin America.

Panama is not a country with vast resources, or a Michael’s at the local corner.

Individuals or churches can‘t easily spend $200 on the latest curriculum.

In fact, 1/3 of the country lives below the poverty line; some surviving under $36 a month, so there has to be some creative way to communicate the gospel on a budget smaller than a shoe string.

Brenda has designed particular crafts that can be made out of egg cartons, toilet paper rolls, and Styrofoam trays.

These are recyclable materials found through out the house and often take $0 to complete the craft.

Can we turn this into a book? Perhaps we can.
Can we create a DVD of “how to”? Sure.
Can we post video’s on YouTube? Working on it.

Upcoming Teaching Events

We have two upcoming events where Brenda will teach.

One is Mid December at a local church to the North of Panama City. Chris will be doing a seminar on Child Evangelism. Be in prayer for us that Chris can communicate in spite of his “heavy” Spanish.

The second one in is in the works for the Volcan / David area of Western Panama this coming January, right after Chris gets back from Nicaragua, helping Young Life.

Brenda is busy creating new crafts using food items like uncooked rice or pasta.

Pray for her creativity these next few weeks as she prepares the crafts, writes up the how-to sheets, and if time allows, we’ll even put the YouTube videos together.

Pray for Chris’s prep time for the work in Nicaragua, and for this conference here.

Pray that our kids will have fun while we make a mess on our dining room table during testing and creation of these crafts. They enjoy painting, cutting, and gluing, but we use our dining room table as our work table.

We are grateful for your ongoing support and appreciate you allowing us to communicate with you on a regular basis this way. It is our hope that you feel connected and perhaps involved in our ministry, even if you cannot be here.

Consumed by the call,

Chris
Brenda
Brandon
Anakarina

How can you partner with us?
Our ministry in Latin Americas relies on financial partnering from friends, churches, and foundations as well as consulting fees generated through EvangelismCoach.org.Please consider partnering with us to sustain Brenda’s outreach. Donate online or by mail.

A Unique Training Niche for Brenda

November 18, 2008 by ecoach Leave a Comment

Brenda has always loved creating craft ideas to help communicate parts of God’s story to others.

As part of our ministry, she is often asked to teach Children’s ministry leaders about craft ideas for use in their Sunday school or outreach programs.

Brenda has lots of creativity, and the focus of her work is on using ordinary household items, such as cardboard, Styrofoam trays, egg cartons and roll tubes from paper towels or toilet paper.

She hears comments like:

This is relevant for today.
We need these ideas.
Can we buy your book?

The demand for what she teaches produces large audiences at National Training conferences, and as word gets out that we are here, the phone is beginning to ring on a local level to come and give workshops locally. It’s a labor of love and fueled by a desire to help others reach the next generation for Christ.

2008 Leadership Conference

At a camp in early 2008 for the National Children’s Leadership conference, Brenda had nearly 100 children’s workers gather around. When she repeated that workshop in July, the crowd was even larger. Our family helps at workshops like this. For example, Brandon is helping her get supplies out of the box.

More and more people kept crowding around as she produced craft ideas to help communicate.

Children’s Drama Props

She recently provided props for a children’s ministry skit at our church. Check these out:

The scale of the scissors is hard to comprehend, but these are about as long as an adult’s arm. Total Cost: $0

Using cardboard and a bolt/nut from my tool box, she created the scissors.

Total cost: $0. Using cardboard packaging, toilet paper, and borrowing a toilet paper spindle, she created a tape dispenser. Even has little teeth on this to break the tape. These props were used in a skit at the Palacio de los Niños (Brenda is not pictured).

In December and into January of 2009 in Volcan, Panama, she will continue to give workshops teaching others how to make such crafts from ordinary household items.

To continue giving these workshops around the country, we need your help, particularly because we have to rent a car to get the teaching supplies to places. Consider supporting Brenda’s work on a monthly basis so that we can continue to train children’s workers in this region.

Poverty in Panama and Calling the Church to Action

November 18, 2008 by ecoach 2 Comments

Panama is a country where, according to La Prensa (2 Nov 2008), almost 1,000,000 people live below the poverty line.

That’s approximately 33% of the nations population

About 385,000 of those do not have the earning power to even cover the basic human needs for food and shelter.

The reports point out that some earn less than $95 monthly, some under $64 a month. 8 out of 10 in the comarcas (where the tribes live) survive under $36. Extreme poverty covers 80% of this regions population in 2007 (down from 89% in 2001).

According to the index of Global Competitiveness at the 2008 World Economic Forum, the education system in Panama is ranks 108 of 132 countries evaluated. Sixth grade math scores were the worst in the Americas.

Implications

Poverty is not unique to Panama. I’ve seen poverty in other central American countries. I’ve seen images in real life that have seared my soul with such pain that I can’t bear to see it again. Images that have stayed with me and will not get buried in the recesses of memory.

So many problems come alongside poverty, as well as so many solutions.

I’ve been reading Walking with the Poor, by Bryant L. Myers.

The book looks at principles and practices of transformational development.

The book explores poverty, causes of poverty, and calls the church to action in engaging broken systems that cause poverty. He lays forth a strong case that poverty is a “deficit, entanglement, lack of access to social power, powerlessness, and the lack of freedom to grow” (Myers 81).

Poverty is a complicated issue that involves all areas of life — physical, personal, social, cultural, and spiritual.

I live and work in a country where poverty is more visible than the suburban America where I lived before.

The gospel is relevant to people such as these. But what difference does evangelism make in their life? Can it lift them out of their poverty?

This is the question that Myers seeks to get at in this book.

For example, he presents a simple chart about solutions to the cause of poverty (p.81).

View of Cause, Proposed response

Poor are sinners, Evangelism

Poor are sinned against, Social Action and justice

Poor lack knowledge, Education

Poor lack things, Relief / social welfare

Culture of the poor is flawed, Become like us / ours is better

Social system makes them poor, Change the system

Certainly poverty has many causes and many possible cures. It is beyond the task of our family to challenge the system, but rather to focus on Evangelism and helping churches engage.

Evangelism calls people to personal transformation — to step up into the purposes for which the individual has been created.

Evangelism calls people to societal transformation — to participate in the work of the Kingdom of God.

The picture is not complete

Evangelism as traditionally practiced by many in Latin America (based on my observation on 10 countries) by itself is not a solution to poverty. The focus is on salvation for a better life at in eternity.

Get saved and you’ll live forever. Who wants that? Everyone! Life sucks for so many people in this region that a presentation of the sweet by and by is most appealing.

Yet what is missing is what I would call

1. incorporation into a local church and

2. obedient service to the world.

There is a vital component to helping people join a local community of faith. The church can grow and become a vital part of the transforming the local community. The church can nurture the faith of people and call more people to participate in the work of the God.

The second part is obedient service to the world. There is a calling to go back and seek to transform the world and culture, to be salt and light, to work for justice and fight for the oppressed. The kingdom of God is not about you, but about advancing the reign of God into the world.

What’s your vision?

Organizations abound to serve the poor that do not have a kingdom vision. Some want to extend their branding (think some Fortune 100 corporations). Some want to give their profits away because they want to avoid paying taxes. Some have altruistic motives to simply serve the poor, and based on their worldview, work at the appropriate solution.

Meyer’s book points that your worldview as to the cause of poverty will form your solution. Mine clearly does. The article in La Prensa cites that poverty is rooted in lack of education, and thus the solution is for the Government to improve the education system.

Ours

Part of our calling here in Latin America is to help the church get beyond the soul recruitment and to cast a vision that new believers and the church can engage the culture and transform it.

I’m not talking about political control like the Religious Right’s strategy in the US.

I’m talking about the church being involved in solutions for poverty, fighting for justice for the oppressed, and proclaiming the Good News. The church can be the salt and light to to the world and needs to be. By having a kingdom vision, the church can address the human needs.

The kingdom of God is such an awesome message that we give ourselves to it’s cause. Think about how you can support us in our vision