I had a 2 hour meeting in Spanish with the leader of a parachurch missionary training ministry here in Panama. 

His mission’s work is to call forth missionaries from Panama to go to other countries, and to work with immigrants coming here.  I’m still not yet sure of the name of his ministry because today’s meeting was as much about simply getting to know one another personally as it was me introducing myself and our work to him.  I know that he is connected to several pastors in this country and church planters.

I used the PRMI Dunamis description in Spanish, and gave him the Spanish Language PRMI brochure, plus samples from the material that we have used in Nicaragua and samples of my evangelism material. 

We talked about how a PRMI team could come for a 1x conference to get to be known, like another one of our members did in Guatemala.  He was thrilled with the idea that team members are members of the Dunamis Fellowship and have completed the entire course. 

Quickly, he got into asking me details in terms of a minimum conference size, how the offerings would be processed, and the costs ownership (who covers what) and the like.  I think there will be further interest here.  There will be further discussions. 

We were together last night at a Christmas party where our families got to meet each other along with families from 7 other countries (I love it here)! 

They are pursuing more friendship with us, in that they are taking us to church Christmas eve for a "Traditional" service (see: http://www.missiontotheamericas.org/2008/12/a-2nd-christmas-in-panama/ for what I miss about Christmas) and spending a Christmas eve dinner with us in our house. 

At breakfast this morning I was simply describing how I missed some of the traditions of Christmas, and this invitation was his family’s response. 

The other day, we took a journey to our kid’s school to hear our son’s book report. 

It took a combination of 4 buses, and because of construction and holiday traffic, about 5 hours round trip.  Traffic volume is a known problem here and this time of year is the worst it gets as people do their Christmas shopping.  Going to the mall on Saturday is a bad idea.  Did that.

I’m not complaining, but simply describing for our friends and supporters a picture of our life.

Near our house, a new interchange is being built as part of a highway project to facilitate traffic flow.  Because of land locking, the only way to rebuild the interchange is up.  This causes all sorts of traffic flow issues during construction, particularly when lanes have to be closed to move these beams or to put the supports in for the concrete forms.

The image here is the new set of bridges being built to elevate a highway around one of the local malls.

You can get a feel of the traffic around it in this picture.

The volume of traffic is heavy though these photos may not show it well.  It moves at a snails pace as several lanes of traffic (I think 8) condense into 3 in front of the mall.  There at the mall are hundreds of people daily being dropped off by taxis and getting on/off buses.  Not a well designed intersection and thus the elevated highways being constructed.

We play Frogger when we cross the streets to walk to church or to the hardware store.  Traffic moves slow enough that you simply take your life into your own hands, step into it and hope you don’t get hit.  It’s like parting the Red Sea.

Most times traffic is a jammed as what you see in this photo from our big window:

Imagine this scene with impatient drivers, lots of horns blowing, and sometimes 3 lanes coming from the two side streets (from the bottom and the top). 

The street from the top is a two way street, but often, impatient drivers will pull into the oncoming lane to rush up ahead of the line.

If someone turns off the main artery (from the right side of the picture) and there is a car there going the wrong way, no one moves anywhere and angry drivers blow their horn.  This time of year, that road stays packed like that almost from 7am through 6pm at night.  If the traffic light at the end of the main artery is not working it might take 30 minutes to an hour to move a few feet, as cops try to their best to faciliate traffic flow.

However, on Mother’s day and on 3 days weekends, the same interchange  looks like this:

One can get around the city quite easily because a great number of people have gone to the interior to celebrate the three day weekend.  This is the second 3 day weekend in a row. December has many holidays here.

Just a glimpse of our life.  Continue to pray for us that we get a car so we too can get out of the city on weekends like this, and to faciliate our work here.

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.