By God’s sovereign plan, I had the privilege of teaching Evangelism classes at the Operation Mobilization base in Volcán, Panama.  Months before, some missionaries passing through Panama attended a workshop in May and they introduced me to the OM leadership.

Volcán is a little town in the province of Chiriqui, in western Panama.  I had to take the 6 hour red-eye bus ride from the city terminal to the town David, followed by a 90 minute bus ride up the mountain to Volcán.  I arrived about 8.30 in the morning on my first day of class at 9am, exhausted from the travel and sleepless night, but nonetheless ready to teach.

The base is located at the end of a road in a residential neighborhood at the foot of a dormant volcano, Baru (pictured below, center rear).

 

 

The terrain was mostly rocky, with giant boulders that had been left from lava flows eons ago.  Roads were sometimes paved, sometimes littered with potholes, and sometimes not paved at all.  A 4×4 would be a good car to have in Volcán

The town of Volcán is about 1500 meters in elevation (about 4900 feet).  The weather was a combination of clouds (we were in them some times), rain, and strong winds.  At times the wind was biting cold.  It often blows with such strength that tree saplings are bent over and grow at an angle.  I saw several trees that had a graceful curve to them.  The air is pretty cool year round that most houses don’t have either a heating or air conditioning system installed.

Teaching at the OM Panama Base

The missionaries at the school were from 5 different countries: Australia, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Panama.  After 10 days of training, they will go on a 2 month outreach, working with local churches in their evangelism programs.

This partnership was a key ingredient in my decision to help them.  I wanted to be sure that their outreach efforts were connected with the local church, so that any new believers could be connected.  I firmly believe that evangelism includes helping people connect to a local church, not just praying a prayer to receive Christ.

I had been asked to teach on two subjects, evangelism and team work.

I had four sections on evangelism:

• Motivation
• How the Holy Spirit Directs Evangelism
• Fear Free Evangelism
• Cross Cultural Evangelism.

For the two sections on teamwork, I focused a little on factors that make a great team member and did a group exercise looking into what gifts and personalities each person brings to the table.

The missionaries spent other classes looking into matters such as preaching, spiritual warfare, drama, and had time to develop and practice their mimes and dramas that would be used in their open air campaigns.

Open Air Campaign

I even had the chance to join them in one of their open air campaigns with a church in Volcán and at nearly the last minute, given the chance to interpret a drama for the crowd that had gathered.

The mime was called "Too Late."

The scenes are as follow:

Two mimes are partying, carrying on, enjoying the so called pleasures of this life.  A Christian witness comes in to tell them about Jesus and they reject him, saying they are having too much fun.

Scene shifts to the two mimes working very hard to earn a living.  A Christian witness comes in to tell them about Jesus and they reject him, saying they are too busy.

Scene shifts to the two mimes being elderly and barely able to move.  A Christian witness comes in to tell them about Jesus and they reject him, saying they are too old.

Scene ends with one of the mimes dying.  The "narrator" finishes the mime with a sign that says "Too late."

In our life, many times God will send us somebody who will tell us about Jesus but we find too many excuses to follow him.  God pursues us, but gives us liberty to reject it.  The characters in the mime rejected all of the occasions that God provided them to receive the Good News.  Likewise, each person in the crowd that day had the opportunity to hear of God’s love for them in Jesus Christ, and could choose to respond accordingly.

Today is the day of salvation, not knowing what tomorrow brings, and today was one opportunity where God gives you the offer of salvation.

Together with the other mimes and dramas, we presented the gospel message and invited folks who had freely gathered into further conversation.

For the team, it was good practice for their dramas and open air preaching.

We had a chance to debrief the experience a little and learn ways to improve the drama and improve the presentation for next time.  I was able to provide some coaching and guidance to the street preachers and translators based on the experiences that I have had in open air preaching.