LST at UDELAS

Now that we have settled into a bit of a routine in our new project, I thought it was time to give you a glimpse into the work here. As most of you know, there was an 5 person LST team here from New York doing a three week project. While they were here, we worked alongside them for the most part, but now that they are gone, Greg and I are on our own with lots of love and support from the local missionaries.

In some ways, our work is the same here in Panama City as it was in Natal. We are doing one on one english conversation classes with people who are learning english (we call them readers), using the book of Luke from the New Testament as our curriculum. But in many ways, our work is very different. We are meeting primarily with university students on a university campus. The university has provided a room for our exclusive use and they are even providing some of our meals. Greg has about 17 readers and I have about 25. We meet with most of them once a week, but if possible, we meet with some more often. Although we are mostly working with university students, there is a little variety among our readers, from campus janitors, to first year students, to professors, and a few that come over to meet with us that have no connection with the university.

Another difference we are learning to adjust to is how we connect our readers with people from the local church. Many of our readers commute to the university and have very long bus rides to get here. And to make the situation harder, the church family that we have most contact with here in the City is comprised of people spread out all over the city, so it is almost impossible for them to gather together at times other than Sunday morning worship. In our past LST experiences, we have worked really hard to get church members to develop friendships with our readers so that as they come to know the Lord, they are also developing relationships with His people. Our contact missionaries here in PC have recommended that as we have readers who are coming to a level of faith that develops an interest in involvement with the church we try to connect them with a church in their own community. So, instead of regular social events we will probably try to visit them in their town and hopefully attend their local church together. Please be in prayer with us that we will see the leading of the Lord in this.

We are enjoying this new phase of our year of LST. It is great to be on a university campus and interact with our readers as we pass them in the halls or on the grounds. It is exciting to develop relationships with the cafe lady and the man that works at the desk (exciting and good for practicing our Spanish) and the english professors. And we look forward to seeing how the Lord will work out all the changes!