Always Be Prepared

Last week my family and I went into David for our weekly rounds of grocery shopping and other errands (like paying rent, electric, etc...) which is always a fairly hectic and tiring time.  In order to make things go faster we usually split up.  She does the grocery shopping while I am doing everything else.  

On this particular day I had to teach in our Tuesday night Bible study and had been in a long meeting before going into town, so time was even more crunched.  

I went to the bank first, which had a horrible line and took a lot longer than I expected to pay the rent. After that I went to a local hardware store to get some supplies for our upcoming trip into the mountains.  In that store both registers were not working properly and I ended up having to wait to the point that Karmy was starting to send me messages asking when I would come get her because she was finished with with the grocery shopping.   I couldn't go just yet though, I had one more stop at a different grocery store because it carries some things the other one doesn't.  

So I finished getting everything I needed, and rushed through that last line and out to the truck.  I had just opened the door and tossed the stuff in the back when I heard, "Excuse me sir, sir."  I turned around to see a bony old woman with a little boy about the age as my oldest son.  She said, "Please help us, I need some food for the child."  My natural instinct was to think, "I don't have time, Karmy is waiting for me and I have another meeting to get to!"  But Matthew 5:42 always goes through my head in response to my excuses, "Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away."

The fact is, we could all argue that the woman may have been using that child to get money for her own drug problem, which is certainly possible, but all I know is what the Scripture says.  So I will give until I know for sure it is being used for sinful purposes or God tells me not to (which He sometimes does).  I can't leave that child to starve.

I told her to stay put, grabbed a cart and went back inside.  I filled the cart up with as much food as I could afford and went back outside and told the lady.  "You know, I'm a gringo, so people ask me for money almost every time I come into the city, and a lot of times God tells me not to give them anything.  But this time He told me to help you, so take this food and know that God loves you and He is going to take care of you."  She said "Thank you, please remember to pray for us."  

I have been praying for them since that happened, and I want to ask that you reading this would do the same.  We need to always be ready for what God may bring our way, even in the most hectic of times. You never know when it is going to be an angel in disguise sent to test you to check your availability to the Kingdom.  Yes, some of our groceries melted, but that is such a tiny price to pay compared to being able to bless that woman and child, and tell them that Jesus loves them.

Schools, Teams, and Secrets

Students, Secrets and Teams

A torrent of activity with so much more to come!

September was such a crazy month.  I can't believe it is already over.  God has been so good to us!  We had the privilege of hosting teams from the World Race for three weeks, which proved to be a great help to us as we had our very first week of the Discipleship Training School in the Comarca (indian reservation).  We had seven students arrive in Tugri from all kinds of different backgrounds.

Here are a couple of testimonies from the students:

Mercides Testimony:

Mercides grew up around Christian family and friends, however, her father was not a Christian.  She, as a young girl would often go to church with her friends, but as a result her father would abuse her in an attempt to dissuade her from going.  At first she decided she would stand firm in her decision to go to church, but as she got older she fell in with the wrong crowd and the combination of friends of bad influence and pressure from her father, she fell away from The Lord for a few years.  It wasn't until Rafael came to Tugri and his influence he had in the area that brought her back to church.  Since then she has decided that she wants to be involved in ministry, specifically in singing.  She is doing the DTS because she wants to stay strong in her walk with the Lord.

Girl from Boquete (Haven't got her name yet)

She was born in Boquete and spent a large part of her life there involved in the church.  She was part of a group of traveling ministers who would go to different villages and towns and run different church services and campaigns.  She really enjoyed this ministry, and wanted to continue in it, however division entered her group of ministers and they began to fight and argue.  She did not like this and thought it was wrong.  

As this continued she decided to leave her group, and her church as well because she saw that there was fighting there as well.  She fell away from The Lord for three years until she tired of the life she was living.  She wanted to return to church but didn't want to have to be around the fighting that goes on there.  As she thought about this, she thought the following, "I need to decide whether or not I am going to follow God or not.  If I decide to follow Him, I am going to do it no matter what anyone else does, whether there is fighting or not."  

The result was her rededicating her life to Christ.  She has been faithful since then, and when Rafael arrived she decided she wanted to do the DTS because she wants to be involved in ministry again, particularly in singing.

Each of the testimonies we heard we amazing stories of redemption.  God calling people back after some issue pulled them away as we see in these stories.  In truth, they aren't much different from what we see in the States and other developed nations.

I will be going back to Tugri on October 7th for another five days to teach on How to Study the Bible in the DTS.  Karmy will be going with the kids to help run our King's Kids program there.

Esther and Elias showing off their crafts from the Kings Kids Camp in Tugri.

Karmy with two ngobe girls from the Kings Kids Camp.  The light bulb crafts represent when God created light!

The Ngobe staff and DTS students of YWAM Tugri.

As I mentioned before, we were able to host four different World Race teams over this month.  It was great having them here.  They went through a lot of God infused experiences with us; everything from the week in Tugri to Bible distribution in our area, working at the boy's home and much more.  We have a team from Kona, Hawaii coming to work with us for two weeks during the month of October.

God has recently opened a lot of new doors for us here that are very exciting.  Many of these in particular are teaching opportunities, but there is one very exciting new event coming up that I want to go into.  

First of all, this month I will be teaching for a week in our Tugri DTS on Bible Study Methods, after that I will be going to Nicaragua for several days for a leadership conference in which I will be meeting with the Central American Frontier Missions council about an opportunity I will be bringing up shortly!  After that, I return to the base here in Chiriqui and teach another week on Bible Study Methods to the classic DTS running on our base.

As you can see, things are quite busy right now!  That is not including an upcoming trip to teach in Costa Rica in December for a week, and an invitation to teach in Africa at a conference which unfortunately I will be unable to attend.  However, this brings me to this upcoming opportunity I would like to share with you all.

Secrets

For those of you who know me I have for many years taught on, and been a part of frontier missions.  Frontier missions is the most neglected part of missions in the world.  It is the mission field where nobody has gone, or less than 2% of the population has been reached, and there are often severe amounts of persecution taking place. 

I spent two years in Turkey where there was some persecution, but I feel like God is calling me to become more involved in the persecuted church and frontier missions globally.  On top of that, YWAM Central America is currently in a push to unite in a similar effort.  As part of the frontier missions council, I have a great opportunity to actually pioneer in this direction.  In order to move this region into unreached nations and people groups, we need to get some boots on the ground and start making connections there.  Once we have made those connections, we can come together and actually have a long lasting impact on these nations.  

For example, there is a group of missionaries in an undisclosed part of the world that currently feed up to 30,000 people a day in a closed nation.  Other groups are sending Bibles and other materials in order to help.  There are parts of the world right now where the church is growing so fast, they are struggling to train pastors and leaders simply because there aren't enough to disciple so many new believers.  We can help with that!

So to start, this coming March I am planning an exploratory trip for three weeks to a closed nation where there is persecution currently taking place.  Because of that, I can't openly name this place in this public newsletter.  I can talk about it over email however if anyone would like to write me.  

I will go for three weeks with the intent to make contacts, and begin this process of making a network of opportunities for those of us here in Central America, as well as our supporters, to have an impact in places that only 1% of all missionaries and church funds ever reach.  From there I hope to continue these trips and strengthening our ministry in these places, and that it will grow into other nations as this develops.

This first trip is going to cost about $3,000, about $2,000 of that is the plane ticket itself.  I would like to ask that you prayerfully consider participating in helping us to raise funds for this.  $3,000 is a very small seed to sow when considering the impact this could have.  This is not a simple mission trip, it is serious and risky.  It will touch people who have never heard the name of Jesus, and will help believers who are being beaten, tortured, and killed for the faith.  It is going to grow from there, and long term partners are a must for this to be successful.

That's all for this month's newsletter.  Thank you all so much for your support in prayer and financially as well.  You will probably never know the extent of what it accomplishes for the Kingdom of God!  

I also have a YouTube channel with a lot of videos.

https://www.youtube.com/user/AlanCrookham

And of course I have a Facebook account with a lot of photos you can check out as well.

If you would like to support our ministry, or the trip to this unreached nation the best way to do so is through Mission Enablers International:

You can either donate online through the following link:
https://www.meigiving.com/mei.php

Simply fill out the short form, and when asking for the account number, write 9052.  Donations through Mission Enablers are tax deductible and you will receive a receipt for them.

If you would rather donate by check, you can also do it through MEI at the following address, just add a note saying the donation is for the account number above.

MEI
P.O. Box 1311
Fayetteville, AR 72702

If you do are donated toward the unreached nation trip, please let me know so I can be sure to designate those funds toward that.

If you have any questions, please feel free to write me either through Facebook or email me at: alan.crookham@gmail.com

Week 1 Ngobe Discipleship Training School in Tugri (video)

Here is a video I made for our YWAM Chiriqui base showing clips from our first all Ngobe DTS in Tugri.

Week 2 starts October 8th.  I'll be teaching that week, not sure how much video I will be able to get that time around, but hopefully this will give a little bit of an idea of what is going on up there!

Maybe Not Exciting on Paper

As I write this post I am sitting in a building with a dirt floor, covered in dirt and mud, wearing clothes that have been soaked by rain and sweat for the past three days, and eating food cooked over a fire for every meal.  And I am so happy about it.  I am happy because this is one of the most momentous occasions in missions here in Panama, and not just within YWAM.  

Missions organizations tend to have an Achilles heel, and it is a big one.  The weakness is that because of the rush, and excitement to fulfill the great commission, there is a massive tendency to go into a place, get some people to make a commitment to Christ, and then move on to somewhere else.  Discipleship is often left behind in favor of numbers.  What you end up with are hundreds, if onto thousands of new converts who can't tell you any more than there was a guy named Jesus who died for them, and they accepted Him into their hearts.  And yet they continue in their same lifestyles, same witchcraft, same idols and sins, no real transformation in their lives or cultures.

We in YWAM Chiriqui have been called to what may seem like a less glamorous, less exciting road on paper.  It is slower no doubt.  However the road we are taking is the road that produces fruit that lasts, something quite elusive these days.  We have launched a ground breaking ministry model here in Central America and many other parts of the world.  Instead of a quick and easy ministry model that allows for exciting newsletters and stories of explosive numbers, we are running with the tortoise and taking one week of every month for at least a year with a group of Ngobe students to teach them Biblical Principles and attributes of God.  They will be trained to multiply this same model, and take it to other villages where true disciples with be raised up rather than become mere statistics

These will be many months of sweat and mud and stinky latrines, but the weight of glimmering jewels that are these Ngobe Christians that come out of it will far out weight any discomfort we feel along the road.  It may not sound exciting on paper, but I assure you the Kingdom of God is tense with excitement to see what is coming.

I am a Missionary (Video)

I am a missionary.  This video was made by the Fire and Fragrance Media team.  The narrator is Loren Cunningham, the founder of Youth With a Mission.

800 Grams

Here is an article from The Voice of the Martyrs that I really liked and thought I would share it today!

VIETNAM: 800 GRAMS
Front-Line Worker Profile: Xuan in Vietnam

She found Christ 13 years ago when she was a garbage collector. Every day, Xuan would pick through the garbage and find things to recycle for cash to support her family. Her husband had left her. She was paid by the gram for paper.

One day, Xuan saw some people worshiping in the area where she was going through garbage. She kept going back to watch them as they sang and prayed. “I found out that they worshiped God in heaven and I realized that they had a different God than me,” she said.
Then, a woman came by and handed her a Bible. She told Xuan, “Read this book.”

Xuan took it home and weighed it on her scale. It was 800 grams, not a large amount to recycle, but she could get a little money for it. She thought, “How could God be in this 800 gram book?” So she read the book, 10 chapters a day. She finished the book in six months.
“The first time I read it, I did not understand, so I was going to give it back to the lady,” Xuan said. “Then I thought I heard someone say, “I will give you wisdom.” She didn’t have electricity in her home, so she raised the candle she was using to read and looked to see who had spoken to her. No one was there.

“The second time I read the Bible, I still did not understand, then I heard the same voice. I lit a whole newspaper to make light to see who spoke to me,” she said. But there was no one.

The third time she read the Bible through, Xuan heard the same voice saying again, “I will give you wisdom.” Though again she saw no one, she began to understand the Bible, and she turned her life over to God. Thirteen years later, Xuan has read the Bible 21 times through.

Today, Xuan is sharing the gospel as a front-line worker. Every week she is teaching the Bible to new converts, sharing the gospel on the streets, at work and in another village. Thursdays are her day for prayer and fasting at the church. She also leads two churches. One of the young boys she mentored went on to Bible school and is now also in full-time ministry sharing the gospel. Another two are currently studying at Bible school.
She owes her new life and the fruit of her ministry to a small, 800-gram God book.

God's Heart of Restoration

I know I continue to harp on this same subject of God's restoration, but I can't seem to get away from it.  God is constantly bringing it to my thoughts.  Restoration.  God asks Abraham to kill Isaac for Him, Abraham, without getting into a theological discussion about it, just says yes and sharpens his knife.  The very next day, early; he didn't even procrastinate, he gets up, gets his son up, and starts trudging toward that mountain, lines of stress cutting through his gnarled face.  We all know how the story goes.  He gets to the mountain, raises the knife, and God stops him at the last moment and restores his son to him.

This is a theme all throughout the Bible.  Job, David, Abraham, Noah, the planet Earth.  Over and over again people lose everything either because God asked them to leave it, or because they made a mistake and lost it.  But God, so wonderful and merciful as He is, always restores it to them and more if they continue walking with Him.

A couple of days ago I was asked by the leadership team here at YWAM Chiriqui to rejoin my place on the team.  It was an intense, and long meeting that lasted close to four hours.  I won't go into all the details, but in the end I did feel that overwhelming sense of God's grace yet again.

When I came back here, I didn't expect anything really.  As I said in other posts, I didn't think we would have much if any financial support.  I didn't think we would have a house nearly as perfect for us as the one we lived in before.  I didn't think we would have a vehicle.  Yet God gave us all of those things back, plus a better vehicle and the exact same house as before!

Even with that, I didn't expect to be asked back on the leadership team, at least not for quite a while.  Not because there were any hard feelings between myself and the leaders, but simply because I had been gone for a while and it takes time to readjust to changes on the base, new staff, etc....

However God had other plans.  He put it in the hearts of the other leaders to ask me back on the team, and with that everything I left behind when I went to Texas has been totally restored.  On top of that I now have under my belt one of the greatest experiences of my life, which was working with Faith Fellowship.  I grew so much, and learned more than I can express from the leaders there, Pastor Luke, the teenagers, and the great opportunities they all gave me.

Above all I thank Jesus for restoring everything back to me, and even more.  He is so worthy and awesome.  As we are established here in Panama, and planning for the School of Frontier Mission and other big projects God is giving us, life only gets more and more exciting!

Floods and Teams

At the flood zone.

What a couple of weeks it has been!  There was major flooding in the nearby town of Cerro Punta.  We had a team of Canadians, and a team from the Cayman Islands which just left yesterday.  It has been a wild time.  For those of you who keep an eye on my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/AlanCrookham), or my Facebook page, you will have seen my videos of ministry with the teams and during the flooding.  There are still several videos I am uploading from that time, I just had limited access and not much time to do so.

During the time we were helping with the flood victims we were able to go where many other people were unable to.  I went up to the disaster area the day after the flooding took place, less than 24 hours after.  The area was completely shut off, and only authorized personnel and rescue workers were allowed on site.  However the Lord had spoken for me and another staff member to go there and help.  At the first check point it didn't seem like we would get in at all, the police officer was pretty adamant that we could.  It wasn't until I flashed my pastoral ordination card (thank you Faith Fellowship!) that he instantly changed his tone.  Panama is a very religious country, and pastors are given more freedom and respect than many other places.

That was all it took.  After that we breezed through all four checkpoints into the center of the town that was hit.  We weren't able to go to the actual disaster zone itself, which was a little bit outside of town, but we did get to be where all the donations were coming into, and the food was being cooked for those who had lost their homes.  We were also right next to where those people were staying.  It was a somber environment on that first day to say the least.

Pictured: Day 3 (not quite as somber)

We worked with the donations for three hard days, two of them with the team from the Cayman Islands.  It was an amazing opportunity and we did as much as we could.  As you can see in these pictures there was an abundance of clothing donated, and we assisted in sorting it into men and women's, children, etc... in order to be distributed to families effected by the flood.

On a fun note, I got to see the First Lady of Panama, and just missed the President twice.  I didn't get to meet the First Lady, but we was standing across the street with some soldiers.  I did have a lot of reporters taking pictures of me though.  I guess there is something about a giant white gringo carrying boxes of water that looks interesting!  

Aside from the flooding we were all over the place doing a large variety of ministry.  However I don't want to give it all away because I am just about due for a newsletter and don't want to write it all here!  I'll be writing that newsletter in the next few days and you can get more details then!  

Many blessings!