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.

The School of Frontier Missions

Did you know that there are still about 3,400 people groups in the world that have never been engaged by the Gospel?  That means no missionaries have gone to work with them yet.

Did you know that only about 1% of missionaries go to unreached parts of the world?
Did you know that less than 1% of church funding goes toward reaching those 3,400 groups?
Did you know that every day an average of 300 Christians are martyred for their faith in Jesus?

Don't feel bad if you didn't, the vast majority of the church is completely unaware of these facts.

I am announcing for the first time, here on the blog before anywhere else, that here in YWAM Chiriqui we will be running the School of Frontier Missions (SOFM).  Frontier Missions is one of the largest parts of YWAM, but in Central America we have not had an SOFM running in some time.  Karmy and I are both qualified to lead it, and will be running the school for the first time in 2015.  We don't have exact dates yet, but I can say that it will probably be later in 2015.

This school is for people who are serious about reaching the unreached, and going to places that 99% of others won't.  These people are the Navy Seals of the missionary world, often risking their lives, and sometimes giving them for the Gospel.

The Discipleship Training School (DTS) through YWAM is a prerequisite, and similar to the DTS, this school has a three month lecture phase, followed by a two month outreach.  This school is not for everyone, it is meant for serious, long term missionaries on the front lines, and although at this time we don't require it (although this could change) we ask for a two year commitment by all students.

The SOFM is going to be intense, and life altering!  If you are interested write me and let me know!  alan.crookham@gmail.com.

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!

The A Team

Here they are, in all their glory.

You thought I was going to talk about Mr. T didn't you?  Or maybe you thought I meant the A for Alan team.  Although that does sound kind of catchy.  But no, A is for Alpha team, because this is the first time I have co-lead a team since getting back here to Panama.  I've lead dozens of teams before of course, but there is something special about being back and leading again.  It was the first time I really felt like I was back in the groove of things.  They were a youth group from Canada, and it was so much fun to watch those polar people sweat in our 80 degree weather, which is still nice and cool compared to Texas when we left it.  A couple of them had little fans they hung from their necks to keep them cool.  Very funny stuff!

Aside from the fun, if you have access to either my Facebook or YouTube channel you have seen the steady stream of video clips I have been uploading.  There are still more to come even though the team has left now.  However, you can see in those videos that we were all over the place! We went to a Ngobe (Guaymi) camp, several schools, and old folks home, and more.  

At the schools we did presentations, prayed for the students, had dance contests, played soccer, and had an all around great time bringing the light of the Gospel to these students. 

At the old folks home there was a pretty horrible event that happened.  It wasn't very dramatic, but it looked very painful.  As you can see in this picture above, some of the people there use wheelchairs, and they have these concrete paths all throughout the complex with no rails or curbs or anything like that.  On top of that there are often drop offs that aren't very deep, maybe six inches or so, but if you are an older person in a wheelchair, it is a recipe for disaster.  

While we were speaking with the people, I saw this one man suddenly start leaning and his eyes got really big.  Before I could react, I saw that his back wheel was slipping off the edge of the walkway he was rolling around on.  It was like watching one of those fainting goats fall over (http://youtu.be/we9_CdNPuJg).  He let out a little cry of help and crashed over the edge.  As soon as he hit I ran over with the leader from the Canadian team and tried to pick up him up, but the wheelchair had collapsed and was effectively squeezing his hips and locking his legs in.  Needless to say, it was an ordeal to get him out, and nobody from the home staff came to help up!  We finally pulled him out and I was holding him up like some kind of super skinny teddy bear while the leader of the other team fixed the wheelchair and put it back in place.  

The ironic thing is that as painful as that fall must have been, the tough old guy just laughed the whole time I was holding him, and didn't seem any worse for wear when he was safely sitting again. After all of that someone from the home came and wheeled him off, presumably to check him for any serious injuries, but I didn't see him again that day, so maybe he was just taking a nap.

What do you mean those were my teeth stuck in the wheels?  Noooooo, those were my last teeth, my new ones are safe in the room under my pillow.  Shifty Ol' Grenilda steals them to make her quilts.

Ministry, whether on the mission field or in your home country is very much like having a garden.  It takes a lot of care, tending, watering, fertilizing, and everything else you have to do to keep a garden healthy.  Most people want ministry to be this: Walk into the field, stick a seed in the ground, come back in an hour and have a full harvest.  That is simply not how it works.  As a matter of fact, most experienced ministers will tell you that statistically it takes at least two years for real (ministerial) fruit to start becoming visible, and then five years for you to really start getting effective at what you are doing.  

"Whoa!  How long did this take?"
"About twelve minutes.  I just learned how to say 'Hello'".

We need every part of the body of Christ for the ministry to be effective.  Teams that come through often feel like they aren't providing much, but they don't realize that they are watering the garden that we have been laboring over for years, stirring up the hearts of people who need to hear the Gospel that would otherwise stay at home if there weren't visitors coming.  It is very similar to a church having a guest speaker come through, everyone is excited and you usually have more people show up on Sunday morning.

Now, we have been preparing for our next team which arrives tomorrow.  They are a team of 13 from the Cayman Islands and will be with us for ten days.  It should be just as eventful with them as it was with the Canadians.  Very different cultures, but God changes lives regardless of who you are or where you are from.  What matters is that you are available, have a right heart, and willing to be used by Him.  

Also, this coming weekend the base will be running a King's Kids camp, which is a Friday night through Saturday camp for local kids to come and learn more about Jesus!  That is a simple way to put it anyway.  This will be Karmy and my first camp on this base, although we helped with them several times when we lived in Costa Rica.  It is exciting to have another one coming up!

Expect a lot of new videos and testimonies of what God is doing, because after that we have our next DTS and Leadership school starting on September 12th, plus a team from World Race that will be with us for three weeks.  Also, our Ngobe DTS will be starting as well in the next few days.  Exciting times!

You know, on the mission field, in YWAM, nobody receives any kind of salary.  I get asked all the time by teams and others who come through how much we get paid to be out here, the answer is $0.00.  From the newest missionary to the Global Leadership Team of Youth With a Mission, not one of us receives a dollar from the organization.  We all raise our own support and rely completely on donations from others.  So, if you would like to partner with our ministry here, I am going to put the information out there for you.  Whether one time donations or monthly, they are all super helpful for us, and they all go to make the ministry you see in our videos and read about in our posts and newsletters possible.

First, you can do so through the Paypal button here in the blog.  That is not tax deductible however.  If you would like tax deductible donations, you can follow these instructions:

Tax deductible donations are processed 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

Until next time!