Outside the City part 1

Derek driving through a stream with our co-worker Cavin

We‘d like to take a post, or two actually, to share about some work outside the city that we’ve been a part of lately.

Our focus in ministry is here in the city of Panama City. But it’s neat to see how the work we’ve done here spread out to a lot of different areas. One of our main focuses has been training up Panamanians to do the work of the Lord where they feel called to do it. A guy that was recently in a class that we taught has been working outside the city and I (Derek) got to go visit him recently. I’d like to take the next two posts to tell a little about this guy, named Cesar, and the work God is doing through him.

The dedication of a Church Planter

Cesar took a Church planting class at the Baptist Theological Seminary here in Panama. Our co-worker Cavin Cawthon taught the class.

Cesar felt the need to put into practice all that he had learned, and that he needed to start a new work in an area that did not have a church. There is a place a couple of hours from where he lives that someone had worked in years before, but nobody had been there recently, and there is no church in this area. So he felt like he needed to work there, and in October he went there for the first time.

Cesar has a normal job, and works Monday through Saturday. Since October he has taken his only free day, Sunday, and dedicated it to the Lord to travel to this community to share the Good news of Christ with the people that live there.

The place he is working at is pretty difficult to get to. We experienced this when we went there! From his house we drove on an asphalt road for about an hour, then a dirt road for about 20 minutes, then we got to a much more rugged road. Previously Cesar had to walk from there, and it’s about a 2 hour walk each way into the rural village (no running water, electricity etc.).

Because it has been raining less lately, we were able to drive all the way to the village. Cesar took his four wheel drive car, that he bought specifically for this ministry, into the village for the first time a few weeks ago. A regular vehicle can’t make the trip. It’s too muddy, too steep of hills, and you have to cross a couple of streams too. When he went the first time with his 4 by 4, he made it, although he got stuck twice and had to be pulled out by a horse!

Cesar leaves his house about 6:30am each Sunday morning, to arrive to the village by 10am or so. He teaches a Bible Study, and gets to know the community through relationships, then returns home, arriving home anywhere between 4pm and 7pm Sunday evening.

He spends more hours on the road than in ministry, but he feels like it’s worth it because of the people that are there that need to hear the good news. The people have asked him, are you going to stop coming like the other people that used to come to this village? Cesar is dedicated to do what it takes to continue to serve this community faithfully. Please pray for him, for strength and encouragement, for God to work in and through his life in a powerful way!

It was a huge blessing being able to go with this guy to see his place of service. It’s a gorgeous place, far off the beaten path! But God has called Cesar to work there, and Cesar has been faithful to obey the call and do the work, the hard labor, for the Lord.

It causes me to think if we’re willing to do the same? Are we listening to what God wants to say to us, what he wants to do through us? If so, are we willing to go through with it, even if it’s pretty difficult? I know what Cesar’s answer to this question is, I hope that we can learn from it and do the same.

There’s more to this story, I’ll share the rest soon. God is working here in Panama; it’s awesome to be a little part of it!

Happy New Year!!

Us on Christmas in the Lobby of our apartment

Happy New Year everybody! 2012 has arrived! We spent New Years eve at some of our friends’ apartment who live on the 22nd floor. We could see a ton of fireworks going off in the whole city, all at the same time. Fireworks are legal here and a whole lot of people shot them off. It was neat to see all of the fireworks and get to spend some time with our friends. We didn’t even get used to writing 2011 on documents and we have to change again! Time seems to go faster and faster, maybe it has something to do with getting older. Derek recently celebrated his 27th birthday, and Audrey isn’t very far behind.

New Years is a great time to reflect back on the prior year, and look ahead to the next one. It’s a time to see what all we can do to improve ourselves, or change. We’re not real big on resolutions necessarily, but it’s good to evaluate how we do things, and seek to do some things better. This shouldn’t be done only once a year, but a fresh calendar year does allow for a clean break, or a fresh beginning.

We hope that you choose to follow God more closely and intimately this year. We seek to spend time with him daily, and see all that he has for our lives. We look forward to growth in our spiritual lives and seeing all that God has in store for this year. Serving and following Him are the best things we could be doing, and where he wants us to be is where we need to be! God bless and may 2012 be our best year yet!

Please consider joining us here in Panama through prayer. The January prayer calendar is located on the prayer requests and prayer calendar page. This month many different neighborhood names are mentioned for us to be lifting up. Thanks!

Derek and Audrey Tucker

Christmas

Christmas Cookies!

Merry Christmas!!

What a wonderful time of year! It’s great to be able to spend time with friends and family during this season. We had several missionary kids over to our house today and we made Christmas cookies, and then went swimming. Not a combination you can do everywhere during this time of year. We’ll get together with several other missionary families tomorrow for lunch to celebrate Christmas together.

The world wants to try and commercialize Christmas, and they have succeeded in a lot of ways. But we hope that each of us remembers why Christmas exists. This time is supposed to be a time to remember the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. It’s only through faith in him, through his birth, life, death and resurrection that we can have eternal life. He’s the real reason for this time of year. We hope that we can take time to spend with the Lord during this busy time of year.

Wherever you are and whatever this season finds you doing, we hope that God blesses you all in incredible ways. Have a great Christmas and Happy New Year!

Derek and Audrey Tucker

3 continents, 7 countries

Hello everybody! We hope each of you had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was excellent. We of course had lots of food, Turkey for lunch and dinner, and lots of other great stuff! We definitely have a lot to be thankful for as well. It’s neat to take a moment and reflect on all the blessings that God has allowed for us. Hopefully this attitude of thanks won’t just be a one time a year thing!

As many of you know we decided to invite our neighbors over for a Thanksgiving dinner. We weren’t sure how many people would accept the invitation and come, but we had a pretty good turnout. There were 9 people (including us) for Thanksgiving dinner! We were the only ones from the USA, so we shared what all Thanksgiving means and why we celebrate it.

From the 9 people that were there, 7 different countries were represented: Italy, Spain, Venezuela, Columbia, El Salvador, Honduras, and the United States. We had a great time sharing our US tradition with our neighbors, and getting to know them a little better. We hope that we can have a lot of other chances to get to know them, and share the love and truth of Jesus Christ with each of them.

We hope that we can have another get together with our neighbors in January. We think it would be neat for each person, or couple, to bring a plate of food from their home country. We are excited about getting to know our neighbors and we are hoping that through the relationships that were developed on Thanksgiving night that we can share the love of God with them. Please pray for our neighbors that came: Antonio and Maria, Quim and Marta, Teresa, and our friends Daniel and Melisa.

We do indeed have a lot to be thankful for! God continues to bless us and many of the things that we’re doing down here in Panama. We hope you are doing great and have a great week and a great Holiday season. We love this time of year! Take a look at the December prayer calendar on the prayer request and calendar page.

Thanks for keeping up with us. Feel free to write or call us to let us know how you’re doing. God bless.

Thanksgiving Feasts!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hello everybody,

The Holidays are a great time of year, we like them a lot. Our house has been decorated for Christmas for a week or two now. We definitely enjoy Thanksgiving too. Not only because it’s a great reminder to be thankful for all the blessings that God has given us, but also because we can enjoy a lot of food!

This year will be a little different than some, but we look forward to it. We’ll be having lunch with some other missionaries, and it looks like it will be quite a feast!

Thursday evening we invited some of our neighbors over for a Thanksgiving dinner. None of them are from the USA, but we wanted to try and get to know them better. We have neighbors from quite a few different places. On just our floor we have neighbors from Columbia, Spain, Italy, Venezuela, and Panama. What a diverse group. We hope that we can get to know them better through the dinner we’re inviting them to, hopefully some of them will come! We don’t know if people will come or not, but we definitely won’t find out if we don’t try!

We ask that you pray for this dinner. As far as we know, none of our neighbors are Christians, so this is a great chance to get to know them, and share God’s love with them. We look forward to whatever God has in store! Thanks for the prayers and we hope each one of you has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Derek and Audrey Tucker

Oklahoma team

Tobias being baptized. A church is being started in his home.

We just got done with a great week of work with a volunteer team from Oklahoma. They joined us from several different churches in and around Oklahoma City. We wanted to share a few of the things they did while they were here.

They worked with several different church planters: Efrain and Fulvia Del Cid, Carlos, Noel, Higenio, Juan Carlos, and Norma. Our focus for all our volunteer teams that come in from the USA is to pair them up with different Panamanians, and have them work together. This way, the follow up and next step of ministry is done by the Panamanian church planter that works alongside the volunteer group. These Church planters are doing an amazing job and God is doing so much through them.

The team worked in several different areas of town: Don Bosco, Caledonia, Santa Fe, and El Cangrejo.

They did quite a few different things as well: Children’s activities in a park, door to door evangelism, handed out bottles of water at a parade, prayer walked, and mapped out several areas of the city.

You can tell the group was pretty busy. The most exciting part of the week was a Baptism service that was held Sunday morning at a nearby river. Four people were baptized as we celebrated together the new life that these four people have in Jesus. They are attending two of the different churches that Panamanian Church planters have recently started.

Mostly we’re excited about what all God is doing here. He is orchestrating things that we never thought would be able to happen. We are so fortunate to be a part of the wonderful things he’s doing in and through the lives of many different Panamanians. Please pray for the work here as God opens more doors for ministry, and as we see how we can best serve him.

We’ll try and post again soon to tell y’all more about what all is going on here. Check out our pictures page as we continue to put some new photos on there. We’ve also added our November praise calendar to the “prayer requests and calendar” page, feel free to check it out and join what all we’re doing here through prayer! Thanks for keeping up with us, God bless!

Derek and Audrey Tucker

Our Friend Grettel

Grettel singing a tribute to all her friends

Hey everyone,

We hope that you’re doing great. We wanted to share a neat story with y’all about our friend named Grettel. She is a professional singer here in Panama. She has been a Christian for 2 years or so and this past weekend she celebrated her 26th birthday with a Birthday party. She invited us to her party along with many of her professional singer friends, TV and music producers, and other famous or important people like a past Miss Panama! We felt like we were at a VIP type event!

The purpose of her Birthday party was to get her friends together, many of which are non-Christians, and share Christ with them. She did a tribute to her singer friends by singing their songs, and afterwards shared a story about King Solomon. She shared that Solomon could have asked for many things from God, but he asked for wisdom. She talked about how his physical belongings were not eternal at all. After she told her story another guy went up and shared an evangelical message. It was really awesome to see them sow a seed without shame and without fear to the type people that many would be intimidated by.

Some people paid pretty close attention, and others didn’t seem to listen too much. But God had his way of catching their attention.

Once the party was over. Some of her friends went outside and discovered that one of their cars had been broken into and some electronics had been stolen. The police showed up and called some other police who eventually caught the 2 young boys who had stolen the items (11-13 years old). The friends got into a car and drove to the police station to claim the items that were stolen and to talk to the boys who had stolen them. One of the boys was asked why he stole the items and he replied, ”Because I have no wisdom.” That is a strange thing for a young teenager to say, don’t you think?

One of the Grettel’s friends, who isn’t a Christian, and hadn’t really paid much attention as the gospel was shared at the party, heard what the boy said about wisdom and something clicked in her head regarding the story that Grettel told about Solomon. God used what the boy said to get her attention and show her that he had a plan, and wanted her to listen to it!

Also, one of the friends that was there was a Christian, and shared with the two boys about who Christ is, the love that he has for each of us, and how we can have eternal life through him. The two young boys, who had stolen the stuff, and were quickly caught, both accepted Christ that night in the police station!

How neat is our God? Who knows what kind of situations he wants to use for his Glory. One of our friends often says “our disappointment is God’s divine appointment”. Isn’t that so true! God has a plan to use whatever situation we’re in for his glory, I hope that we’re attentive enough to see what he wants to do and obey!

Derek and Audrey Tucker

If you’d like to hear some of her songs go to www.youtube.com and type in the search Grettel Garibaldi.

Graduation and more!

The graduates of the Church Planting Institute

There really have been a lot of great things going on here the last month or so. We have many things that we could and should post about! We’ll try and start posting more often so that we can share more neat stories of what all God is doing here.

One great thing is that we recently had another Church Planting Institute graduation. This class had 13 people who received a diploma, and 6 people who received a certificate of participation (these 6 weren’t able to attend 80% of the classes, which is needed for a diploma).

At the graduation many different students took part by reading scripture, sharing a testimony, praying, or reflecting on the word of God. It was a great time to see all that God has done in this group, and all that He will do through them in the future! Training folks like this has been an awesome blessing for us.

We will be starting another 6 month Church Planting class this Thursday in a part of town called Las Americas.

Also, we are working with a volunteer team from the USA this week. The church planters in charge of this area are Efrain and Fulvia Del Cid, and Carlos AKA “Tito” (Titus in Spanish). There is a picture of them three from the post on September 1st.

These three started a Bible Study in the home of Fulvia’s parents about a month ago. Last Friday night they had 25 people that attended the Bible study, and 4-5 people accepted Christ! What an exciting time. They realize that the growth of their group will quickly cause them to outgrow the home they are currently meeting in! What a great problem to have!

Pray for them as they follow up on many new contacts that they’re making this week while the volunteer group is here. We know that God has an awesome plan to do great things through people such as Efrain, Fulvia and Carlos.

We’ll post some pictures of the weeks events, and other things that have been going on soon, stay tuned!

Derek and Audrey

October prayer calendar

Check out our October prayer calendar by clicking on the Prayer requests and calendar tab at the top. Thank you for supporting us through your prayers!

Recent happenings, August, 2011

Several Church planters from our intensive church planting class

Hey everyone,

We have had a great month of August. We’ve been able to do quite a few different things. Here is a bit of what has been going on.

We got to go to Houston for a couple of days for Derek’s moms’ wedding. We enjoyed meeting her husband Larry, and visiting with a lot of other family and friends during our few days there.

We have also been involved in a couple of different church planting classes. We ended our 6-month course last week, and we have been teaching an “intensive” church planting class on Sundays. This class on Sundays has 10 students who came to us wanting to learn how to church plant. They are already doing the work, but wanted some training, so we are training them and helping them as they church plant. Out of these 10 people we really feel like God will start multiple churches pretty quickly.

This group has been really fun to work with. They’re excited about what all God is doing and is going to do through them. For more information on this group of church planters go to: http://urbanpanamateam.blogspot.com.

One of the things we enjoy a lot is our “coaching” time that we provide for our students. After completing the church planting training, we try to keep up with each student and meet with them at least once a month to see how they’re doing and what all is going on in their ministry. This is a really great part of our job as we get to spend time with a lot of different Panamanians, praying and encouraging them, and getting to know them better.

Another thing that’s going on is that we recently started teaching an ESL class at the University of Panama. We’re teaching a group of students who are pretty eager to learn more English. Our hope is that this group will develop into a small group who meet together to study the word. We teach them English, and we have a brief Bible study at the end of our teaching session. Last week we had 8 students, this week we had 12. Most importantly, we hope to be able to share the truth of the Gospel with each of these students and see lives changed through this. There are quite a few of our students who aren’t Christians.

That’s a few of the things we have going on. We appreciate the prayers in each of these areas. Please let us know if you have any prayer requests as well, and feel free to drop us an e-mail or give us a call anytime. Thanks for keeping up with us,

Derek and Audrey Tucker