Panama Mission Report

My recent trip to Panama was a wonderful experience. I had a safe drive from LaBelle to Miami Airport, was able to get checked in and to my gate without any problems. Our flight was delayed by two hours because of snow in the Boston area (the inbound flight was delayed). I arrived in Panama around 4:15pm and got to the seminary for my first class around 5:30pm. The class was suppose to start at 5:30pm, but because not everybody was there yet I had time to eat and was able to start teaching around 6:15pm. Our class time usually ran from 5:30 pm to 9pm Monday through Friday night. The course I taught this time around was "Missions, Evangelism and Discipleship." I throughly enjoyed going through it with the pastors and lay leader of Panama. I believe this is a course every believer should find time to take.

On Friday they took me into Panama City to do some site seeing and shopping. We used the local buses to travel to and from the seminary to downtown Panama City as this is the way most Panamanians travel. As such there were 40 to 50 people on our bus. It was interesting to see the other buses as we rode since the individual drivers seem to compete on who could decorate their bus in the loudest colors. On the way back however, just as we crossed over the Panama Canal, our bus broke down. We all had to get off the bus and try to flag down other buses. But we finally got back to the seminary and it was a good trip to Panama City.

Saturday, January 19, 2008 we had the Graduation Ceremonies for 24 students that had completed the ten-book course that took two years to complete. The ceremonies where held at the hotel near the airport in the banquet room. There were close to 200 people present. We had a breakfast buffet and then the graduation ceremony. Dr. Jerry Gesell and Dr. Ron Long from Luther Rice Seminary were present with Dr. Long preaching the graduation message. Dr. Gesell and Dr. Long passed out the graduation certificates. It was a wonderful moment to see these individuals complete this achievement in their lives and to see how proud their families were for them. The end of the ceremony was marked by two local dances. One was done by some teenagers from a local indian tribe and the other dance was a traditional Latin dance done by two teenagers. This was a great ending to our Graduation ceremonies.

I would like to thank everyone for allowing me to go to Panama to teach these class and to represent First Baptist Church of LaBelle.