Our missionary friend helping us to purchase sim card and data plan. He claims he has no language gift, but before he left for the field he enrolled in Spanish classes in four different schools to acquire survival language skills. He continued after arrival and forced himself to communicate with the local people. Now he has a working knowledge of Spanish for daily living. Our hats off to his persistence.
Temperatures are high in Panama throughout the year, ranging from a low of mid 20s Celsius in early morning to low 30s in the afternoon. Humidity is high between 80-90%. There are only two seasons, dry and rainy (Apr to Dec), and when it rains, it pours. Streets are flooded within minutes but the water also subsides fast due to extra-large drains.
One of the challenges for Chinese churches here is to get Christians to attend worship. The culture is such that people value earning money above worshipping God. It’s not hard to invite people to receive Jesus as Savior, but following them up to become disciples present major difficulties. Here the STM team is teaching the local Christians a new song in their weekly fellowship.
Pastor Ray's blog: rayliu1 