Dear Friends,

Greetings in Jesus! If you'd like to read this e-Mailer with photos, continue. Or to see past issues, click on Newsletter. This monthly e-Mailer includes updates on ministry, family, praise and prayer.

MINISTRY

Thanks for those who prayed for our Children’s Ministry during Annual Session at the campground. Our team of leaders included many names you may remember: Manuel Miranda, Carolina Canto, Dallis Quiñones, Fanny de Quinzada and Rigoberto Mitchell. The children of our minister’s enjoyed dynamic teaching, fun memory verses, puppets by our kids, high energy games (which you see Gracie enjoying here), fun sports, play and pool in the afternoon, and terrific videos at night.

One of my special memories was the final morning. I had just finished telling the life application story with overhead transparencies. The children were sitting on the floor close to me. After the prayer time, several of the littlest ones came up first and gave me a big hug, then the rest followed.

We invite you to enjoy David starring in his first movie of a cute donut fishing game (527 Kb Windows Media) and also an album of additional pictures from the week.

One area of ministry that I haven’t mentioned much is serving as missionary representative on the executive board. That means going on the three day monthly minister’s meeting tour in the other two zones. There are general presbyter meetings every couple months, with additional executive meetings every month. Twice a year we’ll teach, preach or minister at national conferences at the campground: Annual Session in January and Minister’s Retreat in July.

Each year the Ordination Services follow after the Annual Session. This year the Assemblies of God in Panamá ordained 11 men and 4 women. Here you see Kirk preaching in David, Chiriquí at the last of the three zone services. Panamá’s General Council has 1400 credentialed ministers and 700 churches.

Please pray for the upcoming Guaymí Family Retreat 22 - 25 February where we will be ministering with the children along with the welcome support of Rev. Roy Rhodes and team from Paola, Kansas Assembly of God. They’ll also help distribute tons of food donated through Convoy of Hope [convoyofhope.org], and Rev. Kenton Moody, former missionary here and friend of Panamá.

We will be giving a New Testament to each of our Guaymí pastors. Can you say, “Praise God for Light-for-the-Lost!?!” Thanks to the tireless work over decades of Wycliffe translators [wycliffe.org] and their Guaymí colleagues there is a brand new translation of the New Testament scriptures in Ngabere, the Guaymí language.

You may wonder how we minister with the Guaymí, since we don’t speak Ngabere, only Spanish. Well, like most of the world’s population, the Guaymí are bilingual: speaking their own language at home, and using Spanish in schools and commerce. So they speak, worship, and pray in Spanish. But it’s best that they be able to read Scripture in their heart language.

FAMILY

We celebrated Yvonne’s birthday going out to her favorite Argentine beef steak restaurant and all of us (except Gracie) enjoyed our steak, salad and chimichurry sauce (a heavenly blend of olive oil, garlic, and cilantro--it's addictive!). Afterwards, we came home to enjoy the piano cake you can see here. It was a typical Panamanian cake--gorgeous outside, not very tasty inside.

The next morning, her actual birthday, all the kids worked together to do a special breakfast for Mom. Celina did pancakes. Chloe fried eggs. Anthony blended a fruit-yogurt smoothie. Gracie helped deliver it. And I made the coffee (and supervised!). It was a special family time to honor Yvonne.

This past week Chloe organized and moderated the inter-school debate hosted at her high school. She’s also playing keyboard in the youth worship band.

Anthony is learning guitar, and doing great. In fact, Yvonne and I told him he’s learning much faster than his mom & dad ever did when we took lessons. He’s played for devotions in his classroom.

Celina, as our resident artist, is branching out into new media. Here you see her with a recent creation of flowers made from tissue paper and pipe cleaner. It’s amazingly realistic. We have it on display on our entryway table.

Gracie’s teacher wrote us a note last week:

“…we were making sentences with our two new wall words, made and open. She wanted to use both words in the same sentence and this was her sentence: ‘God made our heart so He could open it and come in.’ I had to leave it on the board the rest of the week! I love hearing the simplicity of these first grade students when we pray. It is beautiful.”

Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.

God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

Matthew 6:34 The Message

I’m putting the final touches on our Year-end Thank You letter, to send out the middle of this month. If you don’t receive one, yet you gave to our ministry, please don’t hesitate to contact us. I mention this here because this is where I always express our gratitude for your partnership with us in prayer and finance. I’m struck by the diversity and complexity of God’s faithfulness through His people.

- I’ll be sending a final thank you letter to a children’s church that supported us for almost fourteen years. Grade-school kids who prayed with us as Minute-Man prayer warriors from those beginnings back in 1990, are now finishing college or beyond.

- A small church out “in the middle of nowhere,” according to the pastor, continues sending their pledge support faithfully month after month, year after year.

- Our home church, Foothill Christian Center in Glendora, who first welcomed us into ministry and then launched us into missions, has generously and sacrificially supported us all along.

It’s all very humbling and gratifying. Thank you for your prayer and support.

Yours for Them,

Kirk for all