Panama in First Person

By Deborah St. Lawrence

Last year, I had the opportunity to participate in a mission trip to Panama. At 57 years old, and after 20 years on the IM staff, this was my first overseas experience.

Over the years, I sent my daughters on E-TEAM trips. I interacted with scores of missionaries. I served in local and district women’s (WAC) groups, edited countless missions articles, read missionary biographies, prayed for overseas efforts, yet I’m so thankful I didn’t squander this opportunity to go, to experience Panama in first person.

Before the trip, cross-cultural ministry, the stories and testimonies of workers, were words on a page. Now they have life—smells, sounds, tastes, colors, and textures. They’re three-dimensional.

During the trip, I experienced the frustration of limited communication in a cross-cultural context. Now, I have a small sense of what new missionaries face as they assimilate a new culture, struggling to ask questions or explain needs and seeking to fit in.

As I experienced inconvenience, I felt pride in missionaries who live day-in, day-out never knowing when they will have electricity or water, when an hours-long local celebration will deprive them of sleep, or when a tarantula will invade their space.

I saw the result of missionary efforts. I heard Panamanian missionaries share their experiences, heard first-hand stories from Panamanian pastors. I experienced worship with Panamanian Christians. I met children who attend the Chame church because of their soup kitchen, heard those children enthusiastically recite Scripture and joyously sing.

I watched Stan Bunch diligently minister to our bus driver and felt the heartbreak of watching Rodrigo leave us after seven days, still without knowing Christ. I was reminded of the long process often involved when introducing someone to the Savior.

I compared the magnificent Catholic cathedrals with the humbler structures of our Free Will Baptist churches, feeling the empty hollowness in the beauty of the first and basking in the love and creativity of the latter.

I felt the heartbeat of missions, touched its pulse as I shook hands and exchanged hugs with Panamanian Christians, and sensed the life-giving breath of their vision for ministry and their desire to reach the nations.

Today, my prayer life is strengthened. My heart yearns for the lost in a new way. My life is forever changed.

About the Writer: Deborah St. Lawrence is communications manager for IM. Learn how you can also experience missions in first person at IMInc.org.