Panama Trip - Gene & Linda

September 22, 2017

Gene leaves tomorrow for Belgrade, Serbia, then drives four hours to Leskovac, in the south, close to Macedonia. He will be working with Ritch Trca, a colleague who lives in Prague. You may remember that Linda and I went on an exploratory trip last fall to meet the Roma (Gypsy) church planters there. From September 25-29, we will be equipping about 30 Roma leaders interested in Church Planting. Miki Kamba, a Roma leader from central Serbia, is inviting people from Balkan ethnic groups that were once enemies, to join hands for a new church planting movement. He will be coordinating, leading worship, and doing some teaching. Please pray for the three of us. On our skype call this week Miki said that forty people had signed up and they are still waiting to hear from Roma from other Balkan countries.

Please pray for safe travel for Ritch and I and all the church planters coming together. The last time we were in Serbia we had a car accident that has been a distraction.

Please pray that everyone that God wants involved in a new wave of church planting for Serbia and the region, would be there. Pray for Miki Kamba and for the formation of a church planting network.

Please pray for God to provide $1,320 which represents less than 5 euros a day for each trainee and covers their noon meal, manual and translation/interpretation into the Serb language.

From there Gene and Ritch go to Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is a fascinating, and spiritually needy place. Fifty-five percent of the people are Muslim, descendants of families converted under the Ottoman Empire. The minority Christians are mostly Orthodox and Catholic. There are only 3,000 Evangelical Christians in this country. The capital, Sarajevo, with a population of 350,000, has only three visible churches and a smattering of house churches.

Our missionaries went to help with physical and spiritual needs at the end of the Balkan war, and stayed to form a small house church movement. Now they are passing the baton to the Bosnian leaders. It will primarily be a ministry to help missionaries transition to a new role, and pass the baton to Bosnians. We also will discuss plans to further support the local house church leaders with training and coaching.

Please pray for wisdom and unity. Pray that together we would make a plan to equip and support these Bosnian lay leaders, even after the missionaries have left the country.

Thank you for standing with us in prayer!

Gene Wilson

www.globalchurchplanting.net

The Spanish explorer Bilboa discovered the little fishing village of Panama and used it as his base because of its location on an estuary. Panama wasn't its own country until the 20th Century. It was part of the Spanish "New Granada" colony. Then when Simon Bolivar fought off the Spanish and freed most of Latin America, it became part of Gran Colombia. It broke off of Colombia because they would not sign the Canal Treaty with the USA. Panamanians were afraid the US would build the canal in Nicaragua.

Map of the passage from the Pacific (below) to the Atlantic passing through Gatun Lake.

This is the control building.

Same scene when they change water level for a ship to go through.

There are two parallel canals that date back to 1914.

You can see the little silver trains that pull the ships through. They were custom designed for the canal zone and cost more than $1 million each!

They go into a river and man-made Gatun Lake.

While we were there we saw 3 ships go by. First this passenger ship.

Then this tanker came behind the passenger ship. They closed the gate behind the 2 ships and lowered the water level. Once the level in that lock was the same as the next one, they opened the gate in front of them and the 2 ships went forward into the next lock. The whole thing took about 30 minutes. The locks are on both ends of the 50 km passage through the Isthmus. In the middle there is a flat canal and a man made lake called Gatun. They made the lake by creating a dam and flooding a valley. Before the French tried to make one flat canal by digging through the mountains at water level. But they failed. Too much labor, not enough funds, and mosquito born malaria.

Here is the 3rd ship. It was a container ship. It went through one of the 2 new canals that the Panamanians have been building since 2007. That is 60% of the traffic. We were surprised to find out that they pay on average $250,000 for passage. One time through. Now you know why the Panamanians got tired of the crumbs and eventually took over the Canal Zone.

So many people died, French, then workers from all over the world, that they brought scientists and discovered that the disease was mosquito born. The US bought all the equipment from the French. In the late 80s the US had helped to build a railroad line across. Before that a road was built through the jungle and they used covered wagon trains. Before that it was the Spanish taking their gold through on mules. An Indian native discovered the way through in the 1500s and showed the Spanish.

We went to a museum at the Canal Zone and I took pictures of pictures to show what it must have looked like when Dad was there. The US treaty was made in 1903 and they started digging in 1905, so by the time Dad was there the canal had been done for a long time. But there was an American presence to protect the passage way and American commercial interests.

This says that in order to reduce diseases from mosquitoes they had to pave the streets in Panama City (Pacific end) and Colon (Atlantic end).

The culebra (snake) cut linked the Pacific coast to the Gatun Lake.153 million cubic feet of dirt and rocks wee removed. Fortunately they had the railroad to transport it.

People came from all over the world to work. There were 2 scales of pay: one for Westerners and one for other ethnic peoples. They were paid a fraction of what American earned. Chinese were brought in and treated so badly that hundreds committed mass suicide.

This paddle-wheel boat dug the bottom of the canal as it passed through.

We also visited Panama City. Here is the skyline. It was almost all built since 2000. The place is booming.

The rest of the pictures are of the old downtown. Most speak for themselves.

There is a French section which is represented by the rooster!

They had an art gallery at the harbor. These were copies of Spanish and impressionist paintings for all to see outside. I like it- take the art to the people!