Triumphal Entries (part1)

Happy Easter Week everyone! We will first begin this triumphal entry with the best one in history: The Davis family into Panama.   I kid.  Actually, Palm Sunday was mentioned very little yesterday at church.  This faith community is a major reason we felt led to move down here.  They have referred to themselves as an exploded Bible study.  That’s about how it happened.  The bible study started 3 years ago with two believers, David and Lisa Carter, who drove out 2 hours from ‘the City’ every weekend and began teaching English and the Bible with one local here in town.  Yesterday, there were more than 90 people who came to worship.  Like we’ve said before, it’s an authentic group of people from every walk of life that have one thing in common, the desire to follow Jesus.  There are a few gringos sprinkled in the church, but it’s mostly Kuna, one of the many indigenous tribes here in Panama, as well as local Panamanians.   I say Palm Sunday wasn’t mentioned much because this church hasn’t had enough time to get stuck in annual tradition.  Tradition has its merits, for sure, but it can also cause dust to accumulate on faith communities.  Everything here is absolutely fresh.  We were busy blazing through the book of Acts (Hechos).  In the Book of Acts, the simplicity of the early church trying to figure out what to do next is quite kindred to the path we are taking at our church.  The leadership is being very intentional about not asserting an American religious construct on this faith community.   The goal is simple: teach the Bible and let the Holy Spirit direct the congregation as to how we will live out Jesus’ teachings in our paradigm.  In other words, none of the gringos or more mature Panamanian Christians are asserting, “Well, we had a choir in our church, so YOU need to have one too!” or, “This is how you do the offering.” etc.  It’s beautifully fresh and easy.

Saturday, we celebrated Canaan’s triumphal entry to earth 5 months ago. (11/12/13)  He has been an absolute gem during this major life transition for our family.  Nicole love’s ogling at him. I like making him laugh, Simeon likes saddling him up and riding him like a flat pony, and he likes trying to roll over.  What we never expected is how integral he would be to our relationship with our landlords, Mario and Esther.  It’s hard to call them ‘landlords’ because they have fast become our friends.  Remember, they live within the same fenced in ‘compound’ as us.  So, similar to the U.S., if you wanted to avoid your apartment neighbors all the time, you could here as well.  Fortunately, the exact opposite has happened.  Our door is almost always propped open where Mario or Esther feel free enough to come over and share a laugh with us and the boys. They are both locals here, with all of their extended family in this town.  On multiple occasions, Esther has come over asking for Canaan, scooped him up in her arms and disappeared in her house for 30-45 minutes at a time.  It is truly the highest compliment to us, that they feel so comfortable with us to just walk away with our baby.  But even me being Mr. Congeniality, when this happened the first time, my paternal protection flag went up.  

Mario and Canaan

Mario giving Canaan a bottle

Connie Holton squeezing Canaan tight.

Here’s where Nicole showed once again why I married up.  After 30 minutes had passed with Canaan still gone behind the closed door of this new friend/stranger’s home, I thought she might want to poke her head in and go make contact or something. “Nope.” Nicole said, “This is an opportunity to show her that I trust her. She can keep him as long as she’d like.”  Well played, Nicole.  It worked.  Yup, with language still being a big barrier, we’re trying to take every opportunity to show them our open arms of friendship.  Just tonight, I broke out my imported guitar rig and jammed on the porch with their two oldest sons.  Just like a squishy-cute baby, Metallica ‘Fade To Black’ translates in any language.  

Simeon rockin' out with G and the Boyz