Where are we going?

When we began to pray and plan for this DTS (we just finished our 3 month lecture phase), we know that same things would be different.  We wanted to make the DTS accessible for out students.  Two big challenges were the finances of our students, and the fact that many were in the university, or had their children in school and couldn't take a full five months off.

One solution that fit our group perfectly was to put off the outreach until next year.  So we finished up the lecture phase just as the school year was beginning, and our DTS students were heading back to class.  Not only does this not disrupt their schooling, but it gives us ample time to pray and plan for outreach.

Time which we knew we would need, once God started nudging us in the direction he wanted us to go.

It started last year when we attended a meeting of YWAM leaders from all over the Americas and were able to meet several YWAMer who were working with First Nations people in North America.  We were challenged and inspired by them, and felt like we should connect more. So last fall we spent time visiting YWAM and other missionaries in Idaho, Montana, and Victoria, BC.  Once we visited the communities, and began sharing with others the idea of bringing a Wounaan outreach team in order to connect with First Nations communities, we knew we had come upon something that was close to God's heart.

Not only does God want to reach all people, including North American Natives, but God also wants to RAISE UP all peoples to go, and that includes the Wounaan.  In the past we talked about missionaries, and the mission field. Now some of those that were once thought of only as receptors are being called to go. And they are not just being called to go to the next village over.  They too can catch God's heart and God's dream to see ALL NATIONS come to him.

Alex and I returned to Panama convinced that God was directed us to bring our Wounaan DTS team to the US and Canada.  We knew the idea would deeply challenge our students.  Yet we already felt a deep conviction that this was not just our own idea.  So I told Alex that if God was truly in it, he would confirm it to the students themselves.

The first week of classes was held on Christmas week, and we got together to pray and talked about intercession and hearing from God.  Afterwards, as we talked casually, two of the students shared about dreams that had recently.  Though different both dreams revealed two things in common: they saw the DTS team traveling, and they saw that we were in a cold place.  As the students remarked over the dreams (which have deep significance in their culture) Alex and I exchanged a knowing glance, but said nothing else.

As we continued to pray together, God continued to confirm again and again to the group, that this outreach would not be within Panama's borders, but up north.

It's an idea that would be crazy if we weren't sure that God was in it.  It's a huge risk, impossible.  How could we think of taking a group of 15+ indigenous Panamanians to the US and Canada on outreach?  How will we pay for the plane tickets?  How will we get the visas?  Our students don't even have passports yet!

Yet with all these obstacles, the burden on our heart for the First Nations people of North America steadily grows.  How can we ignore the cry of God's heart for these precious people to receive life?  And who better to go than those who already understand what it means to be Indigenous?  Who better than those who have walked through poverty, racism and injustice, and yet kept their hearts clean?  Who better than those who are learning day by day how to love their enemies?

The Wounaan are a proud, strong, beautiful people.  They are a people who know how to walkt with their Creator.  We believe they may hold the key to unlocking unreached and forgotten people; forgotten perhaps by people, but never forgotten by God.