August 9, 2009

Dear Pastor & Church,

Hello from Panama!  We praise the Lord for all that He is doing here in Santiago. 

Our MANNA centers:  We just started our new MANNA center in Sona, a town about 40 minutes south of Santiago!  We are still enrolling children but already have 15 children.  We also hold Bible studies on Sunday afternoons in the house that we are renting for the feeding center.  A couple from our church feels led to take over this ministry “full-time” and we know that they will do a great job, since they have served faithfully in our church for several years and both are graduates from our Bible Institute.  We have had a MANNA feeding center here in Santiago for almost 6 years now, and it has been a tremendous blessing to help meet both physical and spiritual needs for these families.  We currently have 40 children in our Santiago center.  (See www.mannaworldwide.com for more info on the MANNA ministries.)

Our church:  This past Sunday was Children’s Day in Panama, so we celebrated with cotton candy for all the kids.  We had about 125 kids, which is a normal attendance.  We have been having an average of 250 in attendance lately, and are praising the Lord that we have 3 new families who have been coming regularly.  We also had 11 baptisms last month.

We have a “good” problem!  We are already filling up our auditorium during most of our services.  On Sunday mornings we are already crowded, and almost always have people standing due to lack of chairs also.  We need to knock down a wall in our building in order to double the size of our auditorium, but in order to do this we have to add some reinforcement pillars for our roof.  We also need to put in tile flooring because our cement floor causes a dust problem that affects people with asthma and allergies.  The cost for the pillars and tile floor in the auditorium will be about $7,000, and new chairs that we urgently need cost $20 each.  We have been buying an average of 5-8 chairs a month as our budget allows but we’re filling them up faster than we can buy them!  Please pray for both of these URGENT needs!  We would appreciate any donations.  If anyone would like to help out, please send a check to Temple Baptist Church, and specify “Sanchez chairs” or “Sanchez church floor” on the memo line so that we can use your offering appropriately.

Our family:  We praise the Lord that we are all doing well, but ask that you remember Johny’s health in your prayers since he has a chronic skin allergy and GERD (reflux condition) that are only being “controlled” by medications.  Lord willing, we will be visiting some churches in the states in September and October.  We’ll be in several new churches and reporting back to a few of our supporting churches.  Please pray for safe travels, and that we will be able to replace some lost income.

In closing, we’d like to thank you all for your faithful prayers and financial support.  Words cannot express how grateful we are, and we thank you for having a part in reaching lost souls for Christ in Santiago, Panama!  God bless!