10/13/05

Cheryl and I were both using Spanish and Mandarin in a conversation with a Chinese family yesterday. Most of the time we both have trouble understanding Panamanians Spanish....Oh well it will come time. We are trying to decide whether take Hakka or Cantonese next.

I had a kidney stone on Sunday.... Both missionary doctors agreed that was what it was. Boy, did that hurt! I am drinking lots of water. I was better by bedtime, but missed three worship services in three different languages.

Thanks for concern,

John Mark

10/20/05

Thanks for your e-mails! We are had a group Cheryl and I worked with from Gainesville, Texas here yesterday. They are lead by Mark Fuller, a former missionary from here in Panama. They will be working with a Pastors' Families Retreat at the Baptist camp in Santa Clara. The response of the pastors has been great!

Two days ago I went door-to-door in a very poor section of the city of Panama. Allison Holman (veteran missionary) and I were looking for Chinese families in the area. We found several Chinese families and will be back to follow up these leads. Praise God that though I was attacked by a drunk looking for money. I came away only shaken and he was unable to get any money or my cell phone

I am using a borrowed computer, so I will keep this short for today. Thanks so much for your prayers for our ministry!

Cheryl and John Mark

11/16/05

Thanks so much for your desire to pray for us! Thursday was a national holiday here (celebrating the beginning of independence from Spain) & we were pleased to have been invited for supper to the home of a family that we met at church. This family is an interesting mix of cultures. The wife is a Latina Panamena and the husband is 3rd generation Chino Panameno. They have three children, the older two girls are friends of Christine's from school. The father attended a boarding school in the states for high school & has native English & no Chinese languages but also speaks fluent Spanish. The wife speaks Spanish & less fluent English. The girls are Spanish speakers who have learned English at school. The husband is an ophthalmologist and the wife is beginning a social ministries program at the church. Interestingly, the husband's father was also a doctor who received his medical training in Germany before & during WWII. This is a family with lots of interesting stories to tell.

Yesterday afternoon during a tropical rain storm, John Mark went to a community about 50 miles from of Panama City, Capira. He went with the two pastors from Iglesia Bautista del Coco (Cristo La Unica Esperanza). Gregorio Martinez is the pastor of the Spanish congregation and Pastor Lan Yun Jing is the pastor of the new Cantonese congregation. All three of these guys are in their late forties and have a great time trying to communicate in Hakka, Cantonese, Spanish, Mandarin and English at the same time! The Good News is that they were able to lead two young Hakka ladies to the Lord! Pray that they will become involved in the church in El Coco.

As the dust is beginning to settle I feel like I can take a deep breath, relax and catch you up on our lives. Thanks so much for your prayers for our move into the house. You are the reason that things went so well that day! It was no accident that our movers arrived at the house just in time to bail me out of a hopeless conversation with the local garbage men, or that the cable guys arrived an hour late so that another missionary was present to discuss the technicalities of the computer hookup, or that the movers finished just in time for the furniture store to deliver our new furniture, or that the previous gardener just happened to stop by our house that day & trimmed our grass. It is also amazing that the local furniture store was so committed to replacing two items that were marked with glue or ink that they made trips to our house three days in a row until everything was perfect. Lest I give you the idea that we live in some sort of utopia, we have been waiting for two weeks now for a couple of pieces of furniture from a different furniture store to be delivered and the plumber has stood us up twice now. November is a month of many national holidays & the service industry grinds to a halt during this time.

John Mark & I are continuing to study Spanish with tutors. Continue to pray for our language study. Studying a language is a long, often frustrating process with setbacks, plateaus and lots of emotional pitfalls. We need your prayers to keep us encouraged throughout the process. My tutor, Eleiza de Montes, is recovering from the gall bladder surgery that she had on Wednesday. She is a retired university professor who still teaches a class on child wellness & takes her students to inner-city community centers to teach mothers there how to care for their children. She is also very active in missions education in the churches here and is doing evangelism training for young girls in one of the local mission churches in a poor area. She is a wonderful lady & a great role model. John Mark is studying with Amilcar Fernandez of Iglesia Bautistade Eldorado. He is 21 and has been doing ethnic Chinese discipleship training with Chinese university students in Panama City. John Mark is able to attend this outreach. John Mark is also working with Hidalgo Fernandez (no relation) he is based out of the community of San Miguelito and is a missionary to the indigenous people of the Darien near the Columbian border. Both of these men are great people for John Mark to bounce ideas off of and he is enjoying their Christian fellowship.

John Mark continues to meet local Chinese people, inside & outside of churches. He does some evangelistic visiting with both a local Chinese pastor& with another missionary who works in the inner city. Chinese are often the owners of small convenience stores as well as restaurants and other businesses. He just had another experience today with a Chinese couple in San Miguelito. The Chinese in Panama are a very diverse group as far as the languages they speak, their education levels, occupations, cultural identity, etc. Reaching them is truly an assignment that only God can accomplish. Pray that God will break down language barriers,create spiritual hunger, convict of sin and open their hearts to a relationship with Him. Also pray that God will call out people who will reach the Chinese & be willing to disciple & train them. Only your prayers will remove the barriers that keep God's spirit from working freely here.

Christine is beginning to see some light at the end of the "new kid" tunnel. She is beginning to be included in more social activities and is preparing for singing & dancing in upcoming Christmas programs. Next semester promises some additional opportunities in one act plays & perhaps singing with the praise band. Christine is feeling more confident all the time in her geometry class & her grades are showing it. Thank you for your prayers for Christine's adjustment to life in Panama. Keep praying for close Christian friends.

After chatting with Nathan on the phone Sunday it seems that his semester is going well: he is making good choices academically, spiritually & relationally. It's probably just as well that we don't see his hair & clothes regularly - it's too easy to get distracted by the unimportant stuff! He will be seeing grandparents over Thanksgiving and will spend a couple weeks with us at Christmas break.

Cheryl & John Mark

11/18/05

Well, good news. The furniture came & the plumber has been here twice & is supposed to come again tomorrow. The tank in our back yard is still leaking so it needs something! It's always comical trying to communicate with this plumber. All of the missionaries say that he is almost impossible to understand so its not just us. I'm lucky to understand one word of every sentence he utters. That means I have to guess a lot about what he's talking about. We've learned that a big part of language study is making educated guesses! My tutor is still recovering from surgery so I read newspaper articles & look up all of the words I don't know, watch TV & look up all of the words I don't know, sit around & talk to the gal who comes once a week to clean my floors ( she's another person who is tough to understand ), practice conjugating my verbs, work on my scripture memorization in Spanish or write sentences with all of the words I don't know. Are you picking up a theme here? - there are lots of words that I don't know in Spanish!!

Christine auditioned for the praise & worship team at her youth group on Saturday. She felt terrible about her performance & was really embarrassed about it. On Wednesday she found out that she made the praise & worship team! She's happy. Sometimes I think that God wants to drive home the point that its not about our abilities but about His abilities. This has been a really long, hard week for Christine for homework. I think it will lighten up after this week.

You can pray that our paperwork moves forward for our residency in Panama. They are being stinkers right now with a lot of missionaries & being very nit picky about stuff & denying permanent residency to everyone, which just means that you have to keep applying for temporary ones. God is sovereign - even over civil servants!

We had three of our missionary colleagues over for lunch today. It was nice to be able to entertain in our new home (new to us, anyway) with our new dining room furniture & new dishes. We have a long list of people whom we want to invite over so this was the first of many meals with friends & coworkers.

God provided the opportunity to meet a Chinese man at church Sunday night who publishes a bimonthly insert in a leading newspaper here. He is offering our mission free space in this insert to write articles about our work, ministries, testimonies, upcoming events, gospel presentations, whatever we want to use it for. Isn't that a cool opportunity?

I'm starting to nod off so I'd better sign off for tonight.

Cheryl

11/22/05

Little more about Christian's situation. Her school is small enough that it doesn't have any extracurricular sports or music activities. There about 15 in the high school. This is the first year that they have had "live" teachers for all the classes, not videos. Her biggest outside activity is her youth group, which meets on Wednesdays nights & draws about 100-150 kids. It is a bilingual group so they do everything in both Spanish & English. They've done some fun things like see Christian movies, Christian concerts, served a supper at church & had a Fall retreat. She is looking forward to singing on the worship team. Her school is going to do some one act plays this spring so she wants to be in those. The church that sponsors her school is called Crossroads Bible Church and is a bilingual church. We try to attend there on Sunday nights. Christine is preparing for small singing & dancing parts in their Christmas program. On Sunday mornings we have been visiting different Spanish congregations in Panama City. We have pretty much settled on a church in our suburb called Primera Iglesia Bautista de El Dorado. They have a strong emphasis on personal discipleship and some in the church have a desire to reach out to the Chinese around them. Last week John Mark spoke in Spanish at a small church on Gamboa Lake about a half an hour from the city.

The biggest excitement in our lives this week is that I got my wallet stolen out of my purse. Unfortunately, I chose to shop with this missionary friend on a busy Saturday evening after a major payday, which means that the store was full of shoppers jostling each other. My second mistake was using a purse with a strap that was too long to hold securely under my arm. Between my first & second purchases at this one particular store someone had taken the wallet out of my purse & zipped it shut again. All of the cards had to be canceled & all of the ID has to be replaced. None of it is impossible to do but it all takes time & wading through government bureaucracy to accomplish. You can pray that it all goes as quickly & smoothly as possible. Our business manager, Mary Mangrum, & I will be spending the day tomorrow filing a police report so I can get my "carnet" or temporary residency ID replaced. I'm also working on replacing my Nebraska driver's license.

Last night John Mark had a special dinner with the Chinese college students he has been meeting with. They studied about the Holy Spirit and then ate northern Chinese food at the restaurant of a young Chinese guy who is studying Spanish. He is a Mandarin speaker and so John Mark can communicate with him easier than they can! John Mark will be back for a visit......and some more Chinese dumplings!

We're going to celebrate Thanksgiving with a group from Faith Baptist Church on Thursday evening. Faith Baptist is an English congregation that meets in a Spanish church. We don't attend there regularly but have been to a couple of their activities & have met some nice people there. Christine has a half day of school on Thanksgiving Day but will have Friday & Monday off. I'll be taking the green bean casserole to the Thanksgiving potluck - is that traditional food or what?

We're looking forward to putting up our new Christmas tree next weekend with all the trimmings! Joy to your family & we hope that you have a terrific Thanksgiving together. . .

Love,

Cheryl

11/24/05 E-Mail Received:

Hi John and Cheryl,

My name is Jeanie Anne and I am 9 years old. I am sending this using my mother's email address.

I got your name and email from the Mission Board. I am doing a project for AWANA at my Church and would like to ask you some questions.

Where do you work as a missionary?

What is your job as a missionary in that place?

What are some ways you have helped people there?

What countries have you been to?

Thank you for helping me with these questions.

From Jeanie Anne

Response:

Thank you for your letters! I hope you will use this email to remind yourself to pray for us often. My name is Cheryl Hansen and my husband's name is John Mark. We have and two kids. Our daughter, Christine, is 16yrs. old and is a 10th grader at Crossroads Christian Academy. Our son, Nathan, is 20 yrs. old & is a student at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

We are missionaries in Panama City, Panama. Panama City is the capital of Panama & sits right next to the Panama Canal. Because our home is in a hilly area of the city, we can see the tall buildings of the downtown area & also the Pacific Ocean from our living room window. Our job as missionaries is to build a team of people & a strategy for sharing the good news about Jesus with the Chinese who live here in Panama. We served as missionaries in Taiwan for 9 yrs. so we already speak Mandarin, which is one of several Chinese languages. Language learning is always an important part of a missionary's training because we must use the language or languages of our people group in order to share the gospel effectively. The Chinese in Panama use a variety of languages including Spanish, Cantonese, Hakka, & Mandarin. We have spent the last year studying Spanish. Beginning this year, we may be studying another one of the Chinese languages.

Some of the things that we have been doing include:

- Praying for God to help Chinese people here to be interested in spiritual things & receptive to the gospel.

- Learning Spanish so that we can talk to Chinese who speak Spanish about Jesus.

- Visiting restaurants & stores owned by Chinese people in order to meet them & share the gospel.

- Building a team of people who are interested in sharing the gospel with Chinese people in Panama. For example: we know a Chinese publisher who will put Christian articles in his paper for free; we know a Chinese businessman who will let a new church meet in his business; we know churches in the United States who want to come share the gospel & pray for the Chinese here.

- Preparing to do a large survey of Chinese people to find out the best ways to reach them with the gospel.

You can help us by praying for these five things! You also asked where we have visited. In Latin America we have only been to Mexico, Costa Rica & Panama. In Asia, we have been to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, Thailand, Japan & South Korea.

Thank you for your interest & keep praying for missionaries! Who knows, maybe God will call YOU someday!!!

Cheryl & John Mark Hansen