Letters from the Hansens

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 W.W.II. 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?

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 e-mail address.

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

Response:

Thank you for your letters! I hope you will use this e-mail 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 16 yrs 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

12/1/05

Great to hear from all of you at Christmas time! Cheryl, Christine and I all "bonded" to Nebraska and miss the cool (Cold) weather. (Yes, we are sweating....) How can we pray for you?

During the Christmas season, we think of family and friends. We have friends and family members that need a growing, personal relationship with Jesus and that is hard sometimes. We continue to pray for them all.

I had a great meeting today with an ethnic Chinese gentlemen who owns a publishing company and is publishing articles about our ministry here in Latin America. He is starting a non profit foundation to promote evangelistic and human need projects in Panama. We continue to prepare for a major research project in February to try and discover the best ways to reach the multi-lingual, blended culture Chinese around us.

We are in a partnership with Summit Church in Springfield and enjoy a continued relationship with our many friends at Second.

Hope that new job and another season of ministry is pleasing in God's sight!

Merry Christmas!

12/5/05

Christine, Cheryl, John Mark Hansen

We are bumping along with our language study and trying to start in our Chinese ministry as much as possible without making everyone nervous.

We have had an excellent opportunity to get some free promotion in a newspaper insert for the Christmas season.

Christine is doing as well as can be expected after all her moves. The school here is much harder and keeps her busy with homework. She is in a Christmas program with singing and dance and is enjoying that. Tonight we are having the family of two of her girlfriends over for supper. They are ethnic Chinese and are probably the most mature Christian girls in the school. Crossroads has 10 in Christine's class. Four girls and 6 boys. Two of the girls may be leaving at Christmas time because of relationships and the cost of the school. Most of her classmates speak Spanish at home and are very Latin in worldview and habits. Its good for her long time, but harder in the short time.

Please know we are praying for you!

Sincerely,

Cheryl and John Mark Hansen

Cheryl and Jennifer (left) who is a Florida State U. - Panama student and Franciso is a Chinese missionary that we are working with. We are enjoying Chinese dumplings (Jiow-Tze) near our house in Eldorado.

But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law,
to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.
Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!
Galatians 4:4; 2 Corinthians 9:15 NIV

It is great to receive the many cards, letters and e-mails from friends around the world. We covet your prayers.

The latest here is an ethnic Chinese publisher we met at church who is very interested in giving us free advertising space in his bimonthly insert in the most prestigious national paper. He is also white hot about giving money for local human needs ministries. It seems like a golden opportunity so we have written some articles for his publication & are directing him to some people & ministries that we know about. Pray that God would give us discernment about how to best utilize this gentleman for kingdom work in Panama.

We have had a couple of nice experiences with a Latina family from church. They had us over for supper & then several days later for a birthday celebration. They are just very warm, encouraging people & we sure need experiences like that to keep us going!

Today is Mother's Day in Panama, which is a national holiday. Christine has the day off of school & the malls were in full swing yesterday as people shopped for mom. The mall was scheduled to stay open until 1:00 in the morning to accommodate last minute shoppers. Interestingly enough, my cab driver yesterday is on the Panamanian Olympic Commission & will be selecting the Panamanian softball teams. He is an accountant who also sells insurance & drives a cab on the side. Busy guy, huh?

2006 will see us begin to study another Chinese language, possibly either Cantonese or Hakka. A language & culture survey of the local Chinese is in the planning stages and we hope to sponsor work teams from the States next year. You can pray that, regardless of our human plans, God will accomplish His purposes in & through us. May we all have worshipful hearts this Christmas season as we contemplate God's gift of salvation to mankind.

Merry Christmas & a Very Blessed New Year,

John Mark, Cheryl, Nathan & Christine

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our Southern Baptist friends for their sacrificial gifts through the Lottie Moon offering. Without their willingness to give, it would be so difficult for the missionaries throughout the world to be able to live and work in a foreign land. Mere words cannot express adequately our heartfelt gratitude for these gifts for our support. Thank you so much ... may God richly bless you.

Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people,
especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
Galatians 6:10 NIV

Cheryl and I are "retreads" from East Asia having served with the IMB for 9 years in Taiwan. Several other missionaries have worked hard at introducing us to different churches, ministries and leaders in our Baptist work in Panama. We have also gotten to know the majority of the Chinese Christian leadership in Panama. We have attended associational meetings, the pastors' retreat, and we are taking Spanish lessons from leaders in our Baptist convention. We have enjoyed meals in homes of our neighbors and attended Panamanian birthdays and served in Mother's Day celebrations. We have been involved in visitation with both Spanish and Chinese pastors. I am attending a Spanish language Bible study which is lead by one of my Spanish teachers with ethnic Chinese college students. We are developing relationships with several ethnic Chinese families and have written articles for Spanish language magazines. Most of Christine's classmates speak Spanish as a first language, so she is included in our language/orientation experience.

We feel loved in Panama! Our phone number is 011-507-260-1870 if you want to call and talk.

Sincerely,

John Mark Hansen

12/12/05

Thanks for the opportunity for prayer on our birthdays. We would continue to appreciate prayer for our children Nathan (20) and Christine (16). They are both great young people.

Christine is making the adjustment to her fifth school in the last 18 months – not an easy thing for a sophomore in high school. She attends a small Christian school called Crossroads Christian Academy. Most of her classmates have at least one Panamanian parent & speak Spanish at home. She began guitar lessons in the spring, is singing in the worship team at her youth group and is trying her hand at some dancing in a community Christmas cantata. She will be working with Spanish Vacation Bible school after Christmas. She has had a great attitude throughout all of the changes we've made & we give God credit for that blessing!

Our son, Nathan, spent time with us this summer in Costa Rica & is staying for 2 weeks over his Christmas break in Panama. He is a sophomore at the University of Nebraska at Kearney & continues to study Graphic Design. One of the benefits of having an art student in the family is that we get to keep the pottery & drawings when he finishes a class! A steady girlfriend has added interest to his life. We are glad that he is involved with Bible study on campus.

Pray for our language, we are still studying Spanish but for fewer hours a week and in a less formal setting. Lord willing, 2006 will see us begin to study another Chinese language, possibly either Cantonese or Hakka. A language & culture survey of the local Chinese is planned with Jim Slack in February & we hope to sponsor work teams from the States next year depending on the findings of the survey. You can pray that regardless of our human plans, God will accomplish His purposes in & through us.

May we all have worshipful hearts this Christmas season as we contemplate God's gift of salvation to mankind. Merry Christmas & a Blessed New Year!

Cheryl and John Mark Hansen

12/12/05

Christine and her girlfriend Liza Chu did solos during the Christmas program at Crossroads Christian Academy last night. All the music was in English, but Pastor Steve shared a devotional in both Spanish and English. He was raised here in Panama, so he has excellent Spanish. Yes, it is still hot here!

We just got an e-mail from Mom and Dad Hansen that they will call us at 9 a.m. call on Christmas morning - we haven't decided yet what our church plans are for that morning as we are involved in several different churches in several different languages. We will have a group of 10 for a 2 p.m. Christmas dinner that day.

After Christine's performance in the Christmas cantata on Saturday, John Mark & I saw a movie at a mall near the huge auditorium where the cantata was held. We noticed that "Pride & Prejudice" will be coming soon. We always enjoy Jane Austin's work, as long as they don't tamper with it too much! The cantata was half in English and half in Spanish. Christine had a dancing part. The cantata will be shown on television here in the next couple of weeks.

Christine had her school Christmas program last night, Sunday. She nearly had laryngitis but managed to sing her solo on key.

Our "decorating" for Christmas consists of the Christmas tree, an advent calendar, an advent wreath, some garland & candles, the felt stockings that you made for us oh-so-many-years-ago, a nativity scene, a basket of ornaments, a red tablecloth with a candle-embroidered runner on top, and a Christmas centerpiece. Our walls are still pretty bare as we are waiting to see Nathan's artwork before buying other things for the walls. We're also still looking for curtains for the living rooms & dining room. You can't find ready made drapes of any quality or variety of size/style/fabric, which means that you have to involve a seamstress, which makes the whole process more complicated & expensive.(Since I don't have a sewing machine here)

Christine got the itch to make some dough ornaments for the Christmas tree, which we did, without cookie cutters or other patterns. They actually turned out pretty well except that the weather is so humid that they don't stay hard - they keep absorbing moisture from the air. I am re-baking them today just to firm them up. These will definitely not last more than one year!

We appreciate Aunt Jean's willingness to drive out & pick up our son Nathan. He enjoys the time with her. We are looking forward to seeing Nathan on the 20th of December for a couple of weeks.

John Mark & I are planning a trip to the expat grocery store to buy a Christmas turkey, foil baking pan & oven bag. Someone else is making the dressing & the group decided to skip the mashed potatoes. One of the ethnic Chinese men is bringing rice - that should be a nice touch!

John Mark and Cheryl are prayerfully looking at different Chinese churches to serve in the next year. We pray for wisdom in specific ministry opportunities. John Mark was just asked to play his saxophone for the praise band at the Spanish church in Eldorado.

Merry Christmas!

Christine, Cheryl and John Mark Hansen

Christine's solo

Christine dancing in the Christmas program

Cheryl & girlfriend Tina Chu.
Her family invited us to El Valle. She is a friend from church.

John Mark after Christmas program

John Mark and Cheryl at Mall after Christmas program

12/20/05

Hi

I've been finishing up my handwritten Christmas cards.

We enjoyed a supper tonight with the Spanish-speaking Chinese young people from the Monday night discipleship class led by John Mark's tutor. They are a very personable group of young adults & the languages exchanged between all of us & the restaurant help was quite interesting. We had the best Chinese food that I've had for a long time. Christine had a girlfriend over today & they baked & decorated ginger cookies. They tasted very good!

Nathan should arrive tomorrow at around 2 p.m. Of course we're excited about that! All for now. . .

Cheryl

12/27/05

We are trying to make each moment count as our two weeks with Nathan is already half over. We went to the beach last week & the mountains with Chinese friends yesterday. This morning we had dim sum ( a Cantonese style of breakfast featuring many different styles of seafood, meat, & sweet dumplings, breads, etc.) at a beautiful restaurant and will have a family picture taken later today.

Since we don't have any family nearby to celebrate holidays with, we invited other missionaries & friends to celebrate Christmas with us on the 25th. We had 15 for a late lunch & enjoyed it very much. We had been to a candlelight Christmas Eve service & our family had helped lead the carol singing at Faith Baptist Church. We attended an early morning church service at Crossroads on Christmas morning & had plenty of time to prepare for our company after we returned home.

We hope you have a chance to relax over the holidays. May God bless your new year in many, many ways. . .

Love,

Cheryl & John Mark