March/April 2009 Prayer Letter

“Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.” Prov. 8:34

Dear Pastors, Praying Partners, Friends and Family;

Greetings from Panama! We want to thank you once again for your prayers for this missionary family! We are now 4 months into our stay here in Panama and certainly our time has been very “full.” Right now, the focus of our time here continues to be language acquisition, but we are continuing to listen, watch and wait (Prov. 8:34) while we work and learn. All of the family (except for Ann who already speaks Spanish) are in school a minimum of 3 hours a day. One thing that has been driven home to us is that there are no shortcuts. It takes time and a lot of practice to gain fluency in a foreign language. We covet your prayers that our time here of language learning would be profitable.

In March, we hosted several guests from the US and continued with distribution of thousands of tracts at the stadium nearby our home. Now that the baseball season has ended, we have shifted our tract distribution to the bus terminal here in Santiago. Yesterday, we were able to hand out about 500 tracts and we want to make this a routine as people from all over Panama and many central-American countries pass through every day.

In April, we experienced our first trip as a family outside of Panama to renew our tourist visas. This trip was mandatory, as we are only legally allowed to stay in Panama 90 days and then we must exit the country for at least 72 hours. We took a small shuttle bus to the border, spent 3 days in Costa Rica, and returned without incident. The trip went extraordinarily smoothly considering that we traveled during several days of “holy week” leading up to Resurrection Sunday. As I look back, this only highlights why it would be cost-prohibitive for us to be in Colombia until we can get the proper paperwork. Our Costa Rica trip cost us about $850 for a family of 9, including transportation, lodging and food. In Colombia, it would likely cost us a minimum of $5,000 every 90 days just to renew our visas. Right now, the door to Colombia still appears to be closed, and there has been no significant progress that we know of on the paperwork we need for sponsorship.

We are thankful God has placed us where we have the fellowship and support of a missionary family and the brethren here who are members of a small mission-work. Truly, they have been a great blessing and help to us along the way and it has been a mutual blessing as we assemble with them each Lord’s Day and for their mid-week services.

I would ask you to pray with us about a couple prospective trips. In July,our family must leave Panama once again to renew our visas, and Lord willing, we will be traveling to Nicaragua to visit another missionary family. I am also praying about a possible trip to Colombia, sometime in August or September. If the Lord allows, I am praying that the Lord would use these steps of faith to give some further leadership for our family and future ministry. Please join us in asking the Lord for wisdom about these decisions.

Thank each of you for your faithful prayers!
The Moore Family - Exo. 33:14-15

Prayer Challenge:
*Remember – Christ prays for you! Are you listening for His voice?*
“Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” Heb. 7:25