Day 7

Friday was spent tweaking our Encounter talks and working out the details of our Encounter presentation. We had to shorten our talks to allow time for translation.

When we arrived at the church Friday night a few participants were already there waiting. We found that the people there don’t mind waiting a while for something to happen. That is good because it seemed that not much starts when we expected it too.

Attendance was good, about 60 participants, more than was expected for Friday night. We gave opening remarks, had an ice breaker and then the Openness and Transparency and Cross talks were given.

One amazing thing was how fast the Panamanian women broke into small groups of eight for table time. They had their chairs moved into circles two minutes after Griselda asked them too. We joked that it would have taken American women 20 minutes to accomplish such a task.

Due to time restriction we skipped table time after the Cross talk and had them come up for prayer. The prayer requests and comments let us know that God had made His point in spite of the cramped conditions, shortened talks and the need for translation!