Jeff Adams

Greetings from Panama City! Marco and I got up about 3:30am Monday morning to head this way. We are training leaders at the El Dorado Baptist Church. Our good friend Ricardo Fernandez received us at the airport, took us to lunch, checked us into the hotel and shortly afterward picked us up to go to the first meeting held last night at his church. It was well after 11:00pm when we finally got to the room last night, so forgive me for not checking in with you. Last night approximately 800-900 pastors, leaders and those who want to be leaders came out to learn the biblical definition of leadership. It’s after midnight Tuesday. Again we just got to the room and had another full house tonight.

You have heard me talk many times about my burden to train and equip Latin American pastors as the Latin American church matures and engages in God’s global mission. Over the years, Marco and I have held seemingly countless conferences for pastors, operated the Que Dice la Biblia Bible Institute from KCBT and done all we know how to do to reproduce ourselves in Latin American leadership. Ricardo represents the prototype of what we have asked God to do.

Ricardo was a successful attorney with a fine position in the corporate banking world and an active member of his church. Through a series of circumstances he suddenly found himself leading his middle to upper class congregation. Rather than receive encouragement and help from other pastors in his denomination, he was sharply criticized because he did not have a seminary degree. Discouraged and desperate, God brought two single missionary ladies into his life. These women had invested their entire lives translating scripture and working with indigenous people in the Panamanian jungle. They encouraged him to contact us and study the Bible with Que Dice la Biblia.

I was not even aware of Ricardo until I came to Panama City some years ago to speak at an international congress at the University of Panama. As I entered the conference center, I saw a man in a suit literally running across the floor toward me. It was Ricardo. With tears in his eyes he asked if he could give me a hug and kiss on the cheek for saving his life and ministry. I was dumbfounded, but grateful to God for using me even when I was totally unaware of what was happening in Ricardo’s life.

In the past few years Ricardo has continued his studies with us as he has had opportunity to do so along with the many other responsibilities he has. His church has become the largest Baptist church in the nation. Other pastors look to him now for leadership. Some of you may remember Ricardo, as he has attended some of our conferences and most recently spoke on a Sunday morning at KCBT last May. As you heard that day, Ricardo openly gives thanks to God for using the ministry of KCBT to set him on the right path. He looks to me as his mentor and has trained his church to systematically and biblically make disciples of Jesus Christ and multiply themselves as other disciples and churches result from what God is doing. He credits his KCBT education for learning how to effectively equip his church with solid biblical teaching.

Through an amazing chain of events an AM/FM radio complex fell into Ricardo’s hands and now broadcasts truth across Panama. Our services each night are being broadcast live to the nation. I have met many people these past two days who listen to me daily on the radio here in Panama.

As the result of Ricardo’s consistent application of what he has been learning, the El Dorado church has begun five others in the past few years, including one among the Cuna, an indigenous people of Panama. A growing number of other pastors are looking to him as a leader and he has been able to train some of them. One of his disciples is pastor of a growing church and has already caught a global vision. For several years this pastor has taken small teams into Cuba to train leaders in discipleship. One couple in Ricardo’s church caught the discipleship virus and each year they invest their time and resources to travel to San Blas Islands, a Panamanian territory, and train leaders. Now, almost the entire population where they are working has come to Christ.

I’d like to say that every pastor with whom we have established a relationship has experienced the same type of fruit. Many have to lesser degrees. The issue is not the number but the fact that they are reproducing themselves in others. The truth is, there are others just like Ricardo. He is a great prototype, though, of the answer to our prayers to raise up a new generation of leaders for the Latin American church, and it is a joy to be associated with them and learn from them as they learn from us.