47th Annual Pan Am Lectureships

    The Pan Am Lectureships is held annually in different parts of Central and South America.  It brings together missionaries from the Americas as well as members from churches interested in supporting some mission points. 
    I was greatly encouraged by the wiser, so as not to say older, missionaries that attended.  There was a lot of experience, courage, humbleness and the most impressive and easily seen from each one of these experienced warriors was their love for the Lord and those who do not have their names written in the book of life.  Their stories about some of the heroes of faith helped me think about how maybe the writer of the book of Hebrews expected his captive audience to feel as they read the 11th chapter of his letter.  I was encouraged to keep the faith, to strive harder to tell others about salvation through God's Son, Jesus.  Some of the heroes of faith mentioned by these men were at the Lectureships and as you heard their stories they almost seemed, as one man at the conference put it, like sequoias and he was a potted bonsai in their midst.  As you talked personally to each of them their love and encouragement was best described as overflowing to the point that you left their presence filled and wanted to pass it on to others.
    All of the lessons were wonderful and very encouraging and insightful but nothing came close to the sermons preached by the lives of the men and women present at the lectureships, not their stories but their presence.
    I think, not that these men were Jesus in the flesh, what it must have been like to walk with Jesus for 3 years.  How he must have changed the lives of His followers by what flowed out of Him and filled their lives.  Imitating Jesus, what a wonderful way to live.

Thank all of you who organized the Pan Am Lectureships and may you continue to fill others by what overflows out of your lives.