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Eighteen men and women from Bethany Assembly of
God in Agawam, MA spent seven days continuing
construction on the Chepo Good Shepherd School.
Chepo is located about an hour east of Panama City
along the Pan American Highway. Now in its fourth
year, there are currently 153 students, preschool
through fourth grade, who attend this school.
This is Bethany’s third trip to Panama. Ken Bryars,
music pastor at Bethany, led two previous teams,
working at the Canaan School in 2000 and at the Las
Mananitas School in 2002. The team visited both of
these schools on our tour day and was able to see
the return on investment of their earlier
construction. The Canaan School has grown from 350
in 2000 to nearly 900 today; and the Las Mananitas
School has grown from about 550 in 2002 to over 775
students today.
The Bethany team focused their construction in two
areas. They laid block walls on two new second floor
classrooms and laid block and built support beams in
the first floor stair/restroom area. The team worked
hard, in spite of the hot and humid weather,
completing all of the work that we had anticipated
for them. This generous team also provided school
supplies for all of the elementary children, brought
play equipment for the school and gave a generous
offering to help finish the computer room and
purchase computers. The team worked so well,
side-by-side with church members and school staff.
Members of the team also sponsored five children
through Latin America ChildCare.
The closing service was very special. The school and
church honored each of the team members with a small
gift. Then members of the congregation honored team
members with special gifts. It was an emotional
moment that illustrated how this team had connected
with this church and school. Pastor Ken preached an
encouraging message and challenged the church to
look to the Lord for power to meet the needs of the
community.
Thank you, Pastor Ken and team, for your hard work
and ministry at the Chepo Good Shepherd School. We
hope you’ll come back soon!
The Chepo School is urgently working on finishing
one of the unfinished first floor classrooms. The
Little Davey Computer Team arrives this week and
will be delivering 12 new computers for the school.
The new room must be finished by May 15th! We will
need two or three more teams to finish the school.
For now, we will work on finishing the support beams
second-story flooring above the stairs and
bathrooms, then the beams and third-story flooring
above the two new classrooms and stair/bathroom
area. When completed, the school will have a
capacity for more than 350 students, kindergarten
through ninth grade.
Please pray for the Chepo Good Shepherd School.
There is great demand in this growing community.
Pray that God would provide for construction needs.
If you are able to help, you can give using the
secure online form (include Project
14456 in the comment box) or send your offering to:
Assemblies of God World Missions
Project 14456 Chepo
1445 Boonville Ave.
Springfield, MO 65802
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