"The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest."
Luke 10:2
Luke 10:2
NUESTRO PASTOR
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After traveling to Panama with a mission's team in July of 1996, Mark Mavar, a firefghter/paramedic in the United States, and his wife, Carol, sensed the call of the Lord upon their lives to become missionaries. Over the next five years the couple dedicated themselves to studying and preparing to enter the minstry. Mark graduated from Grace Bible Institute (now known as Great Lakes Bible Institute) in April of 2000 and was ordained as a minister of the Gospel in 2001. The Mavar family, sent out by Grace Church of Mentor and Gospel Fellowship Association Mission, arrived in the Republic of Panama January 23, 2002, to serve as missionary church planters.
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Our Beginning
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After studying the language and working under the direction of another missionary couple, early in 2003, Pastor Mavar began a visitation program in la Chorrera, Panama. There he encountered spiritual interest in the neighborhood of Valle Dorado and started a Bible study. The study grew and Pastor Mavar introduced the idea of planting a church with the nucleus of people attending. The enthusiastic response of the people led to the search for a place to hold weekly Sunday services. Iglesia de la Gracia was born February 29, 2004, in a rented house in Valle Dorado.
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OUR GROWTH Over the course of three years Iglesia de la Gracia experienced some growing pains and trials that led to the need for relocating three times before arriving at a permanent home.
OUR BUILDING In May of 2006 the congregation of 15 people agreed to take a leap of faith and purchase land to build a church. The congregation bought two lots in the Industrial Area of la Chorrera and on August 28, 2006, the construction project began. Praise the Lord, on December 17, 2006, the church held its first service in the new building! It only had a roof and partial walls, but everything was ours. |
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OUR VISION
Today, in 2018, we thank the Lord for giving us a beautiful building where we can carry out our ministry vision—the biblical purpose of the church: to worship and glorify God, to learn from His Word and be edified in His truth and in His love, and to equip each individual to become disciples that make disciples. We praise the Lord for His faithfulness to His promise to build His church, and we can testify to the fact that He is doing just that, one soul at a time, as we diligently endeavor to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and to dedicate ourselves to the proclamation of the whole Counsel of God, to the evangelizing of the lost, and to the teaching and discipling of the saints. The end goal is the spiritual transformation of every individual so that each one would reach “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). It is a privilege to minister to the neighborhood communities of La Chorrera, Panamá: Valle Dorado, Villas del Bosque, the Industrial Area, and more!
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