By Susanna DesMarais

     I would like to take a little of your time to reacquaint you with a priest from our diocese, the Rev. Michael Dresbach, who is continuing his family's passion for missionary work.
     Readers may remember Dresbach from a Mission Bell article about his seminary research of the eschatological content of supermarket tabloids when he was a student at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP) in Berkeley.
     Two degrees later, Dresbach has left the hustle-bustle of the Bay Area for a more tropical clime in Panama on a mission in Province IX to train new priests for the Episcopal Church, U.S.A.
     Currently Michael is serving at two churches in the Diocese of Panama, San Simon's in Gamboa and San Juan in Villa Cáceres in Panama City.
     San Simon is a small congregation comprised of people working with the Smithsonian Institute studying animals in Gamboa. San Juan is a much larger congregation, with two services, one in English and the other in Spanish. Dresbach always serves at the Spanish service, but is still getting comfortable preaching in that language. Right now he is also working with the diocesan Music Commission developing Panamanian service music.
     In December of this year, he will. start his work teaching with the Diocesan Department of Education.
     Michael and his wife of 21 years, Mona, have two grown daughters, Tara and Anne. Anne has accompanied her parents to Panama and will be spending the next year working with the youth ministry, the "Jovenes," at San Juan's. She will be returning to the United States next year to start college. Tara remained in Berkeley. Mona will be working in the diocesan office. They are living in Paraiso, a small community along the Panama Canal. Michael writes that the rain forest comes right up to their little house, and he has seen toucans and coati in their mango trees.
     Michael is the third generation of his family to do missionary work.
     His maternal grandparents, the Rev. Leland E. Johnson and his wife, Helen, were missionaries in China during the 1920s and 1930s for the Assemblies of God church. Johnson and his family started churches throughout China, training native-born ministers to carry out the work of the Church.
     Michael's mother was born in Kowloon, and her brother in Canton. In 1939, they moved on to the Philippines doing the same work, but they were captured during WWII and interned in a prison camp for three years.
     The Rev. Johnson was on his way out to be executed when General McArthur's troops came to the rescue. Michael's parents served as missionaries for Far East Broadcasting Company, an evangelical protestant organization. His father was program director with the Japanese and English language stations in Okinawa. They remained in Okinawa for 10 years, at the same time as former Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning.
     Like all missionaries, Dresbach and his family would very much appreciate any help we can give them. A missionary fund has been set up to support their work, and donations are most gratefully accepted. Mail checks payable to St. Stephen's In-the-Field to The Dresbach Missionary Fund, c/o St. Stephen's In-the-Field, 7269 Santa Teresa Blvd., San José CA 95139.
     Note on the check "For the Dresbach Missionary Fund." We will keep you up to date on the Dresbach happenings, with letters from the field, and further reports.