Day eight in Panama

The morning came quick. I was not ready to wake up when the alarm told me to. I got up at 8:20 to get ready for church today. I was excited to be able to meet people at church that I had been hearing about! I knew it would be interesting being that I’m not yet bilingual, but I wasn’t worried about the language barrier. On our way to church, we picked up Norberto, Alberto, and Manuel. They are the host family that now Terry and Mike will stay at when Mike arrives in Panama on Tuesday. Manuel and Alberto are Norberto’s sons. They are turning into such respectful men of God at such a young age. They were so fun to be around. The boys new English, so we got to know them quickly and were playing around with them like brothers and sisters would. In the car, Terry asked Delores, “Are we going to be on time?” Delores answered, “Whenever we get there is on time. Its Panama.” We all laughed at that. When we arrived, we were early and so we sat in on a Bible class that Raul was leading. It was a bilingual message so we were very blessed. When church started, we sang songs both in English and Spanish. It was neat to participate in the Spanish worship. I absolutely loved it. I knew what they were saying for the most part, because I knew the same song in English. I love that God is bigger than language barriers. God knows all languages and all hearts. Worship this morning was an experience to remember and something that I hope to be a part of again. Next it was time for the sermon. Usually Elio speaks, but today we had a guest speaker. Raul’s son, Raul Jr.! This was a blessing because Elio does not share a bilingual message, but Raul Jr. did. Raul Jr. is attending his last semester at Harding University where he will graduate with a degree in youth ministry and move on to get his masters. His message today was really wonderful. I was thinking how hard it must have been to put the sermon together. First its difficult to come up with an organized message and second its hard to come up with a message that will relate to both cultures. When I was talking with some of the Spanish speakers, they were saying that some ideas just cannot be translated into English and so it is very hard to give a bilingual message. I don’t quite understand this yet, but when I learn Spanish I’m sure I will. So good job Raul Jr. for preparing a great message. He spoke on piercing your ear. There is a song that says, “Pierce my ear, Oh Lord. Lead me to your door…” and so on. He explained the meaning behind this song. It is found in Deuteronomy 15. When a servant has served for 6 years, on the 7th year, he is able to choose whether or not he wants to stay with the family. If he does, the family then pierces his ear to the door, meaning that he will serve in their house forever. So when we tell God to pierce our ear, we are choosing to serve him forever. That was the sermon in short. There were many verses that went along with it from John 8 and Hebrews and Psalm. It was neat to understand the Hebrew background of the text in Deuteronomy. I loved the message. I loved the visual. When church was over, we fellowshipped for awhile. I met many people from the church. I told them, next time I visit, I will have a conversation with you in Spanish. Finally everyone cleared out of the church, except for us. We had to wait for a church meeting to let out that Norberto was in. Mmhmm, you know how church meetings go. We didn’t even leave the church until 2pm. Aye Aye Aye. We sat around for 2 hours just waiting. The saying of the week from Terry was “Eat while you can, because you never know when then next meal will be.” Something always seems to come up during the time of lunch meals, so we need to eat whenever there is a free moment. This was true for today as well, so Sarah and I were glad we made time for breakfast this morning. When we finally made it out to the car I was antsy to get home because I had made plans with Lindsay to call her and then I wanted to get the last part of my final done and over with. But with a large group, our plans changed. It was hard for me to enjoy the day because I was so worried about my test and the phone call, but I eventually put it aside, knowing there was nothing I could do about it. Also, I realized that tonight at midnight is the last moment when I can turn my final in. Not tomorrow night. The final online closes on the 10th at midnight, which is tonight. I’m glad I figured that out because I probably would have waited until tomorrow night to take it from having such a long day. But phew! Glad I realized that, otherwise I would not have been allowed to take my final. After church we dropped off a family at a bus stop so that they could get home. Then our group decided to go to Niko’s café. An authentic Panamanian cafeteria-like restaurant. The food was amazing. I had plantain again and loved it! When I was going down the lunch line, I had a full plate of food and asked the lady if she could put un poquito lasagna on my plate. Ya… she didn’t understand and gave me an entire plate piled full with lasagna. So I had 2 full meals that could have easily been split between 3 people and possibly 4. But! I ate the whole thing by myself. I couldn’t see the food go to waste. I even finished Sarah’s cheesecake because I love cheesecake. I had a definite food baby from eating so much. Its now 5 hours later and I still feel full. Of course I’ll eat more though tonight before bed because that’s just me. We bought frosty flakes (zucaritas) at the store tonight and those are sounding good. Anyway! After Niko’s, I thought again that we would be going home, but I was wrong. We headed out to see a church. Way back a long time ago, when Panamanians knew that pirates were coming, they hid their gold in a church building and painted the gold to look like clay. But when we got to the church building, it was locked. Since we had already driven out there, we decided to park the car and walk around. This little town, called the Second Town of Panama reminded me of the streets and building I saw in Prague. Very cute colonial buildings that were colorful and had flowers growing out of them. Then, Deborah, Delores’ daughter who was with us remembered that the white house of Panama was right down the street. So we walked to it! While walking, I was practicing my Spanish with Deborah. I know many words, but have trouble creating sentences. She gave me Spanish 101 lesson and it really helped! I love learning Spanish. Also on the way to the White House, a lady was selling Pipas. I said, why not! I’ll try one. It’s a coconut that they cut a whole into, you put a straw in it and slurp out the coconut water. Terry said it tasted like bath water, and I thought it tasted like very watered down milk. I thought it was very good, but I wasn’t able to drink the whole thing. It was fun to try! Then we made it to the White House. I had to ask which building it was. I pointed out 3 different buildings that I thought were the white house and none of them were right. It was really neat to see, but it seemed to resemble all the buildings around it. There was a beautiful view of the ocean from the White House as long as you don’t look down at all the trash floating in the water. The White House had a black gate at the entrance and there were huge, funny looking birds standing there! They were really cute. I walked up to them and said, “Hola!” Finally it was time to head back. But on the way, we drove by what looked like a huge festival and we had to check it out. There were churro stands and cotton candy stands. Hot dog stands and candy apples for sale. There were about 5 different groups from a high school band performing all around the park. There were 2 groups of drummers, like a drum line. There were a couple groups of trumpet players. There were a couple different types of dancers. It was so fun to see and I was so glad that we stopped. Then we dropped everyone else off and headed to the grocery store to get food for the week. We are great bargain shoppers! Then when we got home, I went straight to the computer to take my final. It felt so good to get it done. I was having trouble wording some of my essays, but I got them done with plenty of time to spare and I feel very confident with my answers. I can now kiss that class goodbye!! Well, its time for a bowl of cereal and then straight to bed. Tomorrow is another day at the school from 10-5, as well as night sessions from 6-8. I’m so excited to see my Mon/Wed students again!