Day eleven in Panama... I can't believe it!

Each day I spend here in Panama makes it harder to leave. Everyday I am falling more and more in love with the people that God has brought me to. My team and I especially have gotten extremely close. We laugh together, cry together, sing together, pray together, share our thoughts and feels together, and praise God together. We are a family. And the people I have been teaching in Panama are now like family to me. Each day I get more and more sad to leave the people here. There are many lessons to be learned from them. Last night when the Richardson’s and Mike arrived, we sat on the couch talking, catching up, and laughing together. We shared some of our experiences and worked out plans for the week. It is more chaotic when there are 8 people rather than 4. Terry, Sarah, and I just got into our routine, but we have to remember to be flexible now that newcomers have arrived. Last night when they left, Sarah and I said… “Ok we’re going straight to bed tonight since we stayed up so late last night.” Ya, that didn’t happen. Sarah was trying to put together a word for the devo tomorrow and it just wasn’t coming to her. So we put our heads together. She talked out what she wanted to say and eventually found the perfect verse. Her thoughts were very refreshing. The verse she focused her message on was Psalm 92:4 “I sing for joy at the work of you hands.” It was a great reminder. Because all throughout the week, we have seen God do miraculous things in the hearts of these people, but we need to remember to take the time to praise Him for it. She said, we forget sometimes to just sit and praise Him. Well when she found the verse last night, I said, “Hey that’s in a song… Shout to the Lord!” So we started singing it and Sarah began to tell me that her husband says she could have a beautiful voice if she learned to sing the correct way. I saw that too. She just needed a little training. We stayed up until 2 in the morning again. But this time we were singing all night long. I gave Sarah a private voice lesson and we were having the time of our lives singing worship songs to the Lord as she learned. We were almost brought to tears a few times from laughing so hard at things that we said or things that happened when we sang. You know, when it gets late, you start to do silly things. We were singing while plugging our noses and all sorts of funny things. Sarah and I really clicked last night. We finally made it to bed, and once again that alarm came quick and early. We pulled ourselves out of bed, had a bowl of Zucaritas and spent a morning in awe of the Lord. This was the perfect way to start off the day. Then we headed to the school. We walked on campus remembering that today was jeans day again, instead of uniforms! The students always get so excited when this day comes. We also saw the voting tables out when we walked in. Meaning that their dance team was going to perform again on TV. Last week was the semifinals and since they won, they move on to the finals which shows tonight at 9 on channel 2 again. We made it to our room, but it was all locked up and all the lights were off. Terry finally used sign language to get someone to come open the door for us with their key. But oddly, no students showed up for the first hour, other than one of my students (Abraham) that showed up 2 hours early. We all heard the school’s band playing, so we adventured around the school to find them, but by the time we got there, the practice was over. Sarah and I were surprised that her student Gabriela and my 2 students Rachelle and Ana didn’t show. Out of all our students, they would be the ones to show up, no question. They are always there and always excited. They would never miss a class. Something may have happened… we’re not sure. All we knew was that we were sad that we could not see them one last time. Maybe tomorrow they will come in to say adios. Since no one showed, we all really got to know Abraham! He was my student that knew little to no English, and starts to speak Spanish as if we are fluent. I kept up with him pretty well and we were all learning quite a bit about our second language. It was a blast!! Abraham decided to come back on Friday, even though he was not scheduled for a lesson because he had so much fun learning today. Since we will have Lynne and possibly Libby working with us at the school, I’m sure we will have an open spot for Abraham to slip in. Now for our adventure. Alberto and Manuel’s uncle had to get up at 3 this morning because their school bus was not working again and they needed to get to school. So his dad road with them 3 hours on the city bus to take them to school. He was going to have to do the same thing to pick them up after school, but we said, we’re not doing anything after 2 o clock, its not a problem if we pick him up! He thought that was such an amazing blessing. Terry found the school first try. Phew… its so easy to get lost in Panama. So easy. This is the school that Raul and Betty started up and they have been talking to me about coming back to teach here in the future. I’ve always wanted to try for a period of time teaching overseas. This could be my opportunity. So when we got to the school, my heart melted. Thinking that someday, I could work in this school. Whether God leads me to work there for 2 weeks or 2 months or 2 years, I don’t know. But seeing this beautiful place filled with God’s children. I took tons of pictures and oh wow. This school was incredible to me. God built and designed me to be a teacher. Everytime I step into a school, its like I get a little taste of Heaven’s joy. I can only thank God for the passion he stirred up inside of me to teach and mold young minds. On our way out, Alberto and Manuel asked if we could take there sister home. She goes to the school, but lives at a different house than her brothers. We said, “Of course, as long as you can direct us.” Alberto did a fine job of directing us, but with traffic, we were on the road for 2 whole hours. We put the car in park several times. We thought we would never make it back for our night sessions and in time to eat our Panamanian cocunut rice specialty from Delores. This was the second day in a row that I gave up my lunch. Yesterday, I gave my lunch to Joshua. He had a test and was so tired from getting no sleep. He had no energy to take his test. So I offered up my lunch to him. Today also, I gave up my lunch. The kids were so hungry in the car and they were more important to me than my own satisfaction. Even though the car ride was long, let me tell you, we had the most amazing time on that car ride. Me, Sarah, Inka (7 years old), Alberto (13 years old), and Manuel (10 years old). We were teaching the little girl English. Oooo Ooo! She is a fireball! Oh yes she is. This loved to be in front of the camera. I pulled out my camera to take a picture and she was working it! What a doll. We were singing songs and playing hand-clap games. Reminded me of elementary school. I’ve fallen in love with this little girl Inka. It is children like her that give me the passion to teach. She inspires me. She is so full of life. Sometimes our excitement for life and our excitement for Jesus needs to be more like hers. When we reached her house… it was something that I’d never seen before. We dropped her off in the dumps. She walked down an alley way to get to her small house and we carefully watched her. The boys said she would be fine, but we just couldn’t leave her. A 7 year old girl, with an adorable Barbie backpack on was walking through a crowd of men and teenage boys down an alley that looked up to no good. Then she walked into the most run-down house. My heart broke. How do people live like that? And Inka… when she reached the door turned back with a joyful smile on her face and waved goodbye as proudly as she could. Inka is a child of God. We finally reached home after we dropped off the boys, with just enough time to eat and prepare for our night sessions. In walks Christopher. Yesterday we decided to start another lesson at the end of our time, so we did not really get to finish the story. I could tell that Christopher wasn’t really grasping the concept of the story. I was tempted to say, “Let’s just skip it and go on,” because this was a difficult lesson to understand. But I knew that if we worked hard at it, this could be the lesson that gets his wheels turning inside his head. I resisted temptation found out what it means to be selfless for God. For it is when we are selfless that God can truly work. And this is exactly what happened… God worked in Christopher as we read through lesson 11. I shared my testimony to help Christopher open up about his struggles. He did. Christopher explained that he is like the seed that falls among the thorny weeds. I asked him, “Well what does Jesus say happens to the plant that falls among the thorny weeds.” He looked and paused, then answered… it dies. I said, “Then what can you do to keep it alive?” He said, “I need to get rid of my weeds.” But he explained to me that it was hard to do. This was the turning point… when we talked about prayer. I explained to him how when I talk to Jesus, he makes me stronger and it helps me to weed things out of my life. He said, “well I only pray when I go to church when the priest tells me to.” I said, Jesus prayed to God for strength. I explained to him that we can’t do this on our own and we don’t have to. I showed him examples of when Jesus talked to God and was strengthened. He still was stuck on only praying while at church. So I gave him personal examples from my prayer life and how God gives me strength. He looked at me and said, “I’d like to try talking to God more often. I think it would help.” Don’t tell me God isn’t at work. God is moving like the wind through a grassy meadow. Tomorrow, Sarah and I get to go to Christian and Christopher’s house to hang out for awhile and I am so excited for it! They have many things that they want to show us. After they left, Sarah, Terry, and I talked for awhile about all that God has been doing. It was encouraging as we looked up passages in the Bible to know that God has been with us throughout this whole trip. When you give yourself to God, disappointment is never an option. I could not be more satisfied. Then, it was time to turn on the TV to watch our school’s dance team. At the school, they decorated the gym and were broadcasting the dance show live for the students to see. We were going to go, but ended up not having enough time to get there once our sessions were over. They showed the big party going on in the gym after Instituto America’s dance team gave an awesome performance and we were kind of glad we weren’t there. Oh my goodness… it looked outrageous in that gym. I’m not sure we would have made it out there alive. Panama people know how to party and have fun. Now it is time for bed. Hopefully an early night than the others. It is Sarah’s last day tomorrow because she leaves Friday at 7am for home. I’ll be missing her company a lot and I know she is sad to go as well. She has been such a blessing to me on this trip. We’re both ready for a new and exciting day from the Lord tomorrow. We will make every moment a memory here as we prepare to come back home. Buenas noches.