I am beginning to understand the concepts of humility and power. Because while I know that I am completely inadequate, God comes in and makes me more than equipped. And that to me is the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through me. It is when we become humble that we see the power of God. This morning we woke up at 8am, much better than 6am! Yet I got fewer hours of sleep because Sarah and I stayed up til 1:30 talking about our experiences from our readers. We talked about Christopher, my student for awhile trying to figure out how we could make the lessons more interesting for him. Because our conversations are exciting, but the lessons to him are very boring. We found ways to make the lessons relatable to him. Christopher likes to build wood. He makes bows and arrows and helmets out of wood! Isn’t that amazing? He also likes guitar hero and Wii. I thought on these things and how exactly I could incorporate them in my lessons to help him better understand what he was reading. Praise God because tonight’s lesson with Christopher was a night and day difference from yesterday. In fact, I couldn’t get him to stop talking during the lesson! He was laughing and understanding and asking questions, whereas last night, I really had to work hard to pry even a few words out of him during the lesson. I was getting so excited and I could tell he was too. He finally found someone that he could relate with while learning English! I couldn’t be any more excited about what is to come with Christopher in the next 2 weeks. Tonight I saw spiritual growth from him. I saw questioning. His wheels were definitely turning. So anyway! Back to my day. We woke up, had breakfast, did our morning devotional as a team, packed our lunches, and went on our way. On our way to the school, we drove past a giant pole that was right in the middle of the road! Cars just drove around the pole. Its like the pole was there before the road was built and they didn’t care to take it out! That’s Barisas, Panama for you. We get to the school and once again were greeted by this dog that stands at the gate to the school. I got a picture of it. It’s the cutest thing! I’m not exactly sure why its there, but its so friendly. As we walked to the rooms where we would be teaching, students hung out the bars of their classrooms like monkeys screaming to us at how excited they were that we were here to teach them some English. We went to our rooms, and one by one students came in to set up a reading time for the week. For example, every Mon/Wed. from 12-1pm. All of the scheduling has been a complete mess. Absolute chaos. We have had several schedules given to us, none of which have been right. So we have had to be very flexible and just take whoever it is that comes in. Today I only had 4 students sign up, 2 of which I taught to today. We will get more students as the week goes on. Because we are in a public school, the students have to go through several stages of approval before we can actually teach them. This is why I was only able to teach 2 students today. The first was Ana Raquel Velasquez. She is a firecracker. She’s 15 years old and so full of life. She was not shy at all! She had very broken English so it was hard to communicate with her in conversations. When she talked slowly, she could put together sentences, but she would get so excited that she would begin to talk faster and soon enough she was speaking full Spanish. It was so funny, so I had to remind her several times to slooooow down. “No espanol.” We are going to have a lot of fun and I’m excited to get to know more about her. She is a very open person, so I know that there will be room for God to move. The only barrier with this student is the language. But God is bigger than barriers. My next student was Joy David Ariza. He, yes he, is in 12th grade. When he graduates, he’s going to study mechanical engineering, and when he is finished with that, he will to go to a musician’s school to play the clarinet. I had the name of this student before I saw the face and was expecting a girl. Because in the United States, Joy would be considered a girl’s name. I was caught by surprise when the lady said, here’s your next student. But Joy was a pleasant surprise. Joy is brilliant. He did SO well with his English. He was the most advanced student that I had. I had to remember back to my grammar classes at school to answer some of his questions. He was asking what the past, present, future, and past participle was of certain verbs! Whoa! Not only was he doing that, but he was comprehending the story with deep thoughts. Joy challenged me, but the smile on his face when he understood his verbs was so rewarding to me! In the middle of the lesson Joy starting giving ME a lesson in Spanish! I said wait no no no I’m here to teach you English. He wanted so badly to give me some of his Spanish knowledge. The verb we worked on was alabar, meaning to praise. He taught me about past tense and present tense and how the accent changes when the tense changes. Spanish is harder than I thought. But I’m going to learn more. Joy was the first Christian that I had. All others were Catholic or Jehovah’s witness. Joy is very very interested in knowing Jesus better rather than just knowing more about him. There is a difference I have learned. With no more students, I was done for the day. So was Taylor and so was Sarah. However, Terry had one student schedule for 4o clock. So although we were done at the school at 2, we had to wait until 5, when Terry’s reader was finished. So what did we do? Walked around the school of course and talked to el estudiantes. The students are required to wear uniforms, but this day was “jeans day.” Apparently the school has a dance team that will be airing on tv tomorrow on channel 2. I didn’t quite understand, but the jeans had something to do with supporting the dancers. While walking around, I really got to know Taylor better. She told me about her testimony and this lady is such a woman of God. Her story would have brought me to tears if it weren’t for a bunch of students standing around. I didn’t want to create a scene or get stares, so I held it in. But her story is incredible. Taylor is such a blessing on this trip. She is the only one that knows Spanish well enough to communicate. So when we get lost on the roads or need to figure out our schedules with the principal of the school, Taylor completely saves the day. Oh I forgot to mention a tiny little detail. We aren’t allowed to wear shorts at the school. It’s rude and informal. So yep, you know what that means… Pantalones all week. Oh ya, one more thing. I only brought one pair of pants on the trip because its Panama and its unbearably hot. So I will be wearing the same pants everyday for 2 weeks. Excluding only Saturdays. But comfort was not the reason I came to Panama. I came to Panama to tell about God’s love, so sweating in pants all day is no sweat… haha… there’s one of those jokes I laugh at and no one else does. Anyway! Finally we get back to the house, where Delores had spaghetti cooked up for us. We weren’t able to eat the French bread because somehow the little tiny ants got to it. We didn’t have much of an appetite for bugs, so we tossed the 55 cent French bread. I told my team how Seth called the Parmesian cheese ParmJon cheese, and it made me miss him a lot. I also tried Plantain for the first time. It’s like a cooked mushy banana. So the texture is awful, but the sweet flavor is amazing. It’s a cross between a mango and a banana. I like Plantain. When we were done eating dinner, Sarah and I quickly did the dishes, put the left over food away, and got ready for our night reading sessions. First came Christopher, which I already explained. Second was Christian, the talker from last night. Again, another wonderful, God-given conversation. Tonight was trickier for me though because the lesson was on Mary and the birth of Jesus. Christian worships Mary, and had several of his own thoughts on that. I’m not here to argue or try to prove what I think is right. I’m hear to show God’s love and plant a seed. So I simply told him what I thought to be true and quickly moved on. Christian is a quick reader, so we got through 3 lessons tonight. I think I’m going to bump him up to the next book, which is more advanced so that he can have more of a challenge. Also tonight, I got to meet Christopher and Christian’s younger sister. She had no where to go, because her mom is one of our readers as well, so she tagged along. Her name is Cristen and she is such a doll. When they all left the house around 8, we heard a cell phone ringing and it was their mother’s phone. She had left it. But Papito was calling and neither Sarah nor I know any Spanish, so we didn’t answer. I adventured my way through the phone trying to get to the list of contacts. Luckily the word in Spanish for contacts is contactos! I found Christopher, the youngest of my readers and called him, knowing that he speaks English. He didn’t know who I was on the phone. So I whipped out my Spanish saying “Maestro de Ingles. Me llamo Jaclyn, Si?” Impressive right?... no not really, but it worked! They came back to get the phone and the mother had bought us Panamanian sweets as a thank you. What a sweet lady. I hope that I can learn something from her. Sarah and I tried the sweets. They were the sweetest chocolate/carmel I had ever tasted. It was very good, but I could hardly eat one little piece. Its only 10 here, so hopefully I can get to bed earlier than last night because I know that each day will be longer and more full. God Bless you all and thanks for checking in. Goodnight.
