Day two in Panama

Last night I woke up several times and could not fall back asleep. I didn’t have much on my mind. I wasn’t nervous for the morning at all. So it must have just been since I was so hot and possibly because of the 5 hour time difference. We fell asleep to twilight and I thanked God that I didn’t wake up in the middle of the night to the scary killing parts. I woke up to the cute fun parts. I finally fell back asleep, yet I didn’t know what time it was because there is no clock in the room and when I put my phone on airplane mode, there is no time on it. Speaking of that… praise God because for some reason, I just happened to glance at my phone right before I fell asleep to double check the alarm. It was then that I noticed the alarm was set, but there was no time or date showing on my phone. Meaning the alarm would never go off. I whispered over to Sarah and she made sure that her alarm was good to go for the both of us. If I hadn’t of checked my phone, whoops, I would have missed my shower time which I definitely needed. At times when I woke up in the middle of the night, it was SO loud. People do not go to bed here. An entire family was playing basketball outside our window until very late. People were washing their cars even. If I was at home, I probably would have been frustrated. But I wasn’t at all because I know that is their culture and they were having so much fun out there. So I woke up at 6am today, took a shower… should have taken a cold one because when I got out, it was SO humid and hot. Now I know for next time. We got up, made our lunches and ate breakfast (fruity pebbles to be exact). Then we had a devotional which we will do every morning to make sure we keep focused, be reminded of why we are here, and to get prepared for the day. Then we were on our way to the jr. high/high school. We have to pay 6 dollars each way to the school because of toll roads. It’s still much cheaper and quicker than going around. But 12 dollars a day gets expensive. We get to the school and they were not expecting us until tomorrow so unfortunately we had no students today. BUT we got to take a tour of the school and oh did I fall in love. It most certainly is my calling to teach in a school like this. It was so different, so interesting, and like a piece of heaven to me. The others didn’t think so as much because the building was run down and classrooms were literally outside with jail bars around them. But the students were beautiful, the life of the school was heaven to me. And I was lost in my own little world. I want to learn Spanish. I want to teach here or at a place like this. I could not contain myself today. Didn’t know whether I wanted to shout and jump for joy or cry. So I was speechless with the biggest grin on my face. Maybe that’s what it will be like when I see Jesus. The students I found out are taking finals and then going on a break similar to our Christmas break in America. Panama’s summer is from December to February. I asked Delores’ about their seasons. She said we only have 2 seasons... hot and wet. We’re in the wet season and the drops are the size of baseballs apparently. I actually haven’t seen it rain yet. I assume its something like that of Mississippi. After that, our adventure began. Raul, our connection to the school wanted to be a good host and take his visitors out to lunch. We were going to meet back at Dolores’ house and head out from there. Unfortunately Raul’s car broke down somewhere in the middle of nowhere in town. I say the middle of no where because there are ZERO street signs in Panama. You can’t say I’m on the corner of ___ and ____. Some of THE funniest moments happened during this adventure, which I will wait to tell you all about when I get home. I’m going to list them here though for my memory when I tell you all: Taylor and the phone aggravation/hearing loss, roller sockey, spoon in window, farting buses, soldados de Cristo. Anyway when we finally made it to Raul’s broken down car, and I mean finally… after about 3 hours, he was gone. Just abandoned his car. So we called him and he said he just decided to take a taxi. Why he didn’t call to tell us that an hour earlier, we don’t know. But we all were laughing and it was a great moment together. He felt so bad because in Panama, you must entertain your guests or you’re not a good host. He was upset that he could not entertain us, when really we all were ready to get back and nap. Oh how I love that my team loves naps. So this is how a normal day would be… be at the school by 10 and teach there until 4. Drive home and eat dinner quickly. Teach at the house for 2 hours from 6-8pm. One student for each hour. So the majority of the day is highschool students, and at night at the house, we teach to adults. So although the school couldn’t take us in today, we still had readers from 6-8 tonight. What an absolutely beautiful experience that was. Christian was my first. He arrived late, but that is to be expected in Panama. He was late because he had to sell a certain amount of tickets for the day for his raffle, and he hadn’t completed that yet. Christian is 17 years old and loves to talk. He was the perfect student to have for the very first time. His English was very advanced. We clicked right away and had lots to talk about. I had to remember to slow down my speech. Often times I got ahead of myself and forget that he barely knew any English. We began our lesson and things could not have gone any smoother. I give 100% glory to God for what was discussed during this session. God gave me such wisdom and helped me to think quick on my feet today in the most natural, conversational way. With Christian, somehow (to God be the glory), we talked about the importance of the Bible. He told me that he believes in the Bible but really doesn’t care to read it because its just like any other book and he has many other things to do. He couldn’t figure out why the Bible was so important to me. I told him that it was my guide, it was my way of life. I created an illustration so that he could better understand. If I wanted to know Christian (my student) better, but I could not see him, and he had written a book about himself, I would want to read it in order to get to know more about him. I said in the same way, I want to know Jesus, so I read the Bible. Wouldn’t you read a book about me if you wanted to know me but couldn’t see me? This completely clicked with Christian. Then we started talking about the Catholic faith. He said I don’t believe that you have to go to church every Sunday and read the Bible to be a Christian. I said that’s exactly right, you don’t. People in the olden days didn’t even have scripture before the Bible was written. And I said, its not about how many times you go to church or how many pages you read of your Bible, it’s about a relationship with God. People… this is the FIRST lesson and we are having conversations about God. Don’t tell me God’s not working. Then I explained to him that God created us for fellowship and as I described earlier, he gave us the Bible as a guide so that we wouldn’t have to go through life blindly. By the end of the conversation, Christian was getting frustrated because he had SO much to say but didn’t know how to communicate all of it with English. How incredible. Here is an open heart right here and God is moving. I told him about a Spanish bible. He said I don’t like to read the Bible because it’s too long. I don’t like to read. I said me too Christian! I don’t like to read. I said but look, you’re reading the Bible out of your workbook here, a smaller portion that doesn’t look so scary. You don’t have to read the whole book in one sitting. So we discussed that for awhile and he was feeling hopeful. I’m excited for my next lesson with Christian. The last thing he said to me was, “I think God has a specific plan for my life, just as He did for Luke and Theophilus (from the lesson we did during that session) Next session was with both Cassandra y Christopher. Christopher is 13 years old and he is a teenager for sure. He did this program 9 months ago with Jack (a guy from Davis Park Church) and all I’ve heard about this Christopher kid is that he is rebellious and hard to deal with. He doesn’t talk and gets bored quickly and just wants to leave. Not going to happen with me. We went through the first lesson and ya, he was bored. I couldn’t really tell how good his English was because he was so adamant about not talking. Like I said… teenager. I asked him if there were any words that he didn’t understand and he said nope, I know them all. He’s 13… I knew he didn’t understand them all. So I got my teacher pants on and a little enthusiasm and we ended up started having a great time. We found words that he didn’t know, go figure haha. He was a bit stubborn, but after the lesson, I decided to just get to know the kid and see what’s up. Soon enough he was talking and talking and talking. Found out he loves guitar hero. Found out his mom calls his family Los Cristos because all of the sibling’s names starts with Crist. Then I noticed a habit about him. He LOVES to give a thumbs up. Does it after everything he says, so man did we make a lot fun and smiles out of that. He had a great time and again all glory goes to God that I was able to connect with him on a relational level. “Oh ye of little faith.” This kid, yes, is rebellious and stubborn. But this is a child of God and I was able to see potential in him. I can’t wait to be a teacher. As I bring life out of the students, so do they bring life out of me. On to Cassandra, a 16yr old girl. Cassandra was shy. Once we got to talking, we got more comfortable, and I asked her if she was nervous. Then she began to open up. She said that normally she’s a loud person but this experience was all new to her. I did my very best to make her feel comfortable, and thanks be to God, she warmed up! I cannot wait to do sessions with her everyday! She has much trouble with her English, but I can tell she wants to learn. It will be exciting to see how she grows by the end of the 2 weeks. After our students all left, the four of us went to grab a bite to eat at Pio Pio. So good! I love Pio Pio. Fried chicken and rice. 4 of us ate for only 10 dollars! Amazing! Now we’re back at Delores’ getting ready for day 3. I trust God that tomorrow will be a blessed day at the school with the students. I’m so excited for what tomorrow brings! God is good si? Si! Buenas Noches…

PS- A geco is crawling up the window I’m looking out right now. Its really really cute! They are everywhere, as well as dogs. The dogs are everywhere. I think I’m turning into Jake because most of my pictures are of these adorable stray dogs that I just want to take home.