News from the Mission Team

news from Christine  . . . . . . Sun, March 21, 2010 6:55:29 PM

I am soooooo tired!!!!!!

 It is the end of the day on Sunday. We went to church this morning, at Iglesia de Cristo and then we went to the big mall.  It was nice but I am not in much of a shopping mood because I am sooo tired, you heard me right :)))) Not in the mood to shop!!!  That’s not why I came here anyway. 

Yesterday we had a very long day.  We went to Porto Bello, Colon, Coronado and to El Valle.  If you look it up you will see that is was a very long day.  We left at 7:30am and got home at 11:30pm.  Although, I did put my feet in the Atlantic ocean and the Pacific on the same day.  Portobello was cool.... such history! And Coronado was beautiful.  The beach sand is black because it is lava.  Oh and when we were at the Atlantic (I can now say I have been to the Caribbean) it started raining and it was sooo warm. The waves were rolling in and it reminded me of just how AWESOME our God is !!

It is so interesting to see the difference in the way people live.  The flowers here are beautiful and huge!!!!! The only thing is, there is a lot of trash everywhere in the city.  I find that a bit sad since it is so beautiful here.  Today on the way back to Brisas we went through the city and saw old Panama and the ruins that are still there. 

Oh yeah!! I saw my very first fire fly in El Valle!! It was beautiful!  We also saw hot springs in el Valle.

Veronica and I bought some special mud for our faces at the hot springs that is only found in Lakewood, Colorado for quite a price.  We paid $2 !!! 

The people here are so nice and I am really starting to feel a lot more comfortable in my classes.  It’s so interesting how God works and how if you just let go and let God it really does work out. I feel so inadequate, mostly because I am not a teacher but it is His entire plan and I am leaving it up to Him and just doing the best I can. 

Christine

Panamanians!    J    2010         3/19        

“Chocolate Chips”

For some reason I awoke with this strange, unexplainable amount of energy. Yeah right! That won’t be happening anytime soon! But I did wake up with the excitement, or I should say, the rush of trying to find flour, and chocolate chips!

Today is Jack’s Birthday!! It is a wonderful thing when you are on a trip out of country and someone has a Birthday! It gives you a kind of energy when you get to celebrate something. Especially when it is someone special like Jack!

I awoke to the rush of, “Oh dear, there is no flour for the gravy!” Or, “My goodness there is nothing for the Biscuits!” and the final, which I searched for myself, “I NEED CHOCOLATE CHIPS!!” So I was sent to search the kitchen for chocolate chips to put in the pancakes to make a special breakfast for Jack.

I discovered something very fundamental when you are going to prepare a meal; you have to have the whole “prepare” part somewhere in your plan. But seeing as we were told just the night before that Jack’s Birthday was today, we did alright. Veronica was a whiz, as always, when trying to prepare an “on the fly” special breakfast meal. But you really should have seen the special candle we got for Jack’s Birthday pancake. (It was a real “hot” one.)

It was a wonderful, amazing, perfect, match. Yup, a match. The one’s where you use them to go “whoosh!” and light a fire! It took several tries to actually keep the thing lit. Unfortunately though, it decided to go out just as it was set before Jack at the table, and at that point we just gave up, and had him just pretend to blow it out, and sang Happy Birthday.

Today was our last day with the Preschool kids. It feels really sad that I won’t see my little Shaun, but it’s been difficult to fully rest and have our mornings when you have to head over and prepare for class. I have come to really love those kids! 

Nothing extraordinarily exciting has happened, but I have had some great conversations with some of my students. (Besides discussing fruit!) I have really been enjoying my stay here! Please continue to pray for us as we try to let God guide us on this crazy trip, one Panamanian step at a time.

Love you all! 

God Bless!

~ Andrea

P.S. By the way, I did find the chocolate chips; I didn’t want to leave you on tenterhooks!