Last month at Zoe International Christian School was a lot of fun! It was our team’s first month alone, just us.
We partnered with the school to teach English, lead devotionals to the different grade levels, and decorate the school for parent open-house. We also power washed and re-painted the tennis court and went to their second location to paint a surrounding fence.
Some of the students!
We had a little fun power washing! 🙂
Painting with precision 🙂
Decorating for open house!
It was great getting to play with the kids and pour into them all month!
Our team with more of the students the day we said goodbye.
But I think our biggest strides were with each other and as a team. We learned what it’s like to really press into community with one another through the fun movie nights and frustrating tiffs about when we should turn off the lights for “lights out,” or “who took my phone charger.” We did everything together! Except maybe morning quiet times and showers! We ate together. We sang and worshipped together. We argued and sought resolution together. We confided in each other. We shared in each other’s struggles and victories. We prayed together. We served together.
Our sleeping arrangements. We got close 🙂
We take our team name the “K SHAKES” seriously 🙂
Spending Easter together.
I’m so grateful for this team and what they’ve showed me thus far on the race as to how so seek God with all my heart, how to be a good teammate and friend, and how to always have a servants heart.
I’m proud to share with you, The Kingdom Shakers Vision Statement!
This month I have the privilege of serving alongside these amazing Kingdom Shakers in Panama!
So far we are doing well! We love living in a house! It’s been a nice change from the floor of a classroom! We each have a bunk bed and it’s been nice having our own space to cook our own meals and hang out as a team.
There are 2 separate ministries that we are working with this month. The first is the “Light House”, which is a house located behind the church we attend here that is home to about a dozen girls from the surrounding native tribes. They are provided free housing and meals, so that they can attend school, which would otherwise be difficult to get to since their families live anywhere from 1-3 hours away in the mountains. They are able to go home and visit their families on the weekends. At the house, we’ve been re-painting the girls bedrooms and bathroom and also cleaning and insulating the ceiling tiles throughout the whole house. It gets so hot in there with the tin roof! It’s already making such a huge difference in the house (temperature wise)!!
We can now add insulating ceilings to our resume! 🙂
The second ministry is called “IC Jesus.” That our ministry hosts, Danny and Heather, are involved with. Heather has been working with a 6 year old boy, named Moises, from a tribe on the reservation in Oma, which is about an hour north of San Felix in the mountains. Moises is deaf and when Heather met him just a little over 2 years ago he had no language or way to communicate with his family or within the community. She had to start from scratch, not only to teach him sign language but also a base language from which to even understand signs. Karyn, on our team took ASL in college and since I have a desire to learn, I’ve partnered with her this month to go see Moises and continue his studies while Heather is away. He’s pretty shy and always takes a while to get comfortable and warm up to us, but once he does, it’s just incredible how much he likes to learn and play!!
Signing “family” with this sweet boy, Moises!
Be looking for a blog on him soon! 🙂
For now, I’m just enjoying another month of opportunity to spend time with and serve with my team, the Kingdom Shakers!!
The Kingdom Shakers, ready for our next adventure together!
**Financial Update – If you’d still like to support me financially on this journey, you still can! My last fundraising deadline is coming up at the end of April and I need $3,268 to be fully funded.**
