Not all of you know this, but Michael on my team prayed that God would remove any distractions that were getting in the way of working for the Lord and completely submitting to Him. He prayed this during our first or second week in Guatemala. The next day my computer broke. I can still use word documents to type up blogs, but it doesn´t always save them without crashing and I am not able to get on the internet on my laptop. So basically I can only use it when my teammates are not using their computers and when we have access to the internet. We finally have access to the internet today (we are at an internet cafe in Panama) and I thought I saved my blog to wrap up my time in El Salvador on my flash drive, but once getting here and putting it in the computer I realized that I do not have it. So I am going to post that blog at a different time.
We left El Salvador on November 30 and headed to Granada, Nicaragua to spend time with our whole squad, our squad leaders, and our squad coaches. It was great to be able to spend time with all of our squadmates and to get to process how our time has been and hear the experiences of our other teammates. We were able to relax and regroup and we left there on December 4. We headed with four other teams to San Jose, Costa Rica though we were not staying there. Our bus ride was in the morning so we took a couple taxis to a hostel for the night. Then we got up early and went to the bus station.
Brooks tried calling our contact several times but was unable to get a hold of him. He was able to get a hold of another contact who told us that she has also been unable to get a hold of our contact, Jose, for several days and that maybe we should just plan something else. Um, ok… We were excited as we took this to the Lord and began to practice our ATLing (Asking the Lord). One teammate clearly heard God tell her that we need to get on the bus and wait. Another heard Him say that we don´t need to worry about tomorrow but that He will take care of each day. I felt that God was telling me that I simply have to trust Him and this has been a running theme in my relationship with God for the whole trip. So we got on the bus and waited it out. Emily started up a conversation with the guy next to her and he told us of a retreat center he was going to live at that was owned by a guy from Michigan. That sounds cool, right? However, Michael sat down and had a conversation and was convicted by the Holy Spirit that that was not where we were to be going. So we waited it out.
We ended up getting off the bus at our destination which was the border of Costa Rica and Panama and an English speaking man approached us who happened to know our contact and directed us to the border where we met Jose and then crossed into Guabito, Panama. Praise God! He truly directed or paths and was faithful in taking care of us. So we are staying at Jose´s house this month, which is beautiful! I will take and put up pictures soon on my photobucket account. I will also put my my pictures from El Salvador soon, too! Again, it´s difficult to keep up with blogs and photobuckets without your own computer, but I will put in more of an effort. Jose is a pastor and we will be teaming with him and other local pastors to help plant churches. I´m not sure exactly what that is going to look like so you´ll have to stay tuned for further blogs.
Oh, by the way, I know I told most of you that the plan was to go from Guatemala to Nicaragua and then to Costa Rica. In general, that is what most of the teams have been doing for these three months but our team has been special I guess. For November, when we were in El Salvador most of the teams were in Nicaragua but our team was blessed by being able to spend time in Nicaragua as well at the debrief. And now the majority of the teams are in Costa Rica, but we are in Panama, but I think that we will be able to spend a couple days at the end of the month in Costa Rica before heading off to Asia.
Well that´s what I got for now. If you have any prayer requests please send them my way either through the link to contact me on my blog or through email. Blessings, friends!
