Panama has not disappointed , our hosts and ministry has been amazing. The location gets an A+ as well. Thank you to Jason and Tabi Kleese for sponsoring the 1st and the 2nd, The Kurtz family for sponsoring the 4th, Grandmom and Papa Jack for sponsoring the 8th, and the Wirths for sponsoring the 13th!
June 1st:
Due to the last minute change in going to Panama instead of Nicaragua, we stayed a few days in Panama City while our ministry host partners prepared for our teams arrival. June 1st was our last day in Panama City and I decided to go hiking at Metropolitan Park. The park itself is a “dry lowland pacific forest” which is rare due to deforestation and even more special because it’s within the city limits. It was a beautiful hike with a great view of the city.The night ended with going out to eat our first Central American dinner.
June 2nd:
We traveled to our ministry site for the month and met our hosts. The bus ride here was nice filled with reading, good conversation and movies (including introducing the best movie ever made, Hacksaw Ridge to my squad mate Kenadi). When we got to San Felix, our host picked us up and took us to an outskirt town where we have been staying. That night we learned this was going to be a good month when our host took us out to eat at a burger place around the corner and we learned we were only a 5 minute walk from the beach.
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June 4th:
This was our first day of ministry partnering with I C Jesus (as we spent June 3rd attending two church services). A lot of our ministry this month, as it was on this day, is in a nearby village called Oma. Oma is a land reserve for native Panamanians. The locals there are impoverished despite the fact they have plenty of land. The problem is in the fact that they don’t have the resources to start up businesses. As their land is their only possession of value and theirfore their only source collateral offering when applying for a loan, the banks won’t give them a loan to help them start up their business because the banks can’t take the land because it’s a native land reserve. The ministry plan our host has for this village is to reach the youth by playing sports, teaching English and having bible lessons. The goal of this is to instill the Christian faith and raise up a generation of Christians who will both ideally share their faith with their family and as they grow older generate a better community. A community that will have a desire to work together and freely give to one another to help each other grow. On this day I was working with the preschool/elementary school aged kids and it took me back to my time working at daycare the patience I had learned to have in that time.
They day ended with getting to call home to talk to my cousin who was celebrating no longer being a teenager! Welcome to the 20’s Jake!
June 8th:
As I talked about in my prior blog, this was a tough day to be away from home. Our ministry for the afternoon was cancelled so our only ministry was a vacation bible school like event in the morning. We played soccer with the kids along with teaching them songs, English and a bible story. In the afternoon I managed to get WiFi good enough to watch Ryon’s wedding. Being friends ever since 4th grade, his wedding was a hard one to miss but I was happy to watch a livestream and video call in during the reception. Later that night I was also able to call come to talk to my dad to say happy birthday. Unlike my cousin Jake, we won’t talk about how old my dad is ;). I had missed his birthday the last couple years because of working at camp but missing this one was a little bit harder. Miss you dad, see ya in 72 days!
June 13th:
We were back in Oma again where this time I was a part of the group helping lead the sports part of the program. We played basketball and soccer and as always the youth had a great time. After the games we had our bible lesson time. After worship, but before the lesson, I led a game designed to teach the concept of working with instead of against one another to accomplish your goals. Specifically, I taught the concept of a non-zero sum game, where just because one person wins it doesn’t mean someone else has to lose. So I had everyone get a parter to play the game. The game was arm wrestling, every time the other persons hand hit the table you get a point. You play for a full minute and whoever has the top two scores win a prize (which was sharing my second peanut butter and jelly we had packed for dinner). The normal reaction would be to try to out muscle your opponent and try on your own strength to get as many points as possible. However, the trick to the game is you and your partner could just alternate back and forth freely giving points to the other person to boost up both of your scores so both of you can be successful and win. No one caught on and did this during the competition but it was cool to see the lightbulbs come on after I explained how they could have worked with one another instead of working against them. This was something I learned back in my sophomore year of college, like I haven’t forgotten, I pray this is something that will stick with them. At the end of the night 3 of the youth accepted Christ as their personal Lord and Savior which was amazing to see and be a part of because at the end of the day that’s why we are here.
