A thick blast of hot air met with my face as we walked out the doors of the airport and onto Panama soil. This has definitely been the hottest country we have been to so far and this is even their winter! Welcome to Central America! A layer of hot sticky sweat stays constantly on your body, yet the downpours are the best! I have never seen it rain so hard and fast! The other day, Christina and I ran back to the house during a downpour because we had been told that the house we are staying in has flooded in heavy rains. The owners are gone training some teams in Mexico so we get to stay and watch their house while we are here. As we were running back from the church, we quickly realized that our umbrella was of no use! Laughing as we were soaked from head to toe and literally running upstream ankle-deep in water, we finally made it back to the house to find out that the bathroom and utility space by the back door was flooded and still coming in. Barefoot on the concrete, we desprately started sweeping and bucketing out the water. You see, the pipe that is connected to the shower and utility sink is plugged and we are still trying to find someway to fix it or to dig holes in the back yard to assist with the draining. To remove the water from the shower, we have to bucket it out. One of our methods is to stand in the bucket while showering- that helps keep it a little more contained and from your feet to not touch everyone else's shower water! A cold shower has never felt so good in my life! The shower is a pipe coming from the wall about the size of a garden hose, and oh does it feel good!
Bugs, bugs, bugs! You aren't as shocked when seeing a fifty cent piece sized spider in the corner of the bathroom after you saw and removed a spider the size of a teacup saucer. One of the biggest cockroaches said goodbye forever under the pressure of my Chaco. I feel like bugs just stick to me sometimes. I am sure many more stories will come! Apparently there are alot of bugs because I woke up my roommates by wacking my bed and saying some random things about something on me in the middle of the night! haha! There are times you want really want a spoonful of sugar in your homemade iced coffee and there are ants in the sugar. What do you? Just avoid the ants, forget what you saw and enjoy your sweetened iced coffee. Yep, problem solved.
The weather, the bugs, you'd think I might want to come home by now. But I don't. I love it here. The culture and everything, even the bugs and weather! It doesn't mean that it isn't a challenge by any means but just that all of it is an opportunity to see more of God. And also when God has a plan for you, He will walk you through the hardships and adversities and somehow help you see the good out of it. How each culture is so different, how people can live in tropical areas and live in mud and wood homes and be so happy. Even the bugs. Seriously, God is pretty creative when he made all sorts of creeping things.
Genesis 1:25 " And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good."
Ministry this month will be pretty diverse but so far it's been great! We are partnering with some YWAM missionaries who reach an indigenous tribe call the Wonan. The people we are interacting with speak Spanish, but it is their second language. Most of the kids are on a school holiday this week so we are putting on a VBS in the mornings. We have also been doing house visits in the evenings where we get to visit with the local families and pray and encourage them. It is beautiful and completely changes your perspective about life. I will share more specifics about house visits in future blogs. We are also going to travel a few hours east for another week to work with more indigeous in a port area. We might even be able to help plant a garden of coffee and more in order to raise money for the community! Excited for my month in Panama! More to come.
