I'm gonna pop some tags......

We were sitting at a Panamanian restaurant and all of a sudden the Panamanian music stopped and Thrift Shop starts and now it's stuck in my head.

Sooo, Tuesday the Baseball guys did their thing in the morning and the rest of us went back to the Bible School where we painted the kitchen and their study room.  We also had a lot of dirt to move up the hill to the back of one of the buildings so they can eventually pour some concrete for a back porch.  The Children's home where we painted the kitchen and study room currently has 26 kids who aren't necessarily without parents.  Most of them come from families who just can not provide food for them so the home has taken them in to feed them, give them a safe place to stay, send them to school and teach them english.  It really is a great thing they have going.  Plus it is on the same property as the preaching school so the kids interact and learn from the men and women at the preaching school.  It is definitely a place that I'll miss.

Wednesday we went about 3 hours outside of the city to a place called middle of nowhere Panama.  We went to a school and worked with a green energy organization called New Earth Panama.  We planted about 25 trees and there was a presentation for the kids which promoted a cleaner earth.  They talked about how God created all organic things that can be broken down in nature and how man made things such as plastic bottles and wrappers and etc. can't be broken down.  The kids then grouped up with the Americans to plant trees.  It was a really cool thing to do.  The guy that started New Earth Panama played baseball at Texas A&M and after graduating he played in a few Central American countries.  He lived 11 years in the States where he started an organization called Batting for Christ, I think.  I can't remember if that's the right name but it's close to that.  They would hold baseball camps and give away equipment while sharing the gospel.  When he moved to Panama he started New Earth Panama which grows organic fruits and sells them to individuals and restaurants all over Panama.  They have recently started a campaign to teach children about the effects of littering and ways to clean up the country.  They plant trees and give trees away so that schools and individuals can produce their own food supplies.  He said that two weeks ago he knew that this project at this school was upcoming but he had no help.  He is the only one working for New Earth Panama and has about 25 volunteers but no one could go to this project.  He said he prayed about it and lo and behold he got a call saying a bunch of Americans were going to be in the country and needed something to do.  He said it was a lifesaver.  He ended up having 2 volunteers of his show up too so it turned out to be a great event.  He buys the trees himself and then just gives them to the schools and any trees that they can't plant they give to local people to plant at their houses.  It a pretty awesome thing he does.  Check out his facebook page, New Earth Panama.

Only got $20 in my pocket....(such a stupid song really)

Today we went back to the Bible school and painted some more at the childrens home and moved more dirt.  we had a little bit more of an opportunity to play with the kids and it was a really fun day.  Tonight while on our way back from dinner we stopped by the ruins of the old Panama City from the 1400-1600 when the old city was thriving.  The guards let us in even though they were closed and it was dark and that place was really neat.  The catholic cathedral was huge and hopefully we'll be able to go back Saturday and this time I'll actually take my camera.

My spanish has come back quicker than it ever has.  I can almost hold a conversation in spanish but my vocabulary needs a little work.  I can understand a lot but I just don't know the words to say back yet.  So ordering dinner has been fun because I don't really want the translators to help.  Monday night we went to eat at the mall and I went with Hannah, an intern who is fluent in spanish, to this restaurant that looked pretty good.  So I ordered chicken (I'll type this all out in english so it makes more sense).  The lady asks what kind of chicken and so I say well what kind do you have.  She named off 3 types, like fried, baked or spicy and so I pointed to the picture, like any good gringo would do, which was grilled chicken and said that one.  She says, "Oh pollo normal" or "Oh normal chicken".  So my response was why wasn't that one of the choices?  So then she asks for my sides and I say fries and she says well you get one more.  I say rice and she says what kind, white or yellow.  I answer with white and she says we don't have anymore.  So I say well yellow and she says how about double fries and replied ok whatever.  The whole time Hannah is just standing there laughing her head off because she thinks it's just as crazy as I do but it's not happening to her so she laughs.  So then Tuesday night we go to this steakhouse.  The guy asks me what I want and I say I want the steak.  All he says is NO and turns and walks off.  I'm like what the heck.  So like 2 minutes later he comes back and asks what I want and I say chicken and he says, so you don't want steak?  He says it in like the questioning tone like I can't believe you don't want it now.  So I'm like you just said you don't have steak and he says oh we do now....He must have left for two minutes and gone to kill a cow, i don't know.  So then Wednesday night we go back to the mall and I go to the same restaurant as I did Monday because the chicken was good and so were ALL the fries.  So I walk up with Jose, another intern/translator and ask to order the Churazzco, another steak (steak is ridiculously cheap like a 10oz steak for $7 with 2 sides).  The guy says sorry we don't have steak right now do you want Chicken and I just walked away while Jose laughed his head off.  So ordering food has NOT been a good thing for me so far but tonight it went pretty well.

I think tomorrow we are going to watch the Panama team play the Freed team and then we have some government thing at a school.  I'm not too happy that we are not going to be going back to the Bible School because that place is awesome.  But it is what it is, the only way you can fall in love with a new place is to leave the one you're at and go to a new one.  So here's to the next place we go although hopefully I'll be able to make it back to Bible School and Children's home here in Panama someday.

Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours.  Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.
1 Chronicles 29:11

Off we go on another adventure!

It’s that time again!  Yesterday a group of 19 of us flew into Panama City, Panama (not Florida).  We’ll be here for 10 days and then 7 of us head to Costa Rica to meet up with another team but for the next week and a half we are in the capitol city of Panama.  It’s my first time in Panama and just from the first full day here it looks like there is a little of the best in the world and a little of the worst.  The city has some awesome skyscrapers.  It resembles Atlanta much more than San Jose or Tegucigalpa.  The architecture is incredible like this one building that twists all the way up.  Hopefully I’ll get a picture of it soon but it is pretty wild.   There's a massive island that they are building just off shore, something like Dubai is doing.  The casinos seem to be on every street corner but between the tall buildings and huge apartment complexes, between Donald Trumps tower and the Hard Rock café are the places that remind you that you are in Central America.  The tiny little block and wooden houses, dirt streets, and the garbage lining those streets are all a reminder of the poverty that exists even in Panama City. 

This week we have a few members of the Freed-Hardeman baseball team with us.  They will be spending their mornings working out/scrimmaging players from a local baseball academy.  Panama has produced quite a few good ballplayers over the years.  They have this guy whose thrown a few good innings.....ok maybe a lot of great  innings for the Yankees, Mariano River.  While the players are playing baseball the rest of us will be working at a local preaching school and children’s home doing various things and also with some government officials doing a few projects for them. 

Today,  we were up at 6:30, ate and left to drop off the players at 8.  Then it was off to the Bible school where we were able to see the place and a few things we were going to be doing.  We didn’t really do anything there because most of the people in charge weren’t there but it’s all worked out.  We have 2 people who have been planning this trip for us.  Minor Perez has been in contact with the Bible school and had set up work for us to do there all week.  A former baseball player named Roberto from Panama has been talking to the government officials and told them that we’d be working with them all week.   Minor currently doesn’t hasn’t renewed his visa to leave the U.S so he wasn’t able to come.  Roberto was playing baseball for a Panama team and was signed to a play in the minor leagues in the states so he isn’t here either.  So basically we have no idea what we are doing….at all.  So we were at the Bible school and the government people randomly called (not randomly for them, this was on their schedule but not ours) because they had scheduled us some things to do which worked out perfectly since we couldn’t do anything at the Bible school.  So we like painted some benches in a park and some slides, swings and seesaws, you know the kind of stuff you write home about...well really it's all we did that I can write about…. But it was fine, we had fun doing it and a little paint may have been thrown, not saying I did it but some people may have gotten more paint on them than they wanted J. 

Just in case you haven’t been to Panama I thought I’d tell you IT’S HOT!!!  Choluteca hasn’t got anything on this place.  It’s like mid August hot plus some and sooo humid.  We were watching this little grasshopper hopping under the bushes and as soon as he hopped out of the shade BAM! he just exploded.  It’s that hot.  Buuut… I’m not complaining, just trying to paint you a picture that says it's hot and that’s how I like it.  It’s much nicer than if it were cold.

The hotel we are staying in is sketchy at best.  Go Google Hotel Caribe, Panama City and read the reviews.  You would think if your room number starts with a 2 then you’re on the second floor, but not here.  It’s actually the 4^th floor.  So when Riley, another intern, and I go looking for our room we make it to the second floor and are wondering around until we come to this nearly pitch black hallway with doors hanging off the hinges all the way to the end of the hall, honestly we couldn’t see the end because it was so dark.  The only way I know how to describe it is to reference the movie Taken.  You know the scene when Liam Neeson breaks into the place where they are holding the girls hostage and he finds that one girl who has his daughters jacket….?  Yea, I’m pretty sure the hallway I walked halfway down last night was the set for that scene except there were doors hanging instead of curtains.  Thankfully only a couple of floors up the rooms were a lot better but it’s still sketch and I’m pretty sure we aren’t in a very good part of town.  So thank you Minor, you’re getting blamed for this just fyi, for this wonderful hotel that you are actually not going to have the pleasure of staying at.  But the best stories aren’t made at the Hilton, they’re made at Hotel Caribe and we all love to be in a good story…if we survive haha.

But it is bedtime and I'm still a little tired from our plane whose departure time was pushed back an hour and then after boarding sat on the runway for another hour and a half...which means we didn't land till after 11 last night and didn't get to the hotel 'til 1.  I just want to give a shout out to Lebron, good job tonight in putting away the pacers.  Keep giving those haters a little more to hate.

The wifi here is kind of spotty but I'll keep you up to date with what we are doing as best I can.  Patience IS a virtue and it will be tested by this wifi.

Whoever said patience is a virtue, I want to hurt him

There are a lot of things that I don’t like; sushi, spiders, losing at ANYTHING, super sudoku’s, putting/water hazards.  But the one thing I’d have to put right up there at the top of the list is waiting.  I really, really don’t like to wait.  If there’s something I want then I want it now.  I ordered a cable for my car so that I can play my ipod as I drive and it’s not here yet and it’s driving me crazy.  If the person in front of me doesn’t go when the light turns green then you might hear me say, “Come on, what are you doing, let’s go!!”  If I’m on the tee box and someone is taking their sweet time taking their second shot, I get restless. Thinking big picture though, I think I know what I would like to do with my life and I know that it is a process to get there but dang it, I WANT IT NOW!   Foreign mission work is where my passion is at for many different reasons.  I like to travel, I like experiencing other cultures, I like meeting different kinds of people, and of course a desire to share Christ’s message with those who haven’t heard it, meet the needs of people who are struggling to survive, and learn lessons of faith, trust and belief from those who have every reason in the world to throw in the towel.  But I think God gave me some of those likes or interest so that I’ll be willing to go.  I think those are things God has placed in me in order to lead me to the place He wants me.  It’s hard to take someone who doesn’t want to leave home and send them out into the world to spread the word of Christ (although it’s not impossible, at least not for God.  I think Moses gave a pretty good argument as to why God shouldn’t choose him but God wasn’t going to take no for an answer).  But anyways, I think God has given me these interests and desires so that when He comes calling for me to go, it won’t take much convincing.  The problem I have with that last statement is the word ‘when’, when God comes calling.  Remember I said I don’t like to wait.  Spending my summers in Honduras makes me want to go back as soon as I get home and stay forever but like I said, I think it’s a process.  God has his own timetable and I understand that but it doesn’t make it easier.  I can even look back and see how this process has unfolded through things that have happened in the past and are leading me to where I want to go, notice I didn’t say where God wants me to go, we’ll get to that in a second.  I even woke up this morning and thought about how great it would be to go build a house out in Mololoa or even on rock mountain in Santa Ana.  I want to go and I want to go now but I can’t and I HATE IT!  And the hard part, I hope you follow me on this, is that I could easily go but I can’t.  I could get on a plane and go share the great news of Christ with others, build houses, feed the hungry but God’s timing isn’t my timing.  I’ve looked at different mission organizations and different places around the world where I could be a part of a short term mission but long term is different, it’s a process (or so I keep telling myself).  I want to go, it’s easy to go but I can’t because I don’t think God is quite ready to send me.  God is still preparing me and it’s easy to see that I’m not ready just by my impatience.  I can see things that He is working on in me, and then there are things that I can’t see but either way, as much as I want to go, I don’t think I’m completely ready but all I can think about is how much I want to go.  One thing that helps me keep my sanity is knowing that many others have had to wait too.  God provides a great example.  Remember Joseph?  That guy who was 2^nd in command of Egypt, who was the head of Potiphar’s household?  Well that same guy that spent at least 2 and as many as 13 YEARS in captivity before becoming 2^nd in command.  You don’t think he got a little impatient sitting in jail all that time.  There is even a verse where he tells the cupbearer to remember him after he is freed.  You don’t think he wanted out and wanted to go back to his home land?  He was ready to get out and was trying to find a way out but God said, “Hey, not so fast”.  He still had a plan for him and a reason for keeping him in jail.  Joseph had moments when he wondered what God was doing just as I have but we have to remember it’s a process, this is God’s time frame not ours.  God was still with Joseph even though Joseph wasn’t where he wanted to be.  God had a plan and a reason and we have to remember that.  There may have been moments when Joseph doubted the overall plan, times when he was impatient with God and questioned why he was still in jail but the fact is, he stayed true and faithful to God.  Joseph wanted out and he even put his trust in the cupbearer to help him but we see how well that worked out, the cupbearer forgot about him.  Another thing we have to remember is when we put our faith and trust in God, He may have a direction for our lives that we aren’t anticipating.  Joseph thought he was going to be in charge of Potiphar’s house for a while and then all of a sudden bam, he’s in jail.  God had a reason and a plan.  For me it’s easy to envision the plan I want.  The problem is that it may not be Gods plan.  Joseph didn’t want to be in jail, I would assume, just like I don’t want to keep going to this boring job and school every day (although he probably wanted out of jail much more than I want to be out of school) but we have to remember that God is the author of this story not us.  Remember I said I can see how God is leading me to where I want to go?  Well maybe that place isn’t where God wants me and I’ve got to understand that.  I have to realize that maybe I can see God taking me one place when in reality He is taking somewhere completely different.  I have to wait until He is ready to put me where He wants me, but it’s so hard to wait.  God is the author and when we try to take the pen into our own hands we usually screw something up.  That’s one place patience comes into play.  We have let God write the story and be ready to act when He’s ready to write us into His story.  So in other words we have to wait.  We have to wait for Him to get us to the right point spiritually, emotionally, sometimes physically, mentally (and maybe some other things that end in –ally that I can’t think of right now) so that we can enter His story at the precise time, the perfect moment, that exact instance when years and years of effort and many sacrifices that came before us come together and we do the things He has called us to do.  Joseph had to wait too, but Joseph had to wait in jail because that’s where God needed him.  He had to be there, in jail, for this reason, to form a relationship with the cupbearer and baker and prison guards so at the proper time he would have the confidence of the cupbearer so that he would refer Joseph to the king so that he could interpret the kings dream about the great years then the bad years Egypt would face so that the king would trust him and make him 2^nd in command and then he (Joseph) could save the food that would lead his family into Egypt and eventually into captivity so that Moses could…..and so on and on until Jesus came, conquered death, set us free from sin, gave us hope of a relationship with our Father who created it all and set it all in motion and is now the one I am trying to be patient with so that He can use me in His story. Guess what?  GOD HAS A PLAN, A GREAT PLAN.  A plan that is far greater than I am or you are.  But we have to be patient.  We have to see how God prepared all those people in the Bible for the things He had for them to do and realize we have to do the same thing.  Hopefully the place you are at while God is preparing you isn’t jail, even though sometimes it might feel like it.  Sometimes it isn’t where we want to be.  The key is that we still have to trust that God knows what He is doing and in the event that He calls us to something we love or didn’t have in mind, we still have to be ready and willing to enter the story in whatever He wants because guess what? God knows best.  We have to be patient, I have to learn more patience, as He molds and forms us into the right person for the tasks He has for us.  I still don’t really like it but I understand it.  In the end Joseph had put his trust in God and that is what I am trying to do, to wait and see what God is going to do in my life.  Probably won’t be as great as Joseph, most likely not even close, but that doesn’t matter, what matters is that I play my part in God’s story.  GOD HAS A PLAN, a great track record, a perfect story going.  Are you going to write your part or be patient and willing to act as He writes yours?