Uplifted

Praise God for this amazingly blessed time in my life! I am so thankful that God closed so many doors and left this trip wide open for me to step into. He is so faithful in his promises. He knew that I needed to be here, away from home and away from so many comforts and guards in my life. I needed to be completely separated from so many things, people, events, and habits that were really taking my focus off of the life that I should have been living… and being the woman that I was made to be. So often I found myself only being able to explain this experience and all of the emotions that came with it as “humbling.” I was being humbled before myself, man, and my God. I felt completely naked, unveiled, and vulnerable to the world around me and all the while being in a continuous battle over the many challenges that were hitting me in ever direction at any point of the day. But it is those very challenges that have really brought me to the point of really forcing me into great growths and maturity. In James chapter 1 it says "The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position". I have never understood that verse until now. I mean I am really seeing life from a WHOLE new perspective. And I feel so privileged to for this chance to do so.

Now I am so rejuvenated and so receptive to this place. I am so glad that I am able to call Panama home for the next four months. Everyday I fall more and more in love with the people and the culture here. What a great place this is! Really. Jami and I are constantly listing the many things about our lives here that we will miss when we go home: Taking taxis (because they are just a great source of so many good stories), the completely laid back Panamanian way of living, the traditians that will catch us off guard (for those of you who are not aware- sugar water is a nice way to cure mosquito bites and you eat a milk and rice pudding when your infant gets his or her first tooth), how insanely blunt people are here- your weight… your facial hair... you name it and they will say it! And so many other little treasures that makes life here so simply delightful.

*Please go and read Jami’s blog and be enlightened on a lot more of our hilarious adventures here*

I just can’t believe that this is our last week with Summer School and our readers in Curundu! Just as everything is starting to really get into a nice routine- everything is changing! We have really developed some great relationships with our readers over these last weeks. Two of our readers went with some of us girls to a little island just off the coast on Saturday. We spent a nice long day out on the beach and walking around the quaint little town. I daydreamed about running into the school’s principal and them telling me they had a need for an English teacher there- but it did not happen. Our readers are constantly bringing us fresh fruit and absolutely delicious Panamanian food, they invite us to their houses and out to movies, and we really are becoming friends with these individuals and I will be so sad when they are not in our daily lives anymore! But please keep them all in your prayers, as we are here to serve them and hopefully plant as many seeds as we can and really show them the love and power of Christ and His family. Next week is the start of VBS and that will definantly keep us busy. We are really hoping that this will be drawing in the youth around the communities and their parents as well.

Well it is late and I am exhausted from this long day. Tomorrow will be even longer… summer school, readings, and then a small group meeting that the people from the church and our readers are invited to. It’s a great opportunity for them to practice their English as we read a story in Matthew, play games and sing songs in English. And it’s also a great opportunity for them to build relationships with one another. And tomorrow night is a POTLUCK! So the people from the states are bringing food from there and the people from here and bringing some yummy Panamanian food. Yummmmmmm can’t wait!

I’m going to end with some words that I read the other night in “Waking the Dead” by John Eldredge. It’s a great book that I recommend to anyone.
And that is why living from your glory is the only loving thing to do. You cannot love another person from a false self. You cannot love another while you are still hiding. How can you help them to freedom while you remain captive? You cannot love another unless you offer your heart. It takes courage to live from your heart... ‘I desperately want to be who I am. I don’t want the glory that I marvel at in others anymore. I want to be that glory which God set in me.’

A verse on my heart

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
Philippians 3:7-14