Hola from Panama!!!

Hello everyone!

Just wanted to drop a quick line saying hello! We just returned from the San Blas Islands (Kuna Yala), where each of our teams was on a different island. My team was on an island of almost 400 people called Soledad Mandinga, where we did VBS, English classes, worship gatherings, a baptism service-oh, and we planted a church. :) We did have a few mishaps, like one person falling out of their hammock which necessitated a clinic visit (guess who got to take them? ;), and the boat ride to the islands was an experience I´m not keen to repeat, but-all for the glory of God! We´re here in Panama City to rest up for a few days and then we are going to the jungle for another week or so! God is doing amazing things here in Panama, and I am excited to see what will come in the jungle!

In Him,
Bethany

I will be in Panama in less than 24 hours.

And my prayer is this: God, may we not leave Panama unchanged.

Amen. Amen, amen, amen.

Bethany

Garden Valley/Panama!!!

I am sitting in the SAC on a borrowed laptop utilizing the wireless internet service found on campus. Tomorrow I register for Panama and start my training! I'm very excited and a bit nervous as well because I want to do a good job as a country assistant. I will probably cry when our plane lands in Panama City because I LOOOOOVEEEE Panama SO MUCH!!! I am not excited about the bug bites I'm likely to incur but I am SO EXCITED to be back in Panama in just a few days! I am hoping for a ranchera burger (really really good) and a Kuna mola blouse and a mola with turtles on it.

As I prepare for this return to Panama, I am getting more and more excited about what the Lord is going to do this summer. I can still remember specific things that were said when I went five years ago that altered my life irrevocably, and I want the Lord to do that much and more in the lives of each person on this trip. It is a large project-over 100 people I believe-but I think the Lord has something amazing, incredible, and awesome in Panama this summer and I am SO EXCITED to be a part of it!!!

I've been volunteering the last week or so and having a blast doing so, but I am disappointed that I have not yet managed to procure a snow-cone. That will soon be changing, I assure you!

Please be in prayer for the Lord to move this summer, in the hearts and minds of both the nationals and the missionaries, and that all would experience the freedom bought for them by Christ on the Cross.

May the grace of our Lord be with you, now and always.

Bethany