Panama Update 2

As I was walking the halls of the hospital today I was trying to narrow down which story I wanted to tell tonight...Not an easy task let me tell you, but I finally figured out which one it would be!


***So New Year's Eve was by FAR my favorite day of our days in the village of Montelirio. We were throwing a New Year's Eve party for the village complete with pinatas, games, and serving dinner for the village. Well there had been some initial mix up on what time the party started and so my little group got to go out to all the huts in the village and inform the that we were starting at 4 and not noon...we had lots of other planning and organizing for the party so we were ONLY going to tell them the time change and praying at the huts my group had visited the day before. WRONG. God had much bigger plans for that day, including 11 people accepting Christ on our little stroll that day :) One of the houses that stuck out to me was one we had been to before and shared the evangecube with but not to the 3 girls who were there that day. After chatting with them for a little bit we asked if they had accepted Jesus as their Savior and they said no, but they wanted to! Great! We asked if anyone had shared the cube with them or if they had heard about salvation. They said no one had talked to them but they had been coming to the meetings in the evenings and had been learning about God and Jesus. Apparently that was enough for them :) We spent another hour with them sharing the Gospel and making sure they knew why they needed a savior and the whole time Moises was sharing you could just tell that they got it! It was soooooo cool. In this village and culture if their were men around then the women would repeat the prayer silently and the men would pray out loud with us. However with these three women there were no men around and when they prayed all three of them prayed with such strength and desire...not gonna lie, I teared up a little :) ***





Moises, one of our local contacts, sharing the Evangecube (a picture cube that has images that go along with the gospel) with the women in the story above :)

Panama Update 1: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways," declares the Lord

Hi everyone!!!

I just wanted to report back after the Panama trip. It was amazing!!! One of the main rules of missions it to be flexible and to surrender your expectations to God because God is sure to do things His own way. I tried to go into the trip with very little expectations mainly because besides the fact that we would be in villages sharing the Gospel I had very little idea what was going to be going on. There are sooooo many stories that I can’t possibly imagine telling them all on here but know that God was moving in these people long before we got there and I pray that He continues to move in them and grow in them long after we have gone. I’ll share a few of my favorite stories over the next few days. Here’s the first one:

***Each day we would go around to the different huts in the village to share the Gospel, pray with people, and just talk to them and learn about their lives. On our first day out we went to the hut of one women who seemed completely uninterested in us, in what we were saying, or even us being there. The whole time we were talking to us she barely made eye contact and an uninterested “Uh huh” was pretty much the only response we could get out of her. She did allow us to share the Gospel with her and then told us that she wasn’t feeling well and allowed us to pray for her. We went on our way and I didn’t think too much about her the rest of the day…As we were heading back to the school where we had pitched our tent myself and my English to Spanish translator got separated from our native language translator, Amelio. Once he returned to the school he shared with us what had taken him so long. As he was walking back he was walking past this ladies hut and heard her calling out to him. She wanted to accept Christ and so he prayed with her!!!***

Sometimes the words don’t come out right. Sometimes it feels as if you did everything wrong and well you hope that you do better next time because you are sure that there is no way God can use what just happen. Sometimes you discount people by their initial reaction to you or even to the Gospel. But this is just one of the stories of God teaching me that I can’t even begin to imagine how He is working in someone’s heart even if it’s not evident to the people around them. Isaiah 55 says, “so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” Such a sweet promise!!!

I'm Baaaaaaack

Welcome back to blog amazingness. I know, you've all probably missed getting to hear all about my adventures and random happenings around the world. Well, fear not! The blog is back to stay for the rest of the semester. When I'm not traveling I'll continue to update with what God is teaching me, where He is leading me, and maybe share what some of my friends are up to!

So once again, welcome back or welcome for the first time to the craziness that is my life and my mission. Hope you enjoy!!!