The team got here safe and sound! We picked them up at the airport late Saturday night and got them settled in at the mission house. Taylor and I got back to our house that night around eleven o'clock and had an early morning the next day. Breakfast started at eight at the mission house and then we left for church at nine. The church, Belen, was a short twenty minute drive away. It was bigger than the church we visited last year (which was four poles, a tin roof and dirt floor). This church was open and was fairly big. We sang a few Spanish songs and then the team went up on stage to introduce themselves. Cory, the leader, talked a bit about what we are going to do while they are here. After the pastor spoke everyone in the congregation moved to different rooms based on age and gender. David translated the message to us and it was still a little hard to understand it all. But the message was basically about having patience and putting all our trust in God. Even as Christians that can be hard, but we have to have faith and patience (you all know the Fruit of the Spirit:).
We came back to the mission house for lunch, which was PB&J and rice with chicken and sausage. Then we had a few hours to rest up before goin back to the church for an evening service which Cory would lead. Tania, Patricia, Claudia, Crystel, and Luisa came with us and while the team napped we hung out and acted crazy (as usual). At four o'clock we left for the church and walked through the neighborhood inviting people to the service. There was a good amount of people there and one of the girls, Jordan, from the team lead worship. The whole team sang on stage and then Cory spoke. He started off talking about the differences between us and people who live in Nicaragua: our skin color, language, culture. The theme he centered his message around was one thing we all have in common: we are thirsty. Whether our thirst come from dehydration, or wanting to have a good time, or for health reasons we all are thirsty. However, there is only one person who can quench our thirst: God. Overall, it was a great message.
When the service finished we swung by the grocery store to get a snack. Jumbo, another leader, kept asking the girls if they needed anything else and it's safe to say we went a little crazy. Ice cream, chips, apples, candy, and drinks... Dinner was at 7:30 and we had meat, rice, and chips with bean dip. We all headed back to our house soon after and Taylor and I went to bed almost immediately. In the morning we would have to get up at 4:30.
It was an early morning for us, but it was worth getting up because we visited La Panamá school today. We got there a bit before eight o'clock when all the kids were showing up. The team introduced themselves and we all sang a song with the kids. Then they went off to their classes and we began our rotations. There were four teams and Taylor and I were on team #2. Each team had the same lesson plan. This week is the first half of the team from Ketucky and they are doing lessons 1-3 this week and the second half is doing lessons 4-6 next week. The first lesson involved a small skit, a craft, and a game. The kids especially loved it when we brought out the soccer ball. There were four buildings at the school and it was only elementary aged kids. During recess it was absolute chaos. There were kids running around everywhere and they would run up to us with notebooks and pens asking for our names.
We were at the school until close to noon before heading back to the house for lunch. We really enjoyed going to the school and already made lots of little friends:) Gotta go for now, but I will finish the rest tomorrow! Adios!
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