For those who may be confused as to why a sponsor is posting this, I have another account I posted under before we became a sponsor. I have decided to just use this account to post up stuff.
Going to try to not write a book on my mission trip, but there were a lot of things that happened down in Panama.
Roughly 70-80 missionaries were on this portion of the trip. Mostly middle school and high school students. Those who were older were generally leaders or assistants while we were in country. My group consisted of about 17 people. The time we spent together drew us close and I consider them family. Amazing to see a group of teenagers on fire for God and His Gospel. While in Panama, we visited two villages, one on the San Blas Islands and on in the Darien Jungle. These villages were the homes of the Kuna people.
The island was called Tikantiki, populated by around 200 or so people. Most people on this island spoke fluent Spanish on top of their native language. Made it easier to communicate with them. During our Hut-to-hut ministry (a group of 4 plus a translator), we ran into two woman who stuck out to me.
One was a blind woman who sent out her husband to get us. She wanted prayer for a fever she had. After prayer multiple times for her, her fever went away and she felt much better than she did before, saying she could see better than before. We made a connection with this woman, visiting her 5 out of the 7 days we did this ministry. We learned a lot about her family and she learned a bit about us as well. On the last day, she cried when we told her we were leaving. I was really moved.
The other woman we met has a unique story, which I heard before we knew she was on the island. She gave a missionary her child roughly 20 years go to raise in the United States. Now the daughter was looking for her. They found each other and within the next year, they plan on meeting each other face to face. We were able to take a couple of pictures of this woman and record her and the family talking to the daughter. These will be sent to her via Facebook and the recordings will be translated for her as well. I am super excited to hear how this all will transpire.
The other connection I made on the island was with a boy by the name of Alberto. I don't remember many of the names due to how complex they could and usually were. This little boy was all about running around and walking on his hands (He could does this for a few minutes at a time). During our vBS we put on for the children, he would usually sit next to me and if we were playing a game outside, he was next to me. Most of the communication we had with each other was through very simple Spanish and hand gestures. One thing that stuck out to me was one time during Arts and Crafts. The kids were drawing on a heart-shaped cutout and after Alberto was done with his, he wanted to give it to me. I told him that it was his to keep, which I am pretty sure he understood. This just warmed my heart and I thank God I was able to meet this boy.
The jungle village we visited was called Ikanti, populated with roughly 800 people. I heard a few different numbers shot out of how many people were there, so I could be off by a hundred or two. 800 is the low end number. In this village, most people spoke a minimal amount of Spanish, thus making communication difficult. Luckily for us, we had 3 more translators that knew how to speak the native language. This portion of the trip was physically exhausting due to the size of the village and our walk from our drop-off to the hut we were staying in. We also had the spiritually difficulty of teach them about Jesus Christ, since most of them didn't know about Him. On the island, most people had heard about Jesus. Our VBS was a little more chaotic, due to the amount of kids we had. The first day of VBS had about 175 kids show up, which was larger than the largest amount of kids we had the island, which was 126. These kids also had more energy and were rougher when we played with them. I really didn't feel like I connected with any particular people in this village. There was one little boy who seemed to be attached to me. His name was close to Michael. I had difficulty pronouncing it. The things we were able to see was changes in a deaf boy's eyes after we prayed for healing. There wasn't a full restoration of his hearing, but something was going on in him. I got to experience the teenagers prayers and their complete faith and boldness they had for their prayers. Was an amazing thing and one I've never experienced before.
My trip was an amazing experience. God taught me a couple of different things on it. One was to live boldly and with faith. I had an experience with God at 3am one morning and was taught this. There other was a slow changing of my heart. I now look at everyone with a genuine love for them (especially kids) that I've never had before. I know I will be going back to Panama for 2-3 years to preach and teach in as many villages as I can visit.
There is my trip in a nutshell. There is a lot I didn't talk about due to how long this post is going to be to begin with. I've told people about this trip a few times and the length of time it takes varies somewhere between 45mins(very short version) to about 2 hrs. If anyone has questions about the trip, please post them as a comment or just shoot me a PM. You can also contact me through my personal email if you'd like. Just PM for the email.
Going to try to not write a book on my mission trip, but there were a lot of things that happened down in Panama.
Roughly 70-80 missionaries were on this portion of the trip. Mostly middle school and high school students. Those who were older were generally leaders or assistants while we were in country. My group consisted of about 17 people. The time we spent together drew us close and I consider them family. Amazing to see a group of teenagers on fire for God and His Gospel. While in Panama, we visited two villages, one on the San Blas Islands and on in the Darien Jungle. These villages were the homes of the Kuna people.
The island was called Tikantiki, populated by around 200 or so people. Most people on this island spoke fluent Spanish on top of their native language. Made it easier to communicate with them. During our Hut-to-hut ministry (a group of 4 plus a translator), we ran into two woman who stuck out to me.
One was a blind woman who sent out her husband to get us. She wanted prayer for a fever she had. After prayer multiple times for her, her fever went away and she felt much better than she did before, saying she could see better than before. We made a connection with this woman, visiting her 5 out of the 7 days we did this ministry. We learned a lot about her family and she learned a bit about us as well. On the last day, she cried when we told her we were leaving. I was really moved.
The other woman we met has a unique story, which I heard before we knew she was on the island. She gave a missionary her child roughly 20 years go to raise in the United States. Now the daughter was looking for her. They found each other and within the next year, they plan on meeting each other face to face. We were able to take a couple of pictures of this woman and record her and the family talking to the daughter. These will be sent to her via Facebook and the recordings will be translated for her as well. I am super excited to hear how this all will transpire.
The other connection I made on the island was with a boy by the name of Alberto. I don't remember many of the names due to how complex they could and usually were. This little boy was all about running around and walking on his hands (He could does this for a few minutes at a time). During our vBS we put on for the children, he would usually sit next to me and if we were playing a game outside, he was next to me. Most of the communication we had with each other was through very simple Spanish and hand gestures. One thing that stuck out to me was one time during Arts and Crafts. The kids were drawing on a heart-shaped cutout and after Alberto was done with his, he wanted to give it to me. I told him that it was his to keep, which I am pretty sure he understood. This just warmed my heart and I thank God I was able to meet this boy.
The jungle village we visited was called Ikanti, populated with roughly 800 people. I heard a few different numbers shot out of how many people were there, so I could be off by a hundred or two. 800 is the low end number. In this village, most people spoke a minimal amount of Spanish, thus making communication difficult. Luckily for us, we had 3 more translators that knew how to speak the native language. This portion of the trip was physically exhausting due to the size of the village and our walk from our drop-off to the hut we were staying in. We also had the spiritually difficulty of teach them about Jesus Christ, since most of them didn't know about Him. On the island, most people had heard about Jesus. Our VBS was a little more chaotic, due to the amount of kids we had. The first day of VBS had about 175 kids show up, which was larger than the largest amount of kids we had the island, which was 126. These kids also had more energy and were rougher when we played with them. I really didn't feel like I connected with any particular people in this village. There was one little boy who seemed to be attached to me. His name was close to Michael. I had difficulty pronouncing it. The things we were able to see was changes in a deaf boy's eyes after we prayed for healing. There wasn't a full restoration of his hearing, but something was going on in him. I got to experience the teenagers prayers and their complete faith and boldness they had for their prayers. Was an amazing thing and one I've never experienced before.
My trip was an amazing experience. God taught me a couple of different things on it. One was to live boldly and with faith. I had an experience with God at 3am one morning and was taught this. There other was a slow changing of my heart. I now look at everyone with a genuine love for them (especially kids) that I've never had before. I know I will be going back to Panama for 2-3 years to preach and teach in as many villages as I can visit.
There is my trip in a nutshell. There is a lot I didn't talk about due to how long this post is going to be to begin with. I've told people about this trip a few times and the length of time it takes varies somewhere between 45mins(very short version) to about 2 hrs. If anyone has questions about the trip, please post them as a comment or just shoot me a PM. You can also contact me through my personal email if you'd like. Just PM for the email.
