Panama Part 1

I don't even know how to describe this experience, this place. I am in Panama! A piece of a poem keeps running through my mind
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life, which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that is keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)

I carry your heart with me
by E.E. Cummings
It best describes how I feel about this place, right now. How I feel about God. How I feel about those I love most.

A week ago outreach began, with 30 plus hours of travel time. . .

It all started in Kona with 30 of us, classmates, flying out on the same flight. Airport arrival 7:15 am. Flight Departure 10:17 am. So naturally being photogenX we took some pictures while we waited.This is me and my ex-roomie Amanda

( a tiny tear just slipped down my face. I miss you Amanda!)

It was actually a pretty fun day - make that 2 days. There were some serious good times. From Rachel waiting until the captain announced decent into Honolulu to fall asleep, to 30 people taking pictures of each other yet again at the gate in Atlanta, to convincing 2 men that they really did not want their seats so that Me, Marilee and Alaina could sit together, to trying to fill out the custom forms written in Spanish.

Lulu waiting for the plane

Laura several minutes later also waiting for the plane.

On one of the long flights I ended up sitting alone, and in my boredom I turned to my Bible (i figured that sounded like something a missionary would do on a plane. lol.) I ended up looking up all the scriptures in the Bible with the word faith in them. In that small chunk of time of my life God revealed to me some amazing awe inspiring glimpses of His glory. It has left me wanting more.
so that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Romans 10:17
And then I arrived in Panama and my luggage didn't. . .

I have so many stories I want to tell you about Panama so far, about how I got my luggage back, about the living conditions here, about living on the Panama Canal, about trecking through the forest with indigenous people, about helping an indigenous tribe after a storm, about alligators, and praying for a deaf girl on the street who doesn't really speak english, about being talked to by police who don't speak english while we can't speak spanish, about slipping and falling in the mud, about all of these things that God is doing. But I have to go to sleep. Tomorrow morning I leave for three days to stay in an indigenous village called Arrabachi, I will come back for one night and then go out for a week of going to different Emberra (this is spelled wrong but I am not Panamanian so I should be forgiven for not knowing how to spell this : ) tribes in the Darien forest. I hope to blog again soon and tell all of these stories, and I ask for your prayers as I go on this amazing, thrilling, hair raising, God inspired adventure.

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called on one hope of your calling;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and
through all, and in you all.
Ephesians 4: 4-6