Not Enough

Hello All

     Life is keeping me pretty stinkin these days. Last week was the NIKO that I wrote about in the previous post. I think it was a smashing success. Not completly without problems, but all in all it was a really great time. Some of the students were really impacted. Now I’m back in the office trying to catch up before my family comes tomorrow night. Did you hear that? My family is coming tomorrow night!!!! WOOOHOOOO!!!!! It’s going to be awesome havin them here; I’m really looking forward to it. Otherwise I’m just keeping busy with all the normal unusual stuff. Sorry this post is so short and boring. At least it’s not long and boring, right? I’ll try to write something more interesting later.

This week I’m going to be staffing the NIKO program that we’re starting up here in Panama. My first NIKO experience was in Costa Rica during my DTS, and then I’ve staffed one other NIKO. So this is going to be my third time doing a NIKO.  I’d love to tell you all about NIKO, but nobody who hasn’t done NIKO is supposed to know about it. It’s kind of a wilderness adventure camp I guess. It focuses on hearing God’s voice, developing leaders and teamwork. The reason no one is supposed to know the details, is because the participants not knowing what’s going to happen makes the experience much more valuable for them. (and they’re still willing to do it!! just kidding)

My first NIKO wasn’t really too hard for me. Probably the most diffucult thing was just not knowing what was coming next. Even during the NIKO they don’t tell you what the next activity is until it’s time to start. Though this wasn’t easy I think it was good for me. It really forced me to stop thinking about the “next thing” and start living in the moment. This is something that I still need to learn more about today. It’s good to make long term plans, but it’s easy for me to think so much about the future that I don’t make the most of the present. I think God wants us to live in the here and now. Not in the past, and not too much in the future.

This NIKO I’ll have a fair amount of leadership responsibility. I think I’m really going to learn a lot from this experience; maybe even more than in my NIKO. So anyway you probably won’t hear from me for the next few days, but you all are used to my spratic posting, so I guess it won’t be a big deal. Hope you all are doing GREAT! Pray for us….

Hello old friends
There’s really nothing new to say
But the old, old story bears repeating
And the plain old truth grows dearer every day
When you find something worth believing
Well, that’s a joy that nothin’ could take away

And so we meet again
After all these many years
Did we sow the seeds we’re reaping
Now that the harvest calls us here
It seems that love blooms out of season
And much joy can blossom from many tears

So old friends you must forget what you had to forgive
And let love be stronger than the feelings
That rage and run beneath the bridge
Knowin’ morning follows evening
Makes each new day come as a gift

Rich Mullins

Ahh….. Here we go again. I’m sure you’ve all noticed, but I seem to have developed a pattern of writing several posts at a time, but then not updating again for a week and a half. I’d like to say this is going to change, and maybe someday it will, but probably not this week.

     In case you didn’t catch this from the last post my dad, mom, and sister are coming to Panama for a visit in about three weeks. Andrew and I are more than a little excited to say the least. It’s going to be awesome to have them here. I know they’re coming mostly cause they want to see us and what we’re doing, but I think mom and dad expecially are going to have a great time experiencing the different culture and way of life here in Panama. They’ve never been able to travel much, so this trip out of the country is long overdue.

     Not sure yet what all we’re going to do while they’re here. I’m assuming that they’ll want to spend a fair amount of time here at the base seeing what YWAM Panama is all about. We’ll probably do some other traveling around the country and site seeing as well. I know we’re going to have a great time. I love my family.

     Bueno. Creo que quiero escribir algo en Espanol. No estoy seguro lo que voy a decir….. Ok, una cosa buena es que mis padres, y mi hermana se van a venir a Panama en como tres semanas. Estoy muy emocionado por eso. Tango una familia muy bueno. Ellos van estar aqui por solo una semana, pero vamos a tenir un tiempo muy bueno. Casi no puedo esparar. 

     Escribiendo en Espanol es un poco deficil para mi. Aqui en Panama tango mucha experiencia hablando Espanol, pero nada mucho escribiendo o leyendo, entonces es bueno que estoy practicando. Tambien yo queria saber si ustedes podrian leer que estoy escribiendo. No es muy deficil.

     A pat on the back to the first person to leave the translation in a comment!

     Tanga un good day! Hope there’s not too many mistakes in this post.

     Ok so I do have some excuse for not updating for the last while. Last week I spent 6 days working with short term teams that we had here in Panama. We went back to the Boca del Monte village where we worked with the team from RCF a couple weeks ago. The project is mostly done now, there’s just some stucco left to finish. The kitchen is still primitive, but very transformed.

     We actually had two different teams up there at the same time. One was 6 people(4 from the same family) from a church that we’ve worked with several times before, and the other was a building team from a couple Baptist churches Maryville MO. The two teams worked together really well. I really liked the guys from Missouri. A good part of their team was farmers and builders and so on; guys that could make anything work, without many of the right tools or materials. Some of what they rigged up was pretty impressive. Working with these guys kinda brought back memories of my construction days back home. I really enjoyed working with the construction teams. It was some good times :-) 

Sorry it’s been soooo long since I’ve updated. Here’s what I’ve been up to…….