Not Enough

Short and sweet… I’m leaving to go visit my brother Andrew in Volcan this weekend. He is with the rest of the DTS on outreach. I’m really looking forward to seeing him again! Leaving at 4am Friday moring! Later

Hard to believe it’s been two weeks now since the beginning of my trip to Florida. Time is going by really fast. The trip to Florida really was a lot of fun, thanks to my good friends the Mocklers. They picked me up in Miami about lunch time on Thursday when I arrived. From there we tootled around a bit before making the trip back across Florida to Marco Island. Marco is about 25 min south of Naples on the gulf side, just north of the 10,000 islands. It’s a really georgous area; lots of nice beaches and so on. So lets see what did we do….. I think we went to the beach about every day. It was only a few minutes away and it’s really nice. (Imagine 100 yards wide by several miles long of pure white sand) We went jet sking a couple times. I had never jet skied before, but it was great fun. Even got to see dolphins out there, lots of them. Like whales they have to come up for air, so it’s pretty common to see them. Some place not far from marco was said to be the best shark fishing in the world just a bit ago, so I did think about them too a when I fell off the jetski, but we didn’t see any. We did a couple things with a young people’s group at a church in Naples. Both events included good homemade food so that was really nice. One was a concert and the other was playing ultimate frisbe for about 3 hours. Seemed like a pretty good group of people. Que mas…..hmm we stayed up really late most of the nights… Yeah, there were lots of other things too. Mockler hospitality was great. And it was also a good spiritually encouraging time. It was a really great trip. I feel like there’s lots more I should say, but I guess this is all for now.

This last weekend I spent at a youth retreet with Crossfire. We left Friday night and went out to palabra de vida camp about an hour and a half from the city. I think about 150 youth we’re there, plus like 25 of us leaders. I think it was a really good weekend. We had lots of teaching and worship times, small group and solo times, and of course youth camp fun and games. One thing we didn’t was sleep a whole lot. between Friday and Saturday night I got about 7 hours. The guys and girls were devided up for most of the weekend, becasue the teachings were specificly aimed at one group or the other. They delt with a lot issues that they didn’t want to talk about with everyone together. Us guys talked about pride, our secret thought life, how to treat girls. Then we had a jount session with the girls where we talked about how we really don’t have the power to live all the things we talked about; we don’t have the power to live the christian life, but we have Christ living in us and He does have the power. Basically the thrust was that we need stop trying so hard to change ourselves and to let Christ live His life throught us. It was good stuff! Anyway it’s Wednesday and I’m off to youth group. Hope you guys are doing well!! I’ll try to write about my trip to Florida sometime soon. Adios!

How are y’all? Life’s going ok here. The big news is that I’m going to Florida this Thursday. I have to leave Panama to renew my visa, and I have these great friends on Marco Island that I really wanted to visit, so I’m going up there for several days. My other visa renewal option was to take the bus to Costa Rica and sit in a hotel for 3 days till I can come back into Panama. (Sound exciting??) I’m really looking forword to the trip. It’s going to be a blast hanging out with the Mocklers. I’m also looking forword to seeing some of FL. I’ve flown through Miami at least a couple times, but otherwise I’ve never been to Florida. I’m still kind of considering moving to FL as an option for this summer. I think there would be lots of good things about moving there. It sounds like I could get a really good construction job, and also there are lots of flight schools in Florida. The biggest drawback is that I’d still be kinda far from the rest of the family, who are all within a few hours of each other in the midwest. I really want to be able to see them more often again. I’d probably just end up flying home a lot for long weekends. I think tickets from Miami to Chicago are pretty reasonable. I’m really hoping to get some more clear direction from my time there in the next few days. If nothing really looks like a go there then I think I’ll be going to Chicago. I think something is going to work out well.

Lets see, in other news, we haven’t had any water at the base for some time now. I think we had some complications with our water pump, but lately we havn’t even had water come in to be pumped. It’s getting really old not having water, but were surviving. Hopefully it’ll come soon. Umm que mas? Teniamos unos tacos que estaban muy rico para la cena. La unica problema es que comi mucho, demasiado comida. Y ahora tango que hacer la cosa que haces despues que comer :-p y no hay agua en los banos. Que voy a hacer?? Ok that’s probably more than you wanted to know, but I had fun writing it. Hope you all are doing well!!

So yeah I apologize for the lack of posts in the last… well quite a while. There’s tons of stuff going on, so I’m not really sure where to start. All of you who know me well, know that I’ve been thinking about leaving Panama sometime this summer. I’ve been talking with a lot of you about all this since last fall, but it’s becoming a lot more official on this end. I had “the talk” with Rich and told him what I was planning on doing, which is something that I put off for a long time cause it’s never fun to have “that talk”. It actually went really well. I was a little concerned that he would say I should stay here, and that leaving would be kind of an issue, but it wasn’t that way at all. He seemed to totally understand that I wouldn’t want to be here in the accounting office long term, and actually really encouraged me that when you are young is the time when you do need to be out there trying different things and learning as much as you can. Yeah, so that was a load off my back. Now other people are finding out left and right, and I’m getting to explain things again. It’s a little uncomfterble but I guess it’s all part of the process. I am going to miss this place, but I feel like it’s time to move on. I’m planning on coming back to the states, working and getting into aviation. Think I’ll start with just a private pilots liscense, but if all goes well I’d like to go to school and get a comercial liscense either for helicopter, or just plain old plane. It’s going to be a big change being back in the states and all, but I have peace that God is guiding my decisions and that I’m in His will. IN OTHER NEWS…. Hmm lets see…. I’m planning on going to FL in a couple weeks to visit the Mocklers and check out Marco Island. I’ve really wanted to go and visit them in FL, and I have to renew my visa that lets me be here in Panama, so I’m going to have a dual purpose trip. I’m really looking forward to it. Otherwise I’m just working away here in the office and around the base. Tonight I’m going to work with my 6th grade boys at youth group. That’ll be an adventure as always. Hope you all are doing great!

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.