This morning we attended the church pastored by Pastor
Willis. The congregation is so large
that they have 2 Sunday school services and 2 preaching services in the
morning. I chose to go to the earlier
services. Pastor Bradley preached, so I
was able to understand the message, and the words to the songs were projected
on the wall, so I was able to follow the music.
Their church is also known for their strumming guitars. From what I’ve heard they even made a CD, but
we didn’t get to hear them today. I was
a little disappointed, but enjoyed the music nonetheless. For me, the hard part of going to church in
these other countries is that I don’t understand the messages and then my mind
wanders all over. I do have an iPod with
over 400 sermons loaded on it, so I can at least listen to preaching after the
church services. PTL for technology!
We visited the nursery briefly, and I thought it quite
clever that they string small hammocks across the cribs so that they can swing
two babies per crib instead of just having the baby lying in a crib. Wow – there was some volume coming out of
those lungs! If they can train those
voices they’re going to have quite the choir in the next 15 years or so.
I also noticed that they have three mission boards on the
wall listing all the missionaries whom they support (not just in Panama but all
around the world), and a faith-promise commitment poster. The Lord’s plan for getting out the gospel is
so effective! I love seeing it applied
all over the world.
After church I went back to the hotel and packed, and also
helped pack meds for the feeding centers. We loaded everything up for our long
drive to Chanquinola this afternoon. I’m
not sure it was supposed to be as long as it was, but it took us about 5.5
hours to get there. Along the way we
stopped at a little coffee house and got drinks, made a couple of bathroom
breaks. One break was at a bus station
where we had the opportunity to pass out tracts. Our route went over a mountain range, which
cooled things down considerably, and the roads had lots of curves. We had been warned to prepare for
carsickness, but thankfully that wasn’t an issue for anyone.
It was about 8:30 pm when we unloaded the vans at the hotel,
which was located in a strip mall. There
was also a Pio Pio (a fast food chicken restaurant), a Chinese and an Italian
restaurant, and an incredibly modern grocery store. When I say modern, I mean much nicer than
many of the stores in the States; the size of a large warehouse, a bakery, a
deli, a meat market, open 24/7 and all very clean. And the prices were great! I’d walk over to
the grocery store each morning to get yogurt for breakfast and water for the
day. Panama uses the US dollar for their
currency, so that made things even easier.
The hotel was definitely more along the lines of what I
would expect for a mission trip. It was
clean and sometimes had hot water, had A/C, and the beds were mattresses on a
simple frame. Of course, it’s always a
bonus to have Internet, too. J The proprietor is Chinese, and she informed
us there is a large Chinese population in that area. Who would’ve thought?
Ashley was still stuck with me, but it sure seemed a good
match in my opinion!
No comments:
Post a Comment