Week 1

Monday, July 26th we left Milton, Fl and headed south. We were thankful to be able to stop in Lake City and see an old friend (he's technically older than me so I can say that!) who I haven't seen in 7 years! He has an amazing testimony and he is SUCH a blessing!!!

This was the first time that he'd met Cooper and the last time that he had seen Camber was when she was 4 months old (She's blocked out the painful soup memory!)


After some sweet fellowship, we were back on the road for Orlando. We arrived at my cousin Debbie's house and got some much needed "down time."

The next morning the real fun began!

We got to the airport, unloaded our luggage and got it checked, got through security without a hitch, and got on the plane. This is how we felt about the flight:


The scenery out the window was BEAUTIFUL!

We were picked up by another missionary/ teacher for the base that we will be visiting in Bocas del Torro, Dale. He was in a white pick up truck that our family and luggage BARELY fit in, and we started the trek back to the YWAM base. Panama is BEAUTIFUL and there were many familiar sights!













I immediately began to feel "at home" and my heart hurt for the people of Panama. They are VERY poor and most have horrible living conditions.About the time that the kids became completely bored...We arrived!
We are (currently) the residents of the Youth With a Mission Panama base in Chilibre, Panama.

We were shown to our room, met with our classmates, and had dinner together. We then got the chance to get all settled in, well, as settled as one can get in 2 weeks. (We will only be at this base for a short time as YWAM celebrates it's 50th anniversary and we will be a part of that in San Jose, Costa Rica next week)

Here is our room:

We learned that our DTS (Discipleship Training School) has been asked to perform the opening ceremonies at the 50th Anniversary Celebration next week. The members of staff here in Panama, as well as members of the DTS have been piecing together a drama to represent a vision that Loren Cunningham (the founder of YWAM) had when he was 20 years old. He envisioned a sea with waves of young people crashing on the shores of every continent bring the two fold gospel of Jesus: Love the Lord with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. (Video will be posted in a few weeks).

So our drama features different styles of dance to represent the different nations that YWAM is ministering to right now. God has put some incredibly talented people in this ministry, but he has also given them a great deal of grace for those of us who have NEVER danced a day in our lives!

God has already so richly blessed us in our short time here. We look forward to learning more about hearing HIS voice and receiving confirmation from others about his plan for our lives.

Please continue to pray for us and the base and the staff and our classmates as we are under attack from satan daily!

Please pray for traveling mercies as we leave on Friday night for Costa Rica (an 18 hour bus ride.)

Please pray that the members of our class would hear God's voice clearly about where he is calling us for outreach (anywhere in the world.)

Please pray that funds would continue to be released to us to cover the expense of GO!- ing.

Thank you for your love and continued support!!