It's time.
Jehovah-Jireh
The Lord is our Provider. Always. I saw that in so many ways on trip my trip to Panama City. Really, this was the first time I had been on a trip like this, so far from anyone that I could call to bail me out of trouble if there were any. It was the first time I had to say, “Jesus, if something happens, I am a country away from anyone I know… you’re really all I’ve got.” I had to trust in His provision completely, and He was so generous in the things He provided. But then I realized that that’s the way it should always be. I think that’s one of the main things I’m learning on this trip. God is faithful and will always be there for me. He is my provider, and I need to trust Him with everything. I think I too often trust in man instead of God, and I think He purposefully puts us in positions where we have no one to trust but Him so we learn to look to Him and no one else. I’m glad for those times, even though they are hard, because they make me see how great of a God He is. For He is Jehovah-Jireh. He is our Provider.
As far as the trip goes, I’ll have memories that last forever with two amazing girls.
We started things off on Thursday, February 25 with the bus ride. The long bus ride. We had it pick us up at a little shopping area within walking distance of our houses and the bus stop we had to wait at was right by the highway. And it was raining. But this was all part of the memories and adventure we were looking for! So the bus picked us up and we began our adventure to Panama. They weren’t very many people on the bus so we got to spread out and not worry about sitting next to someone we didn’t know, which was nice for all of us. Right when we got on the bus, I took some Dramamine because one of the house parents, Ingrid, had recently made the same trek and told us the roads were pretty windy… I don’t do windy roads well. Well, that pretty much knocked me out for several hours, so we’re just going to skip ahead a bit.
While we were on the road, we stopped at this little side outdoor café/store/bathroom place for 30 minutes. It was nice to get off the bus and stretch our legs for a bit. But I was a little out of it because of the Dramamine. It was all so interesting.
Anyway, back on the bus and the next stop was the border crossing! The only border crossing experience I had was what I had gone to Mexico on mission trips with a big group so I didn’t really know what to expect. We all got out of the bus and got in the exit Costa Rica line. I was looking around and realized everyone had custom papers and we had none… Shaina went to ask our bus guy what the deal was and we realized they had handed everyone papers to fill out when they first got on the bus and we didn’t get any since they picked us up later… we hurriedly filled them out and caught up with the group. We then walked to the Panama side to go through the Panama customs and get our bags checked. It really wasn’t that bad except we really had no idea what was going on the whole time, which I think is pretty common in those type of situations. WE got through in about an hour and made the rest of our journey to Panama City!
Board yet with all my details? I hope not because I’ve got a lot more ☺
Well, we got to the hotel around 3:00 and immediately checked in, got to the room, unpacked a little and fell right to sleep. The next morning we all slept in and made our way to the pool, even though there was no sun. We just wanted Friday to be our chill day since we had several days in Panama to do other touristy type things. We then went out to explore what was around our hotel, which was a lot of shopping, and just hung out around the hotel the rest of the day. The highlight of the day was finding a Nike outlet store and finding my favorite shorts that are normally $25 for only $10! Haha. Everything was really cheap in Panama.
(Our hotel room)
Saturday was our day to be tourist and go all around the city with Fernando. (To explain to Fernando is… Georgiana, she and her husband are the missionaries in charge of children’s homes here is half Panamanian and she still has family in Panama. She e-mailed Fernando, her cousin, to ask him if he knew where our hotel was and he wrote back saying that he would take us different places if we were interested… that’s Fernando.) We went to the Panama Canal, Casco Viejo, the Causeway and we got to see some old ruins. He picked us up at 9:00 a.m. and we didn’t get back to our hotel until around 5:00 p.m.! He even paid for our lunch! It was such a blessing because we can’t even image how hard that would have been to do in a taxi all day, not to mention how expensive it would have been. God was SO good to provide Fernando and to have everything work out so perfectly with him. And he spoke almost perfect English so I didn’t have to have anyone translate like I normally do ☺ Another huge blessing for the Lord! Well, that night we were exhausted and just ate our leftover pizza from this amazing Italian restaurant we went to at lunch. It was a pretty amazing day for us.
(The lock we went to)
(A boat having completely the journey through the canal)
(Some of the ruins)
Sunday turned out to be our crazy adventure day. And completely different than any of us thought it would be. Well, there are some missionaries in Panama now, Toby and Jocabed, who moved there from our church in Costa Rica. Shaina new they were in Panama City, or near the city, and had the idea that we could go visit their church on Sunday. So we called Neo, who is our Panamanian friend that we met here in CR at church, (crazy how God worked these things out!) at the bus station that morning, and he helped us get on the bus and we make our way to church. Well, it really wasn’t that easy… something you should know about the bus system in Panama… it’s CRAZY. Like the buses have competitions with each other to see how many people they can get on a bus and how quickly they can get from one stop to another… so you can image what that creates… a little chaos in the streets. And the buses are all painted and decorated differently because the buses are privately owned. So when I get on the bus I didn’t really know what to expect, but boy was I in for an experience. Oh, and Panama feels like Arkansas in the summer, just a side note. Well, we get on the bus and wait for about 10 or 15 minutes in the blazing sun and we finally make our way on the journey in the Panamanian bus. The first half really wasn’t that bad, we had a nice breeze, I was sitting by Rachel, good conversation, when all of a sudden more people get on the bus and I get this tap on the should from an older man who wants me and Rachel to make room for him. On a school bus seat bench. In the blazing sun. Yeah. And people just kept coming onto the bus until there just wasn’t any space left for someone to stand it was crazy. Different than anything I had every experienced in my life. It was all good until Neo told me we were the next stop and I was the first one who could get up, haha… I had to puuuush my way through people and slide my way to the front of the bus to get out. It was great. So that was our Panamanian bus experience. We only went once but once was all we needed to know that we never really wanted to get on another one in our lives.
The church. It was a pretty same church because they had just started it in December, I believe, and we got there late but we were all really glad we made the almost 45 minute trek to get there. We got there late so we missed most of the sermon, but our main purpose to be there was to give Toby and Jocabed and little care package and to say hello to them. After the service, everyone gathered around and had a little snack together and talked. Everyone was so nice to us and it was nice to be around a small group of people that loved the Lord and were fellowshipping together. Towards the end of the time, Jocabed came over and asked us if we wanted to come over and have lunch with them and hang out for a while because Toby is a clown and had a party in town later, so they could just drop us off at our hotel later. We were so blessed by their hospitality and happy to not have to take the bus back ☺ So we made our way to their home to enjoy a wonderful meal. Around 1:30 everyone, including two friends of Jocabed, got on the car and Toby dropped all the girls off at this beautiful pier like walkway where we were going to hang out for a few hours while he had his party. We were there a total of an hour, I think, before we were all about to drop from the heat so, naturally, we walked to a HUGE mall nearby ☺ We shopped for about 2 ish hours until Toby was done. He then took us back to our hotel around 5:00 and that was our Sunday morning and afternoon! Once again I could have never expected such generosity and God’s blessing on us through these people.
That night we went to the Hard Rock Café even though I, who was the elder of the group, was exhausted ☺ It was absolutely wonderful food and fun to get out and see downtown at night. But I seriously was so tired.
Anyway, Monday was checkout day and time to leave Panama. But not until 11:00 P.M… dun dun dun. What were we to do until 11:00 p.m. one might ask. Well, you go to one of the biggest malls you’ve ever been to and you shop for 8 hours. That’s what you do ☺ Yup, we went swimming that morning and checked out at the very last possible second, checked out bags in at the hotel so they could watch them for us while we were shopping, and made our way to Albrook mall. I could have spent days in there… So that’s what we did with our Monday because we could. It was really fun and a good time to chill and have fun. While we were there we had Dunkin’ Donuts, which was absolutely amazing and probably some of the best ice cream I’ve ever had. Yes, this was a healthy trip. And we just shopped. We were there till about 9:00 and we went back to the hotel, got our luggage and went to the bus station to await our bus to leave.
We got on the bus with only a few bumps along the way and I got to sit by a very chatty Tica. I got to see pictures of her whole family and she wanted to tell me all about her trip in Panama. Now this was all at 11:00 at night and I get a little fuzzy in English and she was speaking fast Spanish, but it’s all good. I had a pretty good conversation with her, but after that I made it clear that sleep was my main priority that night ☺
Well, sleep obviously was not my body’s main priority because I didn’t really sleep that night so I was awake when we rolled into the border around 5:30. I’m not going to go into all of it because this blog post is the size of a short novel, but it took us 4 hours to get through the border and customs. 4 hours. As opposed to the 1 hour the first time. It was a little exhausting and, well, we were all a little tired. By the time I got back on the bus I took my Dramamine, Costa Rica has windy roads, and I slept practically the rest of the way! We finally made it home around 3:00 and it was a beautiful thing to see familiar things. We called Jonathan from a payphone to come pick us up and he took us all home.
That was our Panama trip. It was a wonderful trip filled with lots of laughter and memories.
Hope you all enjoyed!
The Lord is our Provider. Always. I saw that in so many ways on trip my trip to Panama City. Really, this was the first time I had been on a trip like this, so far from anyone that I could call to bail me out of trouble if there were any. It was the first time I had to say, “Jesus, if something happens, I am a country away from anyone I know… you’re really all I’ve got.” I had to trust in His provision completely, and He was so generous in the things He provided. But then I realized that that’s the way it should always be. I think that’s one of the main things I’m learning on this trip. God is faithful and will always be there for me. He is my provider, and I need to trust Him with everything. I think I too often trust in man instead of God, and I think He purposefully puts us in positions where we have no one to trust but Him so we learn to look to Him and no one else. I’m glad for those times, even though they are hard, because they make me see how great of a God He is. For He is Jehovah-Jireh. He is our Provider.
As far as the trip goes, I’ll have memories that last forever with two amazing girls.
We started things off on Thursday, February 25 with the bus ride. The long bus ride. We had it pick us up at a little shopping area within walking distance of our houses and the bus stop we had to wait at was right by the highway. And it was raining. But this was all part of the memories and adventure we were looking for! So the bus picked us up and we began our adventure to Panama. They weren’t very many people on the bus so we got to spread out and not worry about sitting next to someone we didn’t know, which was nice for all of us. Right when we got on the bus, I took some Dramamine because one of the house parents, Ingrid, had recently made the same trek and told us the roads were pretty windy… I don’t do windy roads well. Well, that pretty much knocked me out for several hours, so we’re just going to skip ahead a bit.
While we were on the road, we stopped at this little side outdoor café/store/bathroom place for 30 minutes. It was nice to get off the bus and stretch our legs for a bit. But I was a little out of it because of the Dramamine. It was all so interesting.
Anyway, back on the bus and the next stop was the border crossing! The only border crossing experience I had was what I had gone to Mexico on mission trips with a big group so I didn’t really know what to expect. We all got out of the bus and got in the exit Costa Rica line. I was looking around and realized everyone had custom papers and we had none… Shaina went to ask our bus guy what the deal was and we realized they had handed everyone papers to fill out when they first got on the bus and we didn’t get any since they picked us up later… we hurriedly filled them out and caught up with the group. We then walked to the Panama side to go through the Panama customs and get our bags checked. It really wasn’t that bad except we really had no idea what was going on the whole time, which I think is pretty common in those type of situations. WE got through in about an hour and made the rest of our journey to Panama City!
Board yet with all my details? I hope not because I’ve got a lot more ☺
Well, we got to the hotel around 3:00 and immediately checked in, got to the room, unpacked a little and fell right to sleep. The next morning we all slept in and made our way to the pool, even though there was no sun. We just wanted Friday to be our chill day since we had several days in Panama to do other touristy type things. We then went out to explore what was around our hotel, which was a lot of shopping, and just hung out around the hotel the rest of the day. The highlight of the day was finding a Nike outlet store and finding my favorite shorts that are normally $25 for only $10! Haha. Everything was really cheap in Panama.
(Our hotel room)
Saturday was our day to be tourist and go all around the city with Fernando. (To explain to Fernando is… Georgiana, she and her husband are the missionaries in charge of children’s homes here is half Panamanian and she still has family in Panama. She e-mailed Fernando, her cousin, to ask him if he knew where our hotel was and he wrote back saying that he would take us different places if we were interested… that’s Fernando.) We went to the Panama Canal, Casco Viejo, the Causeway and we got to see some old ruins. He picked us up at 9:00 a.m. and we didn’t get back to our hotel until around 5:00 p.m.! He even paid for our lunch! It was such a blessing because we can’t even image how hard that would have been to do in a taxi all day, not to mention how expensive it would have been. God was SO good to provide Fernando and to have everything work out so perfectly with him. And he spoke almost perfect English so I didn’t have to have anyone translate like I normally do ☺ Another huge blessing for the Lord! Well, that night we were exhausted and just ate our leftover pizza from this amazing Italian restaurant we went to at lunch. It was a pretty amazing day for us.
(The lock we went to)
(A boat having completely the journey through the canal)
(Some of the ruins)
Sunday turned out to be our crazy adventure day. And completely different than any of us thought it would be. Well, there are some missionaries in Panama now, Toby and Jocabed, who moved there from our church in Costa Rica. Shaina new they were in Panama City, or near the city, and had the idea that we could go visit their church on Sunday. So we called Neo, who is our Panamanian friend that we met here in CR at church, (crazy how God worked these things out!) at the bus station that morning, and he helped us get on the bus and we make our way to church. Well, it really wasn’t that easy… something you should know about the bus system in Panama… it’s CRAZY. Like the buses have competitions with each other to see how many people they can get on a bus and how quickly they can get from one stop to another… so you can image what that creates… a little chaos in the streets. And the buses are all painted and decorated differently because the buses are privately owned. So when I get on the bus I didn’t really know what to expect, but boy was I in for an experience. Oh, and Panama feels like Arkansas in the summer, just a side note. Well, we get on the bus and wait for about 10 or 15 minutes in the blazing sun and we finally make our way on the journey in the Panamanian bus. The first half really wasn’t that bad, we had a nice breeze, I was sitting by Rachel, good conversation, when all of a sudden more people get on the bus and I get this tap on the should from an older man who wants me and Rachel to make room for him. On a school bus seat bench. In the blazing sun. Yeah. And people just kept coming onto the bus until there just wasn’t any space left for someone to stand it was crazy. Different than anything I had every experienced in my life. It was all good until Neo told me we were the next stop and I was the first one who could get up, haha… I had to puuuush my way through people and slide my way to the front of the bus to get out. It was great. So that was our Panamanian bus experience. We only went once but once was all we needed to know that we never really wanted to get on another one in our lives.
The church. It was a pretty same church because they had just started it in December, I believe, and we got there late but we were all really glad we made the almost 45 minute trek to get there. We got there late so we missed most of the sermon, but our main purpose to be there was to give Toby and Jocabed and little care package and to say hello to them. After the service, everyone gathered around and had a little snack together and talked. Everyone was so nice to us and it was nice to be around a small group of people that loved the Lord and were fellowshipping together. Towards the end of the time, Jocabed came over and asked us if we wanted to come over and have lunch with them and hang out for a while because Toby is a clown and had a party in town later, so they could just drop us off at our hotel later. We were so blessed by their hospitality and happy to not have to take the bus back ☺ So we made our way to their home to enjoy a wonderful meal. Around 1:30 everyone, including two friends of Jocabed, got on the car and Toby dropped all the girls off at this beautiful pier like walkway where we were going to hang out for a few hours while he had his party. We were there a total of an hour, I think, before we were all about to drop from the heat so, naturally, we walked to a HUGE mall nearby ☺ We shopped for about 2 ish hours until Toby was done. He then took us back to our hotel around 5:00 and that was our Sunday morning and afternoon! Once again I could have never expected such generosity and God’s blessing on us through these people.
That night we went to the Hard Rock Café even though I, who was the elder of the group, was exhausted ☺ It was absolutely wonderful food and fun to get out and see downtown at night. But I seriously was so tired.
Anyway, Monday was checkout day and time to leave Panama. But not until 11:00 P.M… dun dun dun. What were we to do until 11:00 p.m. one might ask. Well, you go to one of the biggest malls you’ve ever been to and you shop for 8 hours. That’s what you do ☺ Yup, we went swimming that morning and checked out at the very last possible second, checked out bags in at the hotel so they could watch them for us while we were shopping, and made our way to Albrook mall. I could have spent days in there… So that’s what we did with our Monday because we could. It was really fun and a good time to chill and have fun. While we were there we had Dunkin’ Donuts, which was absolutely amazing and probably some of the best ice cream I’ve ever had. Yes, this was a healthy trip. And we just shopped. We were there till about 9:00 and we went back to the hotel, got our luggage and went to the bus station to await our bus to leave.
We got on the bus with only a few bumps along the way and I got to sit by a very chatty Tica. I got to see pictures of her whole family and she wanted to tell me all about her trip in Panama. Now this was all at 11:00 at night and I get a little fuzzy in English and she was speaking fast Spanish, but it’s all good. I had a pretty good conversation with her, but after that I made it clear that sleep was my main priority that night ☺
Well, sleep obviously was not my body’s main priority because I didn’t really sleep that night so I was awake when we rolled into the border around 5:30. I’m not going to go into all of it because this blog post is the size of a short novel, but it took us 4 hours to get through the border and customs. 4 hours. As opposed to the 1 hour the first time. It was a little exhausting and, well, we were all a little tired. By the time I got back on the bus I took my Dramamine, Costa Rica has windy roads, and I slept practically the rest of the way! We finally made it home around 3:00 and it was a beautiful thing to see familiar things. We called Jonathan from a payphone to come pick us up and he took us all home.
That was our Panama trip. It was a wonderful trip filled with lots of laughter and memories.
Hope you all enjoyed!
thanks for sharing all of that! :) and I mean ALL of it...details are good. :) I'm so glad that you had a great time! it sounds like it was a neat neat experience! keeping you in my prayers! love you much.
ReplyDeleteyay! I felt like I was there!
ReplyDeleteSounds like you had fun! The most random adventures often make the best memories. Thanks for sharing! Hope your Wednesday is going well!
ReplyDeleteKatie
I loved all the details... the bus companies racing each other was my favorite part. Glad you had such an awesome trip and that God provided Fernando and the others to make it even better. Love you.
ReplyDelete