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Friday was spent cleaning up from our VBS week, plus doing some shopping at the Flower Festival/Fair in Boquete. It was nice to relax, talk and debrief about our experiences this week.
Saturday morning at 6am we headed to the airport to fly back to Panama City. Arriving in Panama City about 9:30am, we headed to our hotel, dropped off our luggage and spent the rest of the morning at the Panama Canal. In the afternoon, some enjoyed a nap while others went to the nearby artesian market for some last minute souvenir shopping. The team had a nice early dinner together on the causeway overlooking the ocean, a great ending for an awesome week. Thanks to Omar, our faithful taxi driver, for arranging all our transportation for the day.
Sunday arrived early as we headed back to the airport for our flights home. We had many challenges at the beginning of our week and ended our trip with more challenges. Because of flight delays, weather, wind, etc. we barely made our connecting flight in Dallas. But of course, God took care of us AGAIN and we landed safely in the Indy fog about 7:15pm.
Thanks for partnering with us both financially and with your prayers. God blessed us tremendously, and we know we couldn’t have done it without you. Feel free to ask any of us to see some pictures when you see us in the coming weeks.
Our Team: Dave and Tara Wohlenhaus, Steve and Sharon Battson, Mike and Mary Meadors, Karen Rusk, Kyleigh McCarty, Brent Grout, Lee Smith.
Our final day of VBS was a great one. 332 kid’s came and they were active and happy! It was amazing to see the kid’s singing as they stood on the church benches and how happy they were to be there.
Sharon did a great job of teaching the lesson about Gideon. The kid’s learned the importance of trusting the Lord will all their heart. Each child received a small horn, just like Gideon’s army of 300 men received horns in our Bible story. What an amazing time we had as all 300 plus kid’s blew their horns all at the same time at the closing time. Our ears are still ringing!
It was so cool to receive all the waves, hugs and high fives from the “town kid’s” as they got on the buses to go home from the week. We have made some great friends and we look forward to the times we’ll have with them in coming years.
VBS was a smashing success! There were many positive comments and happy kid’s. Alan and Debbie (our missionary hosts) told us of the many positive things they had heard from all the families who participated.
Our afternoon was spent with the families from the comarca (reservation) as we fitted around 140 kid’s with shoes. What a wonderful and humbling experience. They were so grateful. Thanks to all who donated shoes for us to take down. We also said our goodbyes to them as they are headed back to their homes on the comarca early tomorrow morning.
VBS Day 3 brought 342 kids. Our morning was filled once again with many smiling faces as we sung worship songs, did crafts, played games and told the story of David and Goliath. The 8 and 9 year olds were the largest group today with 86.
Lee (and Jorge his toucan hat) did a great job of telling the story of David and Goliath. The kid’s learned that David trusted in God and that “‘with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26. The teens had a great study as well and were each given a New Testament if they did not already have one.
Craft time was spent making playdoh, a favorite for the past two years. Always leaves a big mess but the kid’s love it!
It was relay day in Recreation. What fun it was to see all the smiles as they raced around in potato sacks.
Our afternoon was spent down at the Boquete Fair. It is similar to our County Fair. The owners of the rides are friends of the Handts. A few years back Alan helped them save some of their equipment during a major flood in Boquete. So this year they gave the mission 500 ride tickets. So we loaded up 4 buses and took all the kids from the comarca (reservation), about 200 of them, down to the fair and they got to enjoy the rides for free. Most if not all of these kids have never been to a fair, let alone ridden bumper cars and merry go rounds. I think we took hundreds of pictures as the kids enjoyed the rides.
Thanks for your continued prayers. They are working! We know because of how we see God working in the lives of the families and children. Blessings from sunny Panama!
Tuesday, Day 2 Panama VBS
Today was an incredible day of blessings, worship, study, fun, fellowship and answered prayer for all.
The team was greeted this morning with many hugs from the children that stayed on the property overnight. This was a favorite of many of us as we reflected this evening.
We were blessed with mostly blue skies and spring like weather. This was a nice change from the weather the last two days. We also had a full day of power which allowed us to have music and a PA system for the days opening and closing praise and worship times. The number of children grew from 280 to 325 that participated in our VBS. By far our biggest group is the 12 thru 16 year olds, ninety three of them today! These all were answers to our prayers.
Today we studied the life of Moses. Our memory verse was Psalm 28:7 “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him and I am helped.” Dave did a great job of telling the story while Tara drew pictures that represented the life of Moses on the wall. The teens went through the salvation story with one teen girl sharing the story using what’s called an Evangecube.
Crafts: We decorated game boxes that will hold games for the kids to take home that will be handed out later in the week.
Activities / Recreation: We had the parachutes out today and the kids had a blast trying to make the balls jump from one to another.
Work project for today was loading the new container with bags of freshly dried green coffee. A great early morning work out for the team.
The best part of the day however was at the end. We all participated in taking photos of families and couples. We brought portable photo printers so we could print them on the spot. We gave them laminated and framed photos to take home. Many of them have never had family photos before. The look of joy and appreciation on their faces was priceless.
We are finishing the day with some team fellowship around bowls of ice cream and games of farkle. Thank you all for your prayers.
VBS is off and running! The morning started out with heavy rain, but cleared up just about the time we were starting. Yeah God! 280 kids enjoyed decorating the orange tshirts from Connection Pointe, playing duck, duck, goose (or pato, pato, elgonzo if you are speaking spanish), having fun with sack races, and hearing the story of Joseph.
We were blessed with a group of interpreters from the city of David. Jeremiah is a minister there, and is starting a bilingual church of spanish and english speaking Christians. He and his wife brought 8 college students to help us translate as we taught the lesson, games and crafts. They were a blessing and will be helping us all week.
We spent the afternoon sorting hundreds of pairs of shoes by size so we would be ready to pass out shoes to the kid’s. We’ll give you an update on that later this week. Thanks to all who donated shoes!
Our prayer needs include, continued safety and good health, that these kid’s will truly hear the message of God’s love for them, and that they will see God’s love through us. Also pray that the power does not go out in the middle of VBS. The power went out today and we were unable to do our puppet show because we had no music. But the kid’s never knew and will be surprised tomorrow.
So far we haven’t been able to post any pictures. We’ll keep working on it and hopefully you’ll get to SEE a few highlights too.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday
We have all arrived and are safe in Panama! We have been hit with a number of challenges already. As many of you know we have been praying for the container that had all of our supplies in it, that it would arrive so that we would have everything we needed for this week. The good news is it arrived! The bad news is, it arrived after being in an accident. Many of the building supplies on board were damaged and our prayers now are that the supplies that were on board for the eye surgery team coming in 2 weeks are okay.
On our first full day here Debbie Handt, one of the full time missionaries here was involved in a head on accident on her way to pick up our last team member. She walked away with only a few bruises. Lee, our last team member arrived feeling very under the weather. After being isolated and ordered to rest by Dr. Debbie, and a few pots of Panamanian coffee, he is better and up and running!
VBS has been set up and we start in the morning. Please continue to pray for our team as we start our VBS.
Each day after basketball camp one of team members had the chance to share a devotional. I know that during the devotional time a lot of seeds were planted in the minds and hearts of th
ose at camp, but this story is about a seed that had already been planted being harvested!
This picture is of Dave sharing during the devotional time at camp. Here his the story he gave us on what happened as a result of his devotion.
“After the morning practice session, a boy named Prince came up and spoke to me. He told me that after hearing my devotion the previous day, which at the end of the devotion I asked the kids to accept Jesus in their hearts – he went home, read the bible and he said he accepted Jesus into his Life that night. I was shocked to hear him say those words. Various thoughts ran through my head – I was amazed, felt blessed. I then also questioned his motives in my mind, as I really did not think my words were that inspiring. But afterwards, I believe it was something in the works as he has gone to church, but had not accepted Jesus. I got to know more about Prince including his family and built a friendship. He has been on my mind and in my prayers.”
Please continue to pray for Prince and his family! Pray that he would become a strong disciple of Christ and lead others into the same relationship that he has found!
A lot of the questions we get on trips revolve around the idea of how God will provide the necessary things when people go on a Global Impact Trip. How will I raise the money, make sure my familiy is taken care of, get time off work..and of course the list goes on and on. Sometimes God provides in ways we wouldn’t expect, but its all about perpective and watching for when God is walking ahead of you. I couldn’t help but share this story about God’s provision for one of our trip members…
“The company that my wife worked was bought out a few years back. She has been working with the new company since then and has been expecting to lose her job anytime, as her company transitions their clients to the company’s new product. Even though she could expect losing her job anytime, she thought it was going to be sometime next year. As the trip was approaching us, my wife was getting a little stressed about working and taking care of the two kids with homework, practices, and general parenting responsibilities. Well at the end of October just a week or so before we left, she was informed that due to a reduction in force, she would not have a job. Some people may think that this is terrible; I thought it was a blessing. She did not have the tasks of balancing work and parenting while I was gone. It was one less worry for her and me.”
Sometimes God providing doesn’t look like we think it should, but he is always one step ahead of us. 
Over the next five days we want to take some time to share stories from our team!
This first one is about their church experience. I’ll let Amanda take it from here….
“One of my favorite experiences was going to Church Sunday morning with Ernest (the local pastor). It was pouring rain, yet people still walked and came from all over to enjoy a time of fellowship and worship together. The heartfelt singing, music playing, and people dancing was beyond words. A small boy came forward when it was time to put in any offering and I noticed he had a hard time finding his pew again to sit back down. It turns out the little boy is completely blind; yet that nevergot or gets in his way. After the service was over, this little boy, got all of us “Americans” together and prayed his little heart out on our behalf. Tears came from my eyes, but more importantly, my heart was so full of love for God and this amazing little boy!”
The little boy is in the middle of this picture wearing a blue and white striped shirt.
I love this story! Even though the little boy was blind he didn’t let that stop him from worshiping God or praying for our team. This made me wonder…do I let thigns get in my way of reaching out to others and sharing my resources with God? I know that the answer is yes to that. Obstacles come in my way and I let them stop me from being on God’s mission to bless all nations. This boy would not be stopped in his mission. Let’s pray for a spirit like his!
global impact @ connection pointe 