15/03/2011 (posted 02/04/2011)
Had an interesting night's sleep.
Went to bed at 8:45 but for the first hour and a bit, drifted in and out of sleep. I was itching with mosquito bites and peeled skin and our room was swelteringly hot. But eventually I got to sleep and had a nice lie-in until 7:30. When I woke up I wondered what the foul smell was until I realised it was me. It was very hot last night.
We have to share one bathroom between the eight of us yet by some miracle, the girls had finished using it by 7:30. I've no idea how and I'm not expecting it to be the same every day but it was a nice surprise anyhow.
The facilities are similar to Changuinola - a bucket of water. The water was slightly yellowish in colour which wasn't exactly what I wanted to see but I'd rather at least be a bit clean than sticky and horrendously smelly.
Christina fixed breakfast - cereal and porridge. The cereal was nice chocolatey puffs similar to Nesquik cereak and we drank the porridge from mugs - it's cheap and filling which is exactly what we need for this week.
In the morning we went to Guabito, the town where Pastor Moran's church is. Before we went round the community he took us to the Costa Rican border (five minutes down the road) which we just strolled across with no hassle from the guards. We bought something from the shop just for the craic and then sauntered back as simply as we walked over.
We then spent between 10:30am and 1:15pm evangelising round the local community. We took our trusty friends the Evange-cubes and went from house to house chatting to and praying with people.
We had some really positive and interested people, but the annoying thing is that we can only briefly engage these people and then we'll be gone to our next destination so we're praying that the seeds we sow can really encourage these people to attend church, not just show an interest and let it fade away.
We had a simple packed lunch of sandwiches and biscuits and then went straight home to plan further ahead for the week, in doing so defeating the point of taking a packed lunch but there we go. The Pastor seemed surprised that we were going after lunch rather than continuing our door-to-door stuff but certain team members were really tired and lothargic so Christina and I, as leaders, made the executive decision.
It's stressful being a leader - I'm constantly worried that people are unsure or annoyed or frustrated with how I act and organise things but I can only do my best. There's so much up in the air this week which makes it difficult to control but that's Panama for you.
Dinner was truly excellent. Lissette guided Jess on what to do and they produced a LOAD of rice with seasoning and fried beef. It was lush and I had loads of seconds/thirds including some coveted crunchy rice. Mmm.
I'm a real sucker for rice now that I've been her for a few weeks - at Uni all I'm going to have is coffee, fresh fruit and rice. Panama do these things very well.
The evening was spent relaxing and I read a bit of the Bible.
It feels so nice to be full up for a change, though I'm not sure if I'll experience this feeling much more this week.
Once again we're being eaten alive by bugs.
JG
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