Meeting People : Bocas del Toro, Panama

 

 

How often do we forget how blessed the water we swim in is?

I know I have

It becomes so normal. That you forget the profundity of knowing life.

Life to the full

I was reminded as a volunteer came to join us for evangelism this week.

As we asked God what He wanted to say/highlight before we went out, she was touched. Touched to those awe-filled joyful tears, feeling God‘s love and care in a way that exceeds everything you thought possible.

She asked how we see visions from the Lord. And I saw my two friends that I have gotten to lead teach her about listening to the voice of God – and how to let evangelism be Spirit-led.

And let me just say, there’s like 40+ missionaries at this island base we are at.

Worship is so Spirit-filled and free. Everything I prayed for and longed for for my squad has come.

One night as a few spontaneously song songs from their heart, everyone else went around the room ministering.

People would recieve visions, scriptures, prayers and go give them to their brother or sister in Christ. Amazing. 

All the sudden, serving the Lord isn’t just a season of my youth. It’s my life, and this is the beginning.

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Anyway, it was Aby and Coryn that asked me to go into town to evangelize with them.

It’s the coolest thing to be able to communicate in a different language now.

All it is is meeting people. Seeing them. Hearing them. Blessing them.

Sharing the daily food we recieve from what we taste and see from the Lord, His Spirit and Scripture. I’m being reminded lately by the incredible people God has surrounded me with that this is my life’s passion.

Beautiful people of the Earth

Just say the name, the all-powerful all-consuming all-overcoming name of Jesús  Cristo mi Señor 

One of my favorite conversations was with this man.

He wore a little brokennes in his walk. Aby said we just want to be your friend.

He said every day there is a new problem, and that he needs more strength from God. We shared Scripture like John 16:33, and prayed for the Lord to fill him up with that strength!

 

Then at lunch, a drunk guy from Colorado told us all the hope he lacked. He agreed with me about the brokenness of humanity and about our inability to walk in good paths. I said that’s why we need a Savior. He said his savior was his credit card. I told him I’m messed up too, but Jesus gives me a new heart and only by His love am able to walk in good paths. I told him Jesus came for you. He came for everyone, especially those who feel at the end of themselves.

As Asa got a tattoo, we rested. Then, we wanted to see the lady who sold us fudge weeks ago again. We had prayed for her last time, and she loved our “energy.”

As we were trying to remember how to get to her house, we found a sweet, meek, vibrant woman of God with a cloudy left eye. She welcomed us to her front porch. 

As we prayed for her, Aby and Drew ran into a man wearing a pirate hat. They asked if he knew where the fudge lady’s house was.

Sure enough he did! We talked to the spiritual but not religious fudge lady for an hour. She shared her beliefs like reincarnation and how everyone has their own truth, so people shouldn’t force their beliefs on others.

We listened, asked questions (like what about human sacrifice? Is that a truth not worth speaking against?), and shared our beliefs and verses like 1 Cor 10:21.

Can I tell you that no one got angry – that she’d want us to come back this wednesday?

I’d be lying to you if my passion wasn’t bursting from within causing my hands to shake. It was playing joyfully with her beautiful 3 year old that held me.
I’m learning from others and from God how to listen more and to speak in gentleness, not in a rush, with the Spirit’s peace and love evading out (1 Peter 3:15-16).

 

On our way back from dinner..well, let me stop here for a sec –
BE interruptible.

There is a divine encounter for you waiting in the masked person on the street passing you right now.

I come to life when I’m being interruptible to meeting people. We say “Dios le bendiga” to many we pass. I know we carry that infectious aroma of the Lord (2 Cor 2:15). In something as simple as asking for water, a server was touched by the nice way in which we asked for it. 

J  u  s  t     L  o  v  e

On our way back from dinner, Coryn talked about the heaviness she always feels after a day in this town – which got me thinking.

Then we ran into someone Aby had said she hoped to see again. He was drunk, and we couldn’t understand fully the story he was telling. But he showed us a scar from a knife wound in his arm.

As we listened in a circle to him, I started to cry.

And then I wanted to disappear into a hole after it hit me, how sad this world can be. Why am I not lost like so many sleeping on the streets?

I believe as I get acquainted with the Light of the World that much more, the darkness gets that much darker.

Too much to bare at times
(example: we have been praying for the unfathomable number of people who don’t even have the chance to hear the name of Jesus, for mental illness, for the sex trafficked)

But He has called me to mourn for it, to feel it.

And then He has called me to rejoice, with an unrestrained childlike joy.

He did that for me, lifted me, on the boat ride back. It started when the local translator, Anays, checked on me.

More than her encouragement, looking into her eyes as we left Bocas, I saw something. I saw the hope for broken, dark places.

I saw God in her foreign, beautifully and wonderfully made eyes. I saw light and kindness and goodness and wonder.

Our boat driver went “rapido” over the waves and allowed us to just scream songs. Laughter and freedom and adventure following the despair I was feeling.

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Right before I walked down the stairs to write this blog, one of the people on my squad told me “I love how you sit and listen to my problems. 

You make me feel more seen, heard, and loved than maybe anyone else ever has.”

I don’t share that for my glory, but for His. Can I tell you that it is the hardest parts of my life that have prepared me to love them like this?
Can I tell you it is choosing Christ and His Word day in, day out, for years that has given me this sort of purpose?

Don’t take it for granite Hannah. And don’t stop choosing Christ. Even though the cost may get greater as you offer yourself more and more to Him.
Remember that following him and going the narrow path has never let you down. There’s always more. And that more, that abundance is in Him alone.

My Good Father

he wants to be yours too