Never the Same - Panama 2012

I just got back home from a 2 1/2 week missions trip to Panama with Susie Magazine, a Christian magazine for teen girls, and Big World Ventures, a nonprofit Christian organization that specializes in planning short-term missions trips for teens and churches. This was my third mission trip with them -- my first mission trip with them was in 2006 to Peru when Susie Magazine was Brio Magazine (a magazine published by Focus on the Family).

Now that I'm home, I actually have time to take a moment to think about the trip and everything that happened. There was so much to think about and learn and everything while on the trip, but I was too busy loving on my kids and running around helping with organization stuff. It was so much fun, and even though I would have loved to spend another week in Panama, I'm glad to be home.

The trip started out different for me than any of my other trips -- I flew down to Miami, FL a day early to be a part of "Team Big World Ventures" and help with set up and getting everything ready for the leaders to arrive the next day. The leaders arrived and we had several training sessions and time for preparation for the students to arrive. The students arrived and the leaders were prepared and organized to receive them -- we had teams at the airport picking kids up in our matching shirts and another set of leaders back at the hotel to get them registered and make sure their passports were accounted for.

Striped zebra in the corner = boredom during slow times of registration

That night we had our first large group meeting -- FUAGNEM ((F.ired U.p A.nd G.oing N.uts E.very M.inute)) -- and our first meeting as Team 1. And then we had drama casting for the drama we would be performing on our ministry days in Panama.

Our first night with the students ended with us casting each team member as a part in the drama -- from the evil magician to the toys, from the Toymaker to the mimes, everyone was given an important role.



More stories and pictures to come...


Simply,

Amy Lynn



To learn more about next year's Never the Same Mission trip to Peru, visit www.neverthesamemissions.com

Very little internet access...and very little time...

I had hoped that I'd be able to update this blog a little more, but I have only just discovered that I have access to the internet in my room. I also have been quite busy and haven't had much time to write or do much else.

Facebook has been quite the medium for sharing updates on the trip -- we have a facebook group for the whole trip (( http://www.facebook.com/groups/PanamaMission2012/ )) and I created a page for my team ((http://www.facebook.com/groups/176615665802660/)). We have several photographers on the trip who are updating the whole group's page and my team leader, Lia, has been updating our team's page with pictures via her iphone.

I myself have taken over 2000 pictures so far and I have not had much time to sort through them yet!

Today is our free day -- we've had 4 ministry days so far, and we have two more days of ministry left. Saturday we have our shopping/tourist day and then we fly out on Sunday. I can't believe it's gone so fast!

Brief update on what our days have been like so far:

Panama Day 1 --We took motorized dugout canoes up a river to the Embera Tribe. They performed a dance for us and fed us fish and fried plantains (delicioso!). We did our drama for them, and then talked, prayed and played with them until it was time for us to leave.


Panama Day 2 -- Our second day was titled "food distribution" and our first stop was to a supermarket where we bought rice and several different kinds of beans. We then sorted the items into individual bags with 5 items each. We packed over 100 bags of food to take to a local community. We then walked to the site where we'd be meeting with people and performing our drama. I'm not sure how far we walked, but it was at least 2 miles. We went door to door, inviting people to our drama, performed, talked and prayed with people and distributed our food. We still had about half of our food left to give away, so we decided to walk to another village/neighborhood. Just as we started walking, it started raining...and we continued to walk the opposite direction of our bus for another 3+ miles, in the pouring rain...




to be continued....I'm hungry and it's time for dinner!

Students, Day One

((I'm in charge of my team's blog/group on facebook, so I'll hopefully be posting there throughout the week and I'll share it on here as well!))


July 2, 2012 -- Team Update

Today was the day that the students all arrived! We had several students that came a few days early with family and siblings, but today was the first day that we had the whole team together for the first time.

As everyone arrived throughout the day, friendships were created as the kids waited for room assignments, explored the hotel and greeted new teammates. Our first time together as a team was at FUAGNEM - F.ired U.p A.nd G.oing N.uts E.very M.inute ((pronounced “fwaag-num”), where we worshipped our amazing God through worship with Tommy Bailey and celebrated our “Big Bertha,” our birthdays in Christ. {{I unfortunately could not be with the team at this time, as I was still working on registration for the last few students on the trip}}

After FUAGNEM, we had our first team time and split up into our “pods” ((small groups within the team)) {{see facebook pictures}} and got to know each other a little more. We watched a video of the drama they will be learning and then moved on to the drama try-outs.

Drama try-outs were EXTREMELY difficult this year -- everyone on the team is SO talented, that it was hard to narrow down the parts. As a leadership team, we cast the roles and I think that everyone will thrive in their role -- and every single part is absolutely crucial to the performance as a whole. Every role requires the talent that each of our kids possess.

We had our first tuck-ins/slap-ins and I loved getting to go around with the other female leaders to talk with and pray for the four rooms of girls that we have. Hopefully they won’t stay up too late, as we have the first shift for breakfast tomorrow -- bright and early at 6:45!

I’m so excited to see where this trip takes us all ((ok, we’re obviously going to Panama, but you know what I mean!)) We have such a great group of students and leaders and I can already tell that everyone is going to get along and work well together. I just know that God has big things planned for this group.
Please pray for health as there will be a lot packed into the next few days and we don’t always get our normal amount of sleep each night -- it’s just too much fun being around such good friends to go to bed :)