"...I won't say garden hoe"

07.01.2012 It's Sunday, our last day in Panama. This is usually the day that is filled with the most fun and sadness. We headed to church at Puerto Caimito. We were excited to go and celebrate with the people that we spent all week getting to know and love. Edwin preached the sermon, while Pablo translated. We had a great time worshiping, Kenia and Dina led it. Dina is a sweet girl who knows English and translated quite a bit for us. Deena and Dalton did a special...Dalton on the guitar and Deena singing. Two girls, Kayla and Lia also sang a special, along with Jeremy, a sweet 10 year old. Of course it was hot and sticky during the service....fans were blowing, but it's hard to get relief. After the sermon we headed to the back of the church where the roof was put up and Edwin had Jeremy pray and dedicate the new dining area. We also recognized the ladies who made our food all week and also the Pastor and his wife. They also gave each of us a gift. Saturday was Pastor Milanio's birthday and we celebrated it with cake and ice cream! Yum! Lots of photos were taken and lots of hugs were given out. The people of the Puerto Caimito church are very loving people and we enjoyed getting to know the people and the children. We were blessed as much, if not more, then we blessed them. As I shared with them, God continues to remind me of the parable of feeding the 5000. I always stress over the money, whether we have enough and where it all goes. This year was no different. I knew the amount of money we had for supplies and before we were even there they had used the entire amount for the roofing project. We were great about that, but knew that we actually couldn't do the work of the roofing project since it entailed welding, which none of us could do.    So when we arrived we were a bit concerned with what laid ahead of us throughout the week. So God, of course, continued to stretch our money...so much that we were able to scrape the entire church inside and out, paint the entire church inside and out and purchase the materials to replace the front part of the building's roof. Again, God answered our prayers and proved to us His faithfulness.  After church we headed back into the city and went to the markets to shop for some souvenirs. It poured raining so we didn't get to see a lot of the city as planned, but we were all exhausted from the busyness of the weekend that I don't think anyone really minded. We had dinner at Pizza Hut, a tradition, before heading back to the house for devotions and packing.  Dario gave the devotion which was amazing and very fitting. Afterwards, Arcenio prayed over our group. I love when he prays....I like to say he prays you right through to heaven! Dario and Arcenio are two of the most amazing people I've met. I'm so glad that they were able to come down and spend the week with us. I've really enjoyed watching Arcenio come out of his shell, he's such a joy to be around and has such a heart for those that are lost. I sure do adore those boys! We had a great time of reflection and enjoyed spending the last moments of the day with them as well as Pablo and Edwin. Tomorrow we load up at 4am to head to the airport where we will be traveling all day tomorrow to get back home....it's time to plan our next trip! :-)