missionaryMAC

Until a week and a half ago, it had been six years since I'd last been in Panama, and that was as a FORO partner. Needless to say, I was apprehensive at best about hosting a team there last week, and a construction team at that. I know more than your average thirty-something female about building & remodeling but not enough to troubleshoot.  I needn't have worried. Between two missionary families and a few key local members, we were in good hands. It was a learning trip for me as much as the participants: Panamanian history, the various areas of the city, hotels/hostels, hardware stores, grocery stores, restaurants, cultural sites, public transportation, etc. And speaking of participants, the three ladies who joined me for a "girls' trip" extended me all the grace I needed when I didn't have all the answers and dove headfirst into the work cut out for them. They made some serious progress on renovating historic (1946!) Redeemer Lutheran Church's parson

Greetings from Panama City. LAC's 5th and final June/July volunteer team arrives tomorrow, so I'm sneaking in a post between trips to the hardware store and the grocery store.  After a first day that tested their flexibility chops, the rest of Trinity, Davenport's "field trip" went more or less as I'd planned it. (They called it a field trip because 1) 2/7 participants were current or retired educators; 2) it was short and sweet; and 3) all signs point to it being merely a first step in a longstanding relationship with "the field" involving many future trips.) Friday began with Chaplain Naumann leading us in Matins before a Zoom introduction to the seminary with Academic Coordinator Rev. Roberto Bustamante. The Trinity team's Lutheran education antennae went off when Roberto touched on the developing Lutheran teacher colloquy program.  We noticed in the course of Thursday that a sizeable branch had fallen out of the avocado tree on the playgrou