"He tells the sun where to shine, the rivers where to flow, the trees where to grow. They obey. Then He looks at us and tells us to come and we say, 'No!'" -Nate (via Paul Washer), while sharing the Gospel last night in David.

A fellow believer and Pastor in David (the nearest large city to us) asked Nate to host a worship night that his English students at the university were putting on. We arrived and found out that no one was prepared to share the Gospel. Nate stepped up to the plate and really did a wonderful job. There were many people gathered in the hot park to listen to the music, wondering what all the Panamanians were doing speaking English. We are trusting that the Word of the Lord does not return void and that some seeds were planted last night.

The music pastor of the Spanish speaking part of our church is out of town for the next couple weeks, so Nate played guitar with Clementina, who was leading worship. Panamanians aren't particularly known for their sense of rhythm. It was quite an experience. I loved hearing him, with the congregation.

On a parental side note: We hit a pretty big milestone today. Zion walked straight to his class, sat down and told me, "Bye!" It helped that a friend, Luis, had saved him a seat and he had someone to sit with. He has been quite the chatty Cathy lately. If you haven't seen the video I posted on Facebook of him counting in Spanish, check it out.

Every day we have more and more kids coming to our house for homework help. I love it. It has gotten to the point though, where they come at super inconvenient times (some of the kids don't get out of school until 5 p.m. and really can't help it). The other night, I was literally pulling dinner out of the oven, while Zion was screaming, "I'M HUNNNNNNNGRY!" when 8 kids showed up at our door. Everything has to come to a screeching halt, and we rush to get the work done and the kids sent back home. We have started to transform the back room of our house into a homework room. It has its own entrance and bathroom. We are in desperate need of some boundaries with the kids, but want so badly to help them all. We will have the "homework room" open a couple hours each day for them to come. I am really excited to get it up and running. We are hoping it will be a place where they feel comfortable hanging out to read and play after the homework is finished. The kids are really starting to open up and show us a bit of their personalities that they hide so well behind their stone faces.

"Tia! Tia! (Aunt! Aunt!)" They were shouting at us as we made our way through the orphanage. As soon as we walked through the door, a crowd of boys latched on to Nate, showing off their muscles and feeling his. Later, he told me that he's never felt so strong in his whole life. They loved having a male there to love on them. We tagged along with Lindsey again to read books on Thursday night. This time I was told that I would not be able to pick up any of the babies and rock them to sleep, like I did last time. They are placed in their beds before 5:30 to go to sleep for the night, and holding them disrupts the schedule. Several of them were asleep by the time we left, but some of them were still standing in their cribs, reaching out to us as we walked back through the nursery to leave at 7:30. After we were done reading to the younger kids, we got to tuck them into bed and give them all kisses. It was so sweet. My heart breaks a little more each time I am there.

On Wednesday we got to join in on a Heda Medica, which is basically just a traveling clinic where we go to a more remote place and just set up shop. We went to the school in Alto Quiel with the Rotary Club. They had several doctors and the dentist from our church came along. All of the kids were seen for both dental and medical, along with anyone who had walked in order to get some medical attention. Originally we had planned to wash the kid's hair with lice shampoo. Their little heads were crawling with lice. When we got there, we found out that they haven't had water since the beginning of school. Rather than wash hair, we set up a little barber shop and buzzed heads. All of the little boys lined up and got a hair cut. We plan to go back another day to wash hair when they have water again.

I have to admit that about two weeks ago, I started to feel really discouraged. Most days, the boys take turns napping, so I spend a lot of time at home. I am used to associating being in Panama with being gone all day long doing some kind of project, visiting people or ministering in some way. I started asking God, exactly what He had for me to do while I'm home with the boys. Not long after I began asking, I heard a little knock on our door. It was Elmer and Jorge, some kids from the church. They were needing help with homework and wanted to use our computer. They have come almost every day for homework help, and have started bringing their little sisters. Elmer has gotten to the point where he can do most of the work on his own. While he works, I try to read books with the younger kids, who don't really have books just to read for fun. I would love to teach Elmer how to use the computer and type. Right now, most of his homework consists of him looking for pictures to paste into his notebook. He is catching on really quickly and watches really intently when I show him how to find things online.

We have had Nate's parents here for the past week. It has been so great to show them around Boquete and what our life is like here. It has also been nice to have a couple extra set of hands with the boys and other projects! We will definitely miss them when they leave this evening.