Thursday, March 6, 2008

We have gotten settled in here in Panama City...

January 27, 2008


Hola amigos y familia,
We have gotten settled in here in Panama City and know how to get around the city quite well now. We started our first full day here doing language learning which takes place three hours a day, five days a week. The first few days I felt overwhelmed with all the new information but now I just keep yearning to learn more and more of the language. I’ve gotten to the point where I can talk in short sentences and am learning past and future tenses now. Everyday we take a couple of buses to language class and then take a taxi back to our home stay. For this first month we are staying with the Chu family Dr. Chu is an eye doctor, Tina is a real estate agent and their son David is twelve.


We have spent most of our time here so far just learning the language but we have had the chance to do a few things with the Chu family and with our m’s. Wednesday of our first week we went with our family to dad’s house where it was a special youth service in which the families of the youth were invited to come. The music and yarping was done half in English and half in Spanish. It was great getting to be around all the youth who were excited about our father. Later on Sunday we went to a Spanish speaking church with our m’s and afterwards we ate some Chinese food which was very good. There we ate Janzit which is a lot like a boiled ravioli with vegetables, chicken, or pork in it.



Later we went to ESL classes both Espanol and English classes for the local Chinese. They are so eager to learn that even after classes they wanted to learn more and soak up any language they hear. It was very inspiring to be around such good students.



After class the students, our m’s and Brett and I went to celebrate someone’s birthday (compleanos). The students cooked traditional Chinese food which took several hours to make. I had a great time getting to know many of them on an individual basis and got to learn a lot about their culture. The Chinese in Panama have all come here at different times from many different places. Some have lived here their whole life while others came here as teenagers without any other family members, while others come here with their whole family in order to start a mini super (small super market) or a restaurant. A very common thing found outside the businesses owned by the Chinese here is a small mirror. They believe this will keep the evil spirits out of their businesses. It is a constant yarper that the people would be open to our father and would find relief through Him from the spirits that plague them.


This week other than language learning we got to spend time playing basketball with David and his cousin Armando, went to the causeway with the family to ride bikes, went to Dad’s house, and went to ESL classes with the Chinese. Also this week our language teacher told us that if we would help her son, who is our age, with English, then he would teach Brett how to play the Spanish guitar (which he was just starting to learn before leaving for Panama). We are excited about this as we will have a chance to build a good relationship with him.


Please continue to yarp for our language learning, our relationship building as it is difficult to fit into a social/age group here since it is not acceptable to be married as young as we are, and for a retreat for the Chinese English students during the Chinese new year (which is in about a week and a half).


In Him,
Rachelle Roberts