Lemon Grass Tea

Do you ever have those moments where you're able to step back in time and just enjoy a specific moment again?  Maybe it was a recent memory, maybe one stored for a long, long time.  I stumbled upon some lemon grass tea a few weeks and I just couldn't stop thinking about it.  "Why?" you ask.  Well, I remember having real lemon grass tea while in Panama during the summer of '09.  I knew it had made an impact back then because, when I went back to my journal, there is was:  "and great lemon grass tea for breakfast" (that and "What in the world does God want with me way out here, visiting a tribe in Panama?").

Lemon grass tea is not the only thing that brings me back to Panama these days.  I had heard about the mudslides and wanted to be sure that my friends were all ok.  As I turned my computer on to write this blog, my friend Tulio had responded to my email [my edits in brackets - his English gets better every time]:

"hello friend, God bless you for reminding [remembering] us, errebache [the tribe referred to before] was flooded up to the bigger house and get the water there was a landslide that covered the bathroom and a house. we are all good - material damage only. now errebache'll be in [Gamboa, the town we were stationed or at the YWAM base is my guess] until January. I prayer [pray] for errebache to [go] the right direction for our village."

Please keep Tulio and all his friends and family at Errebache, as well as all those in Panama affected by the floods and mudslides in your thoughts and prayers over the coming weeks.  Many won't celebrate Christmas in their homes, so pray that they would have others to surround them in this time.