Crutches, hospital visits, BAPTISMS, no Costa Rica, Healings!

It´s my turn on crutches.  When we were leaving the island (Bocas) on Friday morning I slipped and twisted my ankle.  My personal diagnosis is a sprain, so I just bought some crutches and didn´t bother with a doctor visit..  I´m hoping by staying off of it I´ll heal quickly. 

While in Bocas del Toro we did some mini-VBS programs at some schools and it was GREAT!  I enjoyed those very much.  Thanks to Robin Marass training me in puppets when I was younger, we did puppet skits of decent quality :)  We also showed the movie "The Hope" in Bocas.  It is an overview of God´s plan for man throughout the whole Bible.  We had good response from the few people who showed up.  Good questions, quality conversations, and the next day we baptized a young man who came to the movie.  He was already attending a church, but I and another team member talked with him and saw a sincere committment to Christ, After watching the movie and talking, he wanted to be baptized.  One of our own team members had not been baptized yet, and she decided it was time for her to be baptized as well.  She is an amazing young lady and I was proud to be a witness at her baptism.  We did much more, but that is a few of the things God had for us to do. 

We were supposed to be in Talamanca, Costa Rica, right now, but two of our team members were denied entry so we decided to come back to Chiriqui and continue the ministry we did here.  Yesterday we did hospital visits at the children´s hospital, reading stories, praying for healing, and seeing some healings!  A young boy wiht a snake bite was supposed to move to Panama City to possibly have his arm amputated after they had already amputated his finger, but yesterday we visited and he is on the road to recovery!  We also went up to Volcan and had a great time of intercession, praying for the Ngobe people. 

Today is a day off, and at the end of the week the team will head back to Tugri, the capital of the Ngobe Comarca (reservation-nation).  Unless God heals my ankle completely, I will go back to Panama City and help out there as I won´t be able to walk the mountains of Tugri. 

Thank you for all of your prayers and interest in what God is doing in Panama and in our lives.  We love and miss everyone and look forward to seeing everyone in June!

Wind, Parasites, latrines, lice, children and hospital ministry

I need catchy headlines :) 

Sorry no pictures right now.  A quick update from the internet cafe. 

We spent a week in Panama City working with the Chinese churches and witnessing.  Went great!  More on that later...
Then we spent a week in Tugri, the capital of the Ngobe comarca (reservation).  It went very well.  We continued work started on digging a pit latrine at the unofficial YWAM center-house that we hope to finish when we go back in May.  Encouraged the local pastor and church, had a Good Friday service, several other services, a children´s program in the afternoon, and prayed for a  lot of people.  It was GORGEOUS in the mountains.  I just cried one day during my quiet time, in awe of God´s creation and the privilege to be here.  It was super windy, COLD in the evenings.  We tented it, the singles stayed on raised boards over a dirt floor in a home of rough sawn wood planks, with gaps big enough for wind and curious, peeping eyes of the little ones!  After we left we realized 3 of the girls on our team got lice, and 2 of us got parasites.  I´m much better now, and the girls are lice-free after shampooing and days of nit-picking.
We then headed to the province of Chriqui, where we have been ministering mostly to Ngobe people who are staying behind the general hospital and the children´s hospital next to it.  They don´t have anywhere to stay, visiting hours are from 6:30 to 7:30 every night.  They don´t have money to stay somewhere, because in the comarca it is mostly sustenance living.  The sleep in hammocks, or on cardboard on the cement floor of a community building that is the size of a basketball court with a metal roof - no walls.  We have made friends with the people there, encouraged them, prayed for them, had a night of sharing testimonies and bible stories and brought some food to share.  Sebastian is a man who is there wtih his wife and 3 children.  He gets chemo treatments monthly, but they have no money to go back and forth between treatments, so they stay there.  He has lost most of his hair, is very thin, and they are struggling for food.  A brother-in-law, who is also there because his daughter had surgery on her arm, occasionally gets a day´s work and can buy food.  Sunday we will have our church service there.  Another time I will tell you about the baby whose mother just died in intensive care from being beaten, and the baby was staying at the "camp", but abandoned.  One of the YWAM staff here is trying to get temporary custody of the child until the baby´s family can be found and if they are willing to care for it. 

We also visited kids in the hospital each night.  We will bring crayons and books as they children have nothing to do (no TV, 6 beds to a room).  One kid had his finger amputed after it died and he had gangrene due to a snake bite.  Another 12 yr old girl was admitted because she was suicidal.  One boy just wanders around on his floor because his parents abandoned him.  I guess he´s been there a while.  He clearly has some mental and behavioral disorders.  I haven´t found out if they plan to contact other family or turn him over to the state. 

It has been a PRIVILEGE to share ´God´s hope and words with the people here.  We really have enjoyed this area of Panama.  We´re in a region where they call it¨"eternal spring".  The people are friendly. 

so much more to tell, but we are heading back to the hospital shortly.  Please continue to pray for us.  Wed we leave for teh Bocas del toro area, where we will continue working with the Ngobe people there.  A week in Talamanca, Costa Rica follows, and we end our outreach where we started, another week in the comarca. 

Continue to pray for us.  We are pacing ourselves so we don´t burn out, but it´s a lot of travel, community living, etc. 

We love and miss everyone, but I´m loving it! 

Support Letter

Work day and outreach

Saturday we spent the day at Pastor Bill Wilbur's house cleaning.  He has been a pastor here for 35 years.  We have greatly enjoyed being a part of Gamboa Union Church and getting to know him.  He is a young 70!  He has written a book about his ministry in the prisons here in Panama called "Finding Freedom in Panama". 

He and his wife had to move and only 1 house was available in the area.  The people who had lived there previously had not cleaned at all.  When they were shown the house, they couldn't even see the floor because of all the clothes and garbage.  We came in and bleached every surface area as it was covered with mold and mildew.  The walls in the bathroom Luke and I cleaned were BLACK with mold and mildew.  The house is beautiful, though.  We were also able to put a coat of paint on the lower garage area. 

Our DTS will be breaking up into 3 outreach teams from April 11th-May 29th.  All will minister in Panama for part of it.  One team will spend 2 wks in Colombia as well.  Another team will spend 5 wks in Peru.  The team Luke and I are on will focus on Panama's indigenous groups, as well as spend 1 wk working with the Bri-Bri in Costa Rica.  We will be posting more about outreach as we find out more....

Iguana eggs, butt shots, and school

Yesterday a friend on base gave us a delicacy - boiled iguana eggs!  I'm so proud of myself that I ate it!  It just tasted like a very rich egg.  Our group will be spending a week in CHinatown in Panama doing ministry there the first week of outreach (April 11-15).  I'm sure we'll get to eat a few interesting things then!

As most of you have probably read on facebook, Luke had a tooth pulled.  It was abscessed and he was in pain.  WE have a month before outreach, and we didn't know if we should start the whole process of crowns, etc.  In the end, he decided to have it pulled.  I gave him a shot in the butt the first night for pain :)  The nurse gave him 5 cc of antibiotics in the other cheek earlier.  Poor guy.

Lastly, a cool opportunity presented itself - the private Christian school YWAM runs in the community needed help in the mornings for 2 wks while a teacher was on vacation.  It's only from 8:30-9:45, but I am substitute teaching!  I had wanted an opportunity to visit, and instead I got to jump right in!  I felt right at home :)

That's all for now - stay tuned for the next blog that will have more details about our practical/outreach phase....

***IF YOU READ THIS BLOG, PLEASE MAKE A QUICK COMMENT...I'M NOT SURE IF ANYONE IS READING THIS - FEEDBACK IS NICE. :)***

Embera Puru

For our week of classes on Redeeming Cultural Arts / Missions, our classroom was in the village of Embera Puru.  This is one of the 7 native tribes to Panama.  It was my responsibility to cook breakfast every morning, along with Brittany, the girl in the third picture also carrying a pot.  We had to take the pots down to the river to wash them with sand and Ajax.  They were so heavy that I incorporated some of the skills I picked up in Africa - it was so much easier to carry it on my head.  In the first picture Luke is helping us with breakfast cooking over the open fire - yes, those are hot dogs.  The second picture was the cooking house and sleeping area for most of us.  Air mattresses and mosquito nets. 

It was a great week.  I got a lot out of the teaching - wow.  Very impacting.  Perspectives on arts, redeeming, valuing cultures as part of God's creation, and just enjoying art for what it is.  We discussed all areas of the arts - music, drama, visual, literary arts, dance, story, etc.  It was a great setting as the people of Embera Puru welcomed us and we enjoyed their music, their arts, dance, body painting.  It was a perfect place to apply much of what we learned.  I enjoyed our time there.  Luke will probably post about our hike to a second village, eating monkey meat, and instead of hiking back, floating down the river for 2 hours. 

Thanks for your prayers!

valentine's day and a bridge

On Saturday the 12th Luke took me to the Causeway by the Canal for a day together since Valentine's Day was a Monday.  It was nice to get a little time together.  We walked along the ocean, looked at puffer fish and all kinds of other fish and birds, went out to eat, and to a Smithsonian Marine research park/center.  They had hands-on pools where we touched urchins, sea cucumbers and starfish.  We saw a sloth and its baby in a tree.  It was a nice afternoon. 

Friday (the 18th) we took a 3 hr drive and hiked a bit up a mountain to get to one of our DTS student's church and home.  Once there, the church welcomed us and we had a service together where we shared the Word and prayed for each other.  It was really touching.  Afterwards we went to Maria's house (in the last photo of the group she is the older lady in the front with a tan blouse & jean skirt).  She is a student here at YWAM with us.  They had just finished harvesting oranges on their farm and shared some with us - they were SO SWEET!   

The middle photo is the bridge we crossed to get to the church.  It looked great, but swayed a LOT once you got to the middle.  All I could think of was Donkey and Shrek....

We will be having class this week in a village and will be out of touch for a week. 

Zoo and Hearing the Voice of God

Today our teachers for the week (who are also the base directors) took us all to the zoo and botanical garden nearby to spend the day together.  We did some team-building activities that make you think twice about communication, hearing God's voice, etc.  I am not a new Christian, and it is so refreshing to be challenged by these teachings, and putting things into practice.  We are all different, and God speaks to us in different ways.  Sometimes in new ways that will help us communicate better with those around us.  Even when we were in sin, we heard God's voice calling us to Himself.  How much more should we hear His voice now that we are His children! 

It was a refreshing day - enjoy my classmates and staff here at the base so much already.  This week our book reports are also due and most read the book on hearing God's voice, so it is good timing for this teaching!  Fresh in our minds. 

classroom

This is one of the classrooms.  Duolos is a private school created for the Agua Dulce (Sweetwater) community.  It is a Christian school taught by YWAM staff full-time.  It is much more affordable than other private schools in Panama so it can be an outreach to the middle class families and disciple kids as well.  Brilliant, I think :)

Work day

Luke and I went to Duolos Christian Academy today and helped prep for the school year, which starts Feb 28 this year, and goes til Dec 22-ish.  Luke was working on framing the window with concrete with Emmanuel for the new classroom.  I stripped and washed the walls in 3 classrooms so we can paint them next week.  The rest of our DTS went to a church we work with locally to distribute Samaritan's purse Christmas boxes and gave a short teaching, games, snack, etc. 

The family pictured shares the house with us.  Mom Jaqui, the girl Sharlene, Christopher, and the youngest is Jeremy.

This is us after our soccer game last Thursday.  It was 8:00 in the morning and we were soaked with sweat and covered in red clay!  Notice the clay on my arms from trying to hit the ball with my shoulder....

Newsletter #1

21 de enero

We arrived without a hitch! There was hardly any turbulence on the plane! I (Jessica) had actually developed a fear of flying since our trip to Ecuador in 2004, but I had peace on the plane. God told us to go, and that was enough for me.

John and his wife Kristina picked us and another student up at the airport with their two beautiful children, Asher (1 ½ yrs old) & Natalie (3 ½ yrs old). Thursday we spent the day getting a few necessities that we couldn't bring with us. Classes started Friday.

We share an upstairs apartment with a family also doing the DTS. Meals are all in the dining room together.

It is hard to believe we've only been here a week. When you live, eat, work, pray, study, and worship together throughout the day, it doesn't take long to get to know one another! There are 18 people in our DTS. Two families from Panama (husbands & wives doing the DTS and their children live with us on the base). We also have a man from China, a woman from Honduras, a girl from Canada a girl from Colombia, several girls from the US, and 3 students from the indigenous community in Panama. We have 6 staff members leading the DTS, who are all married couples with young children. Some have been Christians only a short time and this is the beginning of their discipleship. Others are seasoned Christians, yet the teachers so far have been challenging and from the conviction of their hearts.

Already we've experienced and learned so much. I'm finishing up a book about hot and cold climate cultures, helping us to relate, understand, and appreciate cultures different from our own. We memorize verses every week, an hour of devotional time set aside every day, classes and small groups every morning and afternoon, group intercession as students and another time as a base, and 2-3 hours of work duties. (Luke is cleaning bathrooms and the classroom, Jessica is cooking breakfast and cleaning up afterward each day). Thursday evenings we also meet as a base for a church service. The base has anywhere from 25 to 70 people. We have a couple of teams arriving today and tomorrow, so it's going to be very full around here! Pray the the water holds up. The water tanks are filled by the city, but we never know when they are filled, so water conservation is the mentality. Panama suffered severe flooding in December and water is still not available in some parts of the city, and clean water not available in many remote areas.

The schedule is pretty full. We aren't communicating as much as we anticipated. There are activities and duties on the weekends sometimes, as well.

Some people have asked about the topics we're. Intercession, quiet time with God, God and work (generally and in the workplace), the fall of man, relationships, Biblical worldview, Cross-cultural communication with the arts, History of mission and missionology, spiritual warfare, conflict resolution, setting goals and plans, leadership, the work of the Holy Spirit, Daily brokenness. My (Jessica) head is already swimming processing it all, and with processing using Spanish so much again. I'm already translating.

Thank you all for your love and support! You can send email, snail mail and prayers our way! I can't promise when we'll respond, but we appreciate the encouragement.

Luke's Log Week #1

1-20-2011

This marks the third week since our last Sunday with you our church family. However because of packing and traveling for two of those weeks, it has seemed like a quick and short time. This is also the first week of our Discipleship Training School (DTS in all future references).

Our group is quite diverse ranging from Latin Panamanians, North Americans, Indigenous Panamanians, to Chinese. The age range is also quite broad from 17 to married with children all the way to one Indigenous lady who is well advanced in years. Our leadership consists of a couple from Alaska (John, and Christina), a husband and wife from the jungles of Panama, the other from the jungles of Portland Oregon (Alex, and Jennifer). The last couple are indigenous to an area of Panama very close to the Colombian border ( Tulio and Norelia ).

Physically we (I) have been challenged with the environment. The average afternoon temperature seems to be 90 degrees in the shade. The humidity seems to be about 150% but I am sure technically it is around 80% since its the dry season. There is a lot of walking and living on the side of a mountain definitely gets the legs burning. The food is quite tasty although it does consist mainly of carbohydrates (rice, bread, noodles). Vegetables are rare as is milk. We will go to the store weekly to supplement our diet and we are taking vitamins as well.

Group living has been interesting, we share our meals, classes, and free time with everyone. It gives good time for discussion and fellowship as well as a chance for the Spanish speakers to laugh at my attempts to speak Spanish.

The first week of classes has consisted of orientation, sharing of testimonies, and covering some foundational topics such as Quiet Time, God and Work, and Intercession. I say foundational not to give the impression of boring classes, but to let you know that these are core disciplines of Youth With a Mission (referred to as YWAM in any future references). God has shown us many things and even in the short time has begun to speak to us as individuals and as a group.

We will continue to keep you all updated as we are able. Thank you all for your support in finances, labor, and prayer. Please feel free to pray for us as well as our team and we want you to know we are praying for you as well. We will all be facing challenges, struggles, and attacks now and in the future. Feel free to send us a note or an e-mail. These are always encouraging to us.

May God continue to work in and through you as you labor in your mission field of South Central Wisconsin.

Lucas Robl