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.