We're baack!

This is a much delayed entry, but it’s been a crazy couple of months.  The good news is that we’re back in the States!!  It’s come so quickly and at the same time it feels like it’s taken forever.  The past 6 months have been like riding a roller coaster with a blindfold; you strap in thinking you know what’s coming, but you don’t know when the cars are going to go up or down, when there will be turns or whether to scream from excitement or to throw up.  There are so many things that we’ve learned about being married, being missionaries and being human.

Our last update was after our first 10 days of outreach.  After spending a couple days at the YWAM base in San Jose, we headed south to Panama.  We spent October 11^th – November 17^th in different parts of Panama reaching out to the indigenous people there.   

We started at a town called David.  Our ministry there was broad and we worked with a wide range of people.  We worked with different schools, doing programs for the students and cleaning up school grounds.  We visited a nursing home where we got to help entertain and feed the residents.  We visited a small village where the indigenous pick coffee, which by the way would be a ridiculously challenging job (more about this later).    They also, of course, took advantage of the fact that Jake was a mechanic and had him work on some of the YWAM cars. 

Visiting the village where people picked coffee was a huge eye opener for our group.  The people that pick coffee are looked upon as second class citizens.  Latinos refuse to do the work because it’s too difficult for the pay.  The indigenous pick coffee and are thus the lower class.  The coffee pickers live in what is best described as a multiplex (like duplexes lined up with about 8 “houses” joined together).  Each family lives in 1 room and that 1 room holds anywhere from 4-8 people.  Each person sleeps on a blanket on the floor and there are rarely blankets to cover them, which is challenging because it gets quite cold as coffee grows in the mountains.  Additionally, they don’t have a kitchen, but rather all the families share 1 kitchen.  Each day the coffee pickers will go out at around 6 am and pick coffee until about 4 pm.  During these 10 hours, they pick about 1 70 lb bag of coffee for which they receive $7 from the coffee wholesaler.  This wholesaler then sells the same bag for $21.  The children of coffee picking families do not receive an education as it is too important for the children to pick coffee to add to the family income.  It’s quite sad knowing that these children will not be able to break out of the cycle of poverty that they live in because they will grow up with an education. 

We decided to talk some time to pray over a multiplex and while we were talking about their living conditions, a young boy of 13 came down from the mountain, tripping over a muddy root, with his bag of coffee.  He had spent the day picking coffee and his parents were still up the mountain picking.  His clothes were tattered and he hadn’t been to school in several years.  He seemed to accept that his life would always be a coffee picker.  The good news about this family is that his father was not an alcoholic, like most of the men in this tribe were.  Can you imagine making $7-$21 per day and having that be wasted on alcohol?  How devastating for these people.  And how devastating that the children’s future is not much more hopeful than that.

Our transportation into the village in Saltò

After 12 days in David we headed south to Panama City.  The first week we arrived in Panama City we spent time painting a private elementary school that YWAM runs in Panama City.  After days of painting we headed into what could be called “the bush” in Panama, close to the Colombia border, where we spent 3 days with the Embera tribe helping to build a house for a family in need.  We were near a town called Saltò and it is literally the hottest place we have ever been.  It was so unbearably humid and we are so blessed to have been able to sleep in a room that had air conditioning because without it, it may have been unbearable.  In addition to being hot, it is quite a dangerous place to get to.  Typically when groups come to build houses for the tribe they are escorted in by the Panamanian Army and are flown in by helicopter.  This is because there are many guerillas hiding in the forest around this area.  But as we were heading out, we were told that they had forgotten to coordinate being taken out there so we were going on our own.  As we passed through the final checkpoint in Panama, the man in charge at the check point drove after us, flagged us down and asked if we would be ok going in alone or if we needed an escort.  I just kept thinking to myself, “It’s a good thing my father doesn’t know about this or he’d be off his rocker”.  Obviously we made it out alive, praise the Lord!!

Painting fingernails in Margaritas

One of our favorite kids in Margaritas

After our 3 days with the Embera tribe, we spent 7 days with the Wounaan tribe in Margaritas de Chepo.  This was by far our favorite week of outreach.  We stayed at a pastor’s house right next door to a church.  90% of our ministry was interacting with the kids and the youth of this church.  It was great to be able to do ministry for the same people all week instead of the usual 1 time meeting people.  The kids were always at the church and always wanted to play with us.  And people from the community were always at the pastor’s house hanging out, talking, cooking.  These people are never alone.  Relationship is the most important thing to them.  This is the place that I got to practice my Spanish the most and Jake started learning Wounaan.  We had 2 people from our group preach at the church and it was amazing because one of them is deathly afraid of public speaking.  It was so awesome to watch God’s ability show up where a person’s ability feels lacking.   

Jake receiving his graduation certificate.

We finished up our final couple of weeks in Panama City and San Jose.  I did a lot of sewing in the last couple of weeks, while Jake did outreach with his team.  The final week in San Jose we got to stay with our great friends Douglas and Karen and their 2 sons.  We spent a lot of time with them playing games and talking about everything under the sun.  We were so blessed to have such great friends so close by. 

Now we are back in the states and getting settled back in.  We are trying to get caught up with people, but also trying to make sure that we’re re-entering “real life” gently so as to not have a shock to our system (the weather shock has been enough!!)  I’m currently looking for a job and Jake is going to start back at his old job soon.  Please keep my job search in your prayers.  I’ve applied for a few jobs that I’d really enjoy a few that are things that would tie us over.  I imagine things will be pretty slow moving with the holidays and all. 

We are so blessed to have people offering us places to stay while we get our feet back under us.  It is amazing to be taken care of in the way we have been.  God is so faithful!