Service in Bastimentos

Thursday was my first day going to Bastimentos, another island off of Bocas and in our territory.  Raymond spoke of going here previously, but it was my first time.  We had a nice time there...lots of English speakers and plenty of Rasta too.  Our plan was to meet the service group at the island and just take a water taxi from out dock to the island, but that was going to be expensive.  We ended up taking our small taxi to another dock then taking a larger boat to that island.  It was a CRAZY ride. I had never taken air before on a boat and when it hit down again...quite jarring.

My family sat in the park waiting for the others.  Raymond struck up a conversation with a water taxi captain.  It was a nice chat and we learned alot about how all the boats work.  When the group got there, we split up...many already have studies and plans to work with someone--they were off.  The remainders had a small portion of a territory we were to work.  We did it in like 20 minutes, then it was back to the park to informal until lunch (there were no other territory maps for the island in our midst).  I had a nice morning with another sister who is visiting from Baltimore.  She and her husband plan on moving here for good in September.  We were able to chat with a lady about her family and share a scripture with her.  I will probably go back to chat with her next week and place some literature.  While I was doing this, Raymond was searching for his RV with Ty.  Across the street, a family had some little baby chicks...Ty's highlight for the day so far...he got to hold a chick! 

Back at the park, we watched as some military type marines guys unloaded lots of equipment.  They had machine guns and all sorts of stuff...Ty was blown away that we would talk to "an Army guy with a gun."  Raymond had spoken briefly to one of the men and found out they were marines that traveled all up and down the coast watching out for what we assume to be is drug smuggling activity.  There isn't  a real danger here of problems, but the traffic can flow through the waters off the coast of Panama.  Raymond went on a call and the marine sort of kept unloading and watching us all.  Finally, I realized that he might not really speak English well and remember that he hadn't been told why we were sitting there watching them unload.  I was brave and attempted to talk with him in Spanish...he really appreciated it and took the Good News Brochure from me...I highlighted lesson 8 about why is there so much suffering...IN SPANISH!!  (Ruthie you'd be proud).  After that the guys got back from their call and were all standing around.  Raymond said the marine must have been really impressed because instead of going to stand with his peers, he came and stood with our brothers!  Then it was time for lunch!

We headed out to a small place on the end of a pier behind their living quarters and had rice and chicken.  It wasn't bad, but after we ate, the brother that lives in front of us got the kids excited because he found a fishing line at the end of the dock.  They used our scraps and fished.  A small parrot fish was caught!

We released him too:)  Then is was back to more service.   Some went home, some went on studies, the rest of us tried a couple of calls.  I finished the day going on half of one study and on another with a sister.  One study is from Poland and comes to meeting and the other makes amazing coconut loaves (johnny cakes).  They are so good and I can't wait to order some next week...they are fabulous with jam on them for breakfast.  Both studies went well, the Polish lady is more progressed then the other, but everyone is at their own place.   I got home around 6:30pm.  Quite a day and very happy!

I look forward to more service on the islands.  Bastimentos has lots of potential!
 

Careneros House

So after Ty and I took antibiotics, we although tiring easily, had to move to our new digs.  The flat we chose was on another island that is a 2 minute water taxi from the main island.  We have a large upstairs 2 bedroom 1 bath place.  I've included pictures for you to see. 

This is taken from the walkway leading from the door to the dock where the kids and I waited for about 4 hours while the house was vacated and "cleaned."  The dock is attached to another two story building that houses two men.  One of them is a brother, he's who helped us find this spot.

Ray was out in service that morning (he had been asked to lead the group) so I hefted all 200 pounds up the steep stairs and into the flat.  When done I vowed that we would reclean the clean house...After two complete days of cleaning top to bottom and laundering the curtains, it is quite cute and now clean.

The house is full of windows and lets in a lot of light and air during the day.  In the evening when the bugs come out, we usually close up everything and turn on the 2 working ACs.  There are fans in the two bedrooms.  The only thing lacking is light at night.  Both bedrooms only have a small lamp as does the living room.  Any light at night comes from the kitchen, bathroom, and small adjoining hall.  It hasn't seem to bother us too much yet.  Recently Raymond went to Changonola and found a flat screen TV that hooks up to our external hard drive! Yeah movies at night.

Here are some fun pictures of what we see from our upstairs home.  We gets lots of wildlife: geckos (no pictures, although Ty captured a baby one the other day and it is housed in an old water bottle), an iguana in the tree outside the house, pigeons that roost on all 4 working and not AC boxes, roosters, chickens, birds, eels (Ray was walking to refill our water jug-you don't drink the faucet water here-and saw one the kids had pulled out of the swampy area in the middle of the "village"), and dogs.

  The two birds (last shot) was from being out in service on Wednesday afternoon.  Madi dubbed them Romeo and Juliet.  The Iguana Ty named Camouflage. Yup it really does look like a pirate ship.  It pulled in on Monday and left today Saturday.  It is a really pretty boat.  We found out on Thursday that it is actually a cruise ship for tourists. You can pay lots of money to help crew it and live on it for a bit...  The Rooster was just pretty. I took the picture from my bedroom window this morning.  The house shots were taken from the kitchen window.

Most of you live in Seattle and those that don't know the rep we have in the Pacific Northwest...it is always raining, right.  This then will make you laugh...although it is 84-90 degrees consistently here, we do get major rainstorms.  I actually look forward to these since when we get them, it means I can do laundry!  WHAT!  Here's how it works.  The brother that lives in front of us and the guys upstairs are connected to city water, but never get any.  The laundry room is connected to their house.  So how do we run the washer, let them have showers, and wash their dishes...well from rain water.  When it rains, the water from one side of the peaked roof slides down into the rain gutter.  The gutter then feeds into a huge black "holding tank" that then feeds another holding tank in their house.   The laundry is hooked up to this system.  So when it rains, I know their tank is full and I can do laundry without causing any hardship for these two guys!  Crazy how life goes in a circle...come from rain most complain about and go to rain saves the day!  After doing the wash, usually I only do 1-2 loads trying to conserve water, I hand our clothes out to dry on a line hanging on the porch.  We have a dryer, but it throws flames when you turn it on...I don't want to chance it!

I forgot this is our little beach.  It is right beside the brothers house and is pretty clean.  We just learned yesterday from experience not to walk under the palm trees.  I had heard earlier and warned the kids about falling coconuts, but you know it sounds crazy to say stay away from the trees. Yesterday after school while we were at the beach, 2 coconuts fell from the tree.  Thankfully no on was under it, but one hit the ground and the other hit it...the horrible sound it made was impactful for the kids.  They stayed clear of the trees after that imagining what would have happened if that sound had been their heads!  YIKES!

All in all we are having a nice time and quite the adventure. 

On this island we have been out in service twice.  I met a awesome call.  He is a police officer that works in Almirante (yup where the bus dropped us off).  He is here staying with his mother in law while his kids are out of school.  They are on summer break I think because they don't go back until the middle of February and haven't been in since we got here... he has 5 kids and they live about 4 hours from here.  He travels to his job in Almirante and stays there for a week then goes back home to his family.  Raymond is planning on studying with him...and seeing where it goes.  He was so humble and pulled out his bible to see the word of God.  It made quite an impact that Jehovah has a name and it is not El Senor (like God).  His bible had taken the name out and he was surprised and started using Jehovah as soon as he saw it in the scriptures.  It was awesome. 

A list of 80

80 people.  According to a recent conversation I had with a brother here in the Bocas English congregation, there is a list of 80 advanced return visits and bible studies that nobody is currently calling on.  80!  Does that fact baffle you? Amaze you? Frustrate you?

The fact is many brothers and sisters sacrifice greatly to come to Bocas and have many fruitful calls, develop nice return visits, and in short order they have many bible studies.  But these dear friends' circumstances do not allow them to stay indefinitely so they must eventually return to their homes after a few weeks or months.  The studies they cultivate cannot be attended to because the remaining "long term" brothers and sisters already have full schedules of studies of their own.

Can you help?  If you can come for a few weeks or a few months then please come.  Your help will be greatly appreciated and Jehovah will bless your efforts as you serve in an area that is both physically beautiful and white for the harvest.  Can you come for a year?  "No!" you say, "that is not possible for me because... I have kids/I have to work/I am not good at preaching".  Please watch the video on the JW.org website-- "From Prison to Prosperity" and then decide.  Jehovah wants to use you to do great things.  And those he are drawing towards him are waiting to study with YOU here in Bocas.

Service in Bastiementos

Here you see me in my Panama service get-up!

Val was still under the weather on Thursday but I went out to support the service group.  Every Thursday, the service group travels to Bastiementos Island to conduct several studies, follow up with return visits, and work the territory door-to-door.  Travel time from Bocas Town is about 15 minutes and the cost is $1.50 per person each way.  Here is what the little town looks like from the water taxi:

Bastiementos is one of the few islands that the brothers are able to reach on a regular basis to carry out the preaching work.  There are a half dozen other islands and even part of the mainland that do not get covered because either there are not enough brothers to handle all the workload or it is too expensive to reach them via water taxi.  Just two weeks ago, a water taxi was hired to reach some of these "seldom worked" islands and many residents stated that they have never seen Jehovah's Witnesses before!  The reception was warm and inviting and many expressed a desire to learn more about the Bible.  Because of lack of funds and available brothers, however, there are presently no plans to return to these sheep.  If only we had a boat of our own.

As for Bastiementos, many of the friends have a full day of studies one after the other and do not return back to Bocas Town until well after dark.  In two hours of door-to-door service, I believe my partner and I covered four or five houses.  Each householder was willing to stop what they were doing and engage in a discussion on a bible topic-- imagine that!  Little children will grab you by the hand and take you to their house, eager to show off their english; they love watching the videos from the JW.org website and if you stop to show one child a video by the time it is over you will have an audience of five to ten.

The friends used to conduct a weekly public talk on the island which was nicely attended but there are currently too few brothers to handle to responsibilities of conducting two meetings per day.  Hopefully some day soon meetings can resume so these humble studies and return visits on Bastiementos can receive regular spritual food and enjoy the gathering together of ourselves.

Bocas del Toro... not like Panama City

Getting from Panama City to Bocas del Toro is kinda its own adventure.  Logically, the first thing you do is.... go to the mall!  Not just any mall, the Albrook Mall in Panama City which is quite possibly the largest mall I have ever seen (if you doubt me, just google it and look at the images!).  The bus depot is incorporated into a portion of the mall.  We bought our tickets at 3:30pm for the 9:30pm bus and then spent the next 6 hours waiting.  Oh well, at least there was plenty of window shopping to do for Val and the kids while I guarded the bags.

We didn't get a picture of the bus we boarded, it is unexciting and looks just like every tour bus you see driving around Seattle except that the air conditioner has been freakishly modified so as to keep the inside temperature perfect for storing frozen beef.  Nothing feels stranger than wearing your sweater, jacket, and two pairs of pants in the middle of Panama!

The bus journey from Panama City to Almirante, the port city where you can catch a water taxi to Bocas, takes place entirely at night and so you sleep through most of it.  I am pretty sure, however, that the trip is terrifying.  Frequently I would awaken from my slumber to the noise of tires just slightly past their limit of grip as we round one hairpin turn after another.  But, ignorance is bliss! and all I know is that we arose at 6am in Almirante ready to schlep our 114 bags once again to another location.

The water taxi trip from Almirante to Bocas Town took about 20 minutes and looked like this:

Bocas Town looks much different than Panama City and probably more like what you would expect a small Latin American island town to look like.  There are modern cars and modern boats and residents have Galaxy S3 phones but many homes are built on wood stilts, kids play baseball with a stick and a crushed soda can, most residents walk or bike to and fro, and evenings are spent lounging in a hammock or playing dominoes on their front porch.  Also typical of Latin American small towns, trash is common-- plastic bottles and wrappers are everywhere along with broken plastic chairs and other "stuff".  But even so, the beautiful beaches remain.  Exhibit A...

School and Service Meeting tonight... in the dark

The circus sideshow that is the Brenneman Family somehow made it to Bocas del Toro.  I will post much more on "getting here" in the next few days. 

Panama City greeted Valerie and Titus with some kind of cough/fever/infection so they have yet to make it to a meeting here in Panama.  Good news is that if you know the right medicine to ask for and the right pharmacy to go to then you can cheaply get the medicine you need.  Both Val and Ty are recovering quickly and expect to be back out in service by week's end.

We will not own a car during our stay in Panama-- gasp!  Instead we have purchased bicycles and will bike everywhere-- to the grocery store, out in service, to meetings, to the pharmacy, to pay the power bill, to get more groceries!  Bicycles are expensive here, this being a touristy/beach/surfer town and all (welcome to Bocas!).  No joke, we paid half as much for 4 bikes as our last car cost us! (Ok, everyone knows our little Honda Civic was cheap... but still!)

Madison and I attended our first mid-week meeting tonight.  Meeting is Tuesdays at 7pm-- no 6:30pm (good thing I ran into that brother on the street earlier today!).  And so about 5:00pm the power went out on the island (welcome to Bocas!) and we got dressed in the mostly-dark, hopped on our new rides, and rode off to meeting.  No power equals no lights, no toilet, no fans, and no music to sing to!  It was so fantastic.  Collectively, we sang our little hearts out to the Kingdom Melodies and used flashlights to provide just a scintilla of light so that the conductors could carry out their assigned parts and call on the friends for comments.

This was my first mid-week meeting, but that does not prevent the brothers from using you-- I was privileged to handle one service meeting part and an interview (welcome to Bocas)!  This is no lie, right at the very moment in my part (Micah's example) when I asked the audience if Jehovah has blessed them in theocratic activities-- the power resumed and the lights came on!  Just in time to finish the final song and just dwell together in Jehovah's house talking, laughing, and being together with the cicadas chirping in the nighttime air behind us.

It's funny.  We are battling some Panamanian scuz. It's hot.  And humid.  We are living out of our suitcase with no long-term place to call home as of yet.  And we conducted meeting in the dark tonight.  But somehow this place just feels like a small glimpse of what paradise might be like as people flock to be taught by Jehovah.  Welcome to Bocas.

Jehovah's people are so skilled

Sometimes in the US we hear the stereotype that Jehovah's Witnesses are simpletons-- uneducated, unskilled, simple laborers who eschew higher education for lack of ability.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Around the world, Jehovah's people are intelligent, amazingly-skilled people and here is just one example...

This brother would not like me to publicly give him credit so he stays anonymous.  He has two pianos in his apartment (down from three!)-- one of them a baby grand.  I mentioned to him that I have utterly failed over the last year in buying out the time to teach Madison piano.  This brother mentions that he is a piano professor!  "Amazing," I say and ask him if, in addition to his teaching, he plays with any orchestras or symphonies.  "Not so much," he replies.  Graciously, he agrees to play a Haydn sonata for us and it was mind-boggling how beautiful he plays.  Later that evening I find out from another person that this brother has traveled all over the world playing classical piano for numerous renowned orchestras!

And so it goes with Jehovah's people.  Like this brother, so many are amazingly skilled but god-fearing humility keeps them from seeking glory for themselves.  Just imagine paradise when we can finally all enjoy the amazing skills of these brothers and sisters!

Our walk around Panama City

When going to a new country you inevitably wonder about the things that will and will not be available to you there.  Panama invokes visions of jungles, wild animals, huts?, and sandy beaches.  As it turns out, it is also home to HP, Quiznos, Office Depot, McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Do-It-Center, and places that are not Costco, Best Buy, or Walgreens but are dead-ringers for them!

The closest grocery store is called Rey's... and it is nicer and more well-stocked than Albertsons.  It has a coffee bar, too.

There are about a million banks here as well so no shortage of available ATMs.

We awoke from our slumber at about 1pm to the sound of mariachi music echoing through the apartments and streets.  We are definitely in Panama! So we ventured out into the city.  Is this what you think of when you think of Panama?

Panama does have many upscale stores... Rolex, Hugo Boss, LaCoste. Missoni, and then there's this:

Our friend and brother took us for a walk around the city this night as well...

We ate some great pizza and then sneaked up to the 62nd floor of the Hard Rock Hotel (they have Bon Jovi's original golf pants!!) for a nighttime view of Panama City:

21 hours, 5 airports, 3 planes, and a taxi... we made it to Panama!

SeaTac airport is mostly empty at 4:30 in the morning on a Wednesday.  So it was fairly solitary as we checked our 5 rolling bags at the Southwest check-in counter and lugged our 5 carry-on items through the lonely security checkpoint line and towards our departing gate.  After a quick stop in Denver we arrived in New Orleans (Naw'leans?  Every local says Naw'leans!) for a not-quick 4 hour layover and plane change.  Our flight was late to leave New Orleans for Ft. Lauderdale and so the showdown was set for the critical moment of our trip... would we make our connection in Ft. Lauderdale from Southwest Airlines to Spirit Air so that we could catch our flight to Panama?

I have a love/hate relationship with Spirit Airlines and FLL (Ft. Lauderdale).  Spirit Airlines is cheap-- it costs as little as $39 dollars plus tax to fly from FLL to Panama, $39!!!!  The tax and airport fees costs more than the airfare :)  BUT if you arrive in FLL via Southwest and need to catch a flight on Spirit, say an hour and a half later, you are in for some excitement.  Ask us how we know :)  We must arrive on Southwest, collect our 5 bags from the baggage claim, check-in at the Spirit counter and re-check our bags, re-go through the security checkpoint line, and then leisurely jog to our departure gate with our 5 carry-ons in an hour and a half.  FLL has 4 separate terminals.  Southwest is in Terminal 1 and Spirit is in Terminal 4.  No problema (Espanol guys!) because there is a shuttle that runs constantly between the terminals.... until 9pm.  So when we arrive --at 10pm-- and wait 15 minutes for the shuttle that isn't coming we have the *privilege* of running what must have been the longest mile ever from Terminal 1 to Terminal 4 with ALL of our luggage.  Good news is that Spirit restricts checked baggage to 40 lbs so we only had to carry 200 lbs of checked baggage and 200 more lbs of carry-on luggage as we were sprinting along.  Oh well, my hopes of arriving in Panama smelling fresh and clean were dashed after that little jaunt.   After sitting in the check-in line at the Spirit counter for eternity and making it on the plane for our 11:30pm flight at 11:45pm we were off to Panama.... there was no going back now.

We arrive in Panama City at 3am.  David Watts is waiting for us as we exit customs with our luggage.  Who is David Watts?  He is a brother in one of the Spanish congregations in Panama City who drives a taxi for a living.  He and his wife are pioneers.  He stands there with a huge smile-- I don't know how, its 3am for crying out loud!-- holding a sign with our name and a Watchtower magazine.  He takes us to an apartment rented by two brothers-- Jon and Abdiel-- who have an extra room they are willing to let us stay in.  This is our first glimpse of Panamanian living, as we enter their apartment... is it what you expected?