Massachesetts Brennemans visit

As I mentioned in the last post, Marie and the girls came down for a visit...I still am so sorry for their entry in!  After a major snowstorm on the east coast and their flight being delayed.  They flew into Houston just to marathon dash to the gate and watch their plane pull back...The airlines had planned on putting them up for the night, but could only get them standby on another flight in the morning which would mess up their connection to Panama.  Thankfully the attendant took pity on them and got them redirected to Miami where they had to get a hotel and stay until very early the next morning.  Here they were supposed to get a wake up call and have a taxi waiting to take them to the airport.  Wake up call--check, taxi--uhmm.  Well to say the least, they eventually got locked out of the hotel by one way doors and had to flag down some driver to get them to the airport, where they again dashed through to catch their flight.  As they enter Panama air space things are looking up, hopefully their ride will be there.  Poor Marie has been attempting to text, call, email, contact me  but to no avail because our internet had been down at the house.  I only get text, phone, or email when there is Wifi access.  The last text I get is we are flying into Panama at this time.  My flight to Bocas is arriving at 7:30pm...Ray and I scratched our heads for quite some time over that one.  We were worried because we couldn't get a hold of Marie (her phone didn't work here and John had changed his number), but we thought her original email said her flight would be in at 4 and we didn't think any flights came in that late.  Well we decided to go to town and take some paperwork to the coordinator.  Funny enough we were there at around 5 when a flight went overhead.  We looked at each other and said thought that was her flight.  Oh well lets go get a snack and wait for them to eat in case they are hungry when they get in.  We are sitting in the park munching away when we get a phone call from our neighbor, a brother, saying that he had them sitting there on his porch and where were we!

Marie's side of the tale is that she did send an original email saying 4:00 and a text saying 7:30.  In her delirious state of none sleep and travel stress, she had sent the wrong time in the text mixing up their leave time with arrival time.  Poor things got here on the plane we thought humm about.  Then they were going to stay i the airport until we came for them except that the airport closed at 6.  They were kicked outside.   A nice local saw them and said it wasn't a good choice for them the stand around in that spot and they should leave.  A taxi drove by and asked them where they wanted to go. They couldn't remember the name of the house and of course the driver didn't know us, but it came out they were Jehovah's Witnesses.  So he took them to the kingdom hall.  A young brother who lives behind the hall happened to be going by and he did know us and sent the ladies to the Carenero boat dock where the loaded up and went over to the island and met Tom on the dock of our house.  Enter us totally confused and soo sorry for not being there to meet them.  We ended up getting food and anyway, they made it and a funny story to boot:)  Super Thanks to Marie, the girls, and Natalie for helping me get the books I needed for this semester of school!!

During the week, we had a wonderful time working together out in service and having fun!  Monday Raymond took the group out and the rest of us stayed home, rested, and visited.  Tuesday we visited in the morning and in the afternoon we all went out in service there in Carenero.

 I think it was on Tuesday morning Kianna did Madi's hair.  She's full of braids and beads! She loved it and it was very cute.  It took like 4 hours though...poor bums.

Wednesday we went out in service but mostly not together.  We all seemed to get separated for studies and territories etc.  Right now there is a census work going on in the congregation.  A couple of the brothers are remaking all of our territory cards and we are searching for all English speakers in the area and making note of it.  I have never really done this sort of work before and with no street names or house numbers anywhere it can be a challenge at times.  The new maps are AWESOME though and are being made from Google Earth shots so that we can number the houses and keep track of not at homes.  There is some doctoring that has to happen though because not all the shots are clear and there has been a lot of new building so some roofs are not visible.

On Thursday we went to Bastimentos and had a nice day.  Marie did some phenomenal informal witnessing and has a couple of great calls I'm following up on.  I went on studies then we all met up for lunch.  That afternoon we headed home and had meeting also.

Friday, we went out in service part day...the girls worked with me scouting a tough territory.  Again Marie found a lady who really touched her heart.  We happened to be in a very poor area and it sort of started to get to us all.  We ended up finishing the day with lunch and a shopping trip!!  The kids all seemed to have a good time since so much is so cheap and they could get trinkets for a steal.  Then we headed home to play on our beach, lay out, fish, and dive for shells.

Saturday we went into service in a hoighty toighty area called Red Frog.  It's on the opposite side of the island of Bastimentos.  On the boat ride there though we had a GREAT experience!!  DOLPHINS sighted off the boat.  They swam along with us for a bit.

The people in the Red Frog development are very well off and these are private second homes for most.  We had to walk a long way to get there and were kicked out after about a half hour of working the territory.

Since we were there, we decided to go to the beautiful beach located on that part of the island.  It is a public beach with some breathtaking views.  Marie and I searched for red frogs, but didn't find any:(

But we had to take care since the undercurrent can be strong.  Notice Ray in the water with Ty holding on tight!

After we tired of this beach and needed some lunch we headed back to Bocas.  Then we grabbed a cab to head up to Starfish beach.  I don't have many shots there since A. My phone battery was getting low and B.  I was super worried about Raymond.  Here's that tale:  So after a 20 minute taxi ride at speeds of 55 around hairpin corners ( I thought I would get sick we were going so fast), we made it to a little beach town called Bocas del Drago.  We then were to catch a boat ride over to Starfish.  You can walk there, but we didn't because our feet were hurting from the long walk up hills on Red Frog.  As we were catching the boat everyone had gotten into the craft except Raymond and the driver.  Ray was helping him push us off the shore when he suddenly yelped and jumped into the boat.  His foot was bleeding and he was in a lot of stinging pain.  We weren't sure what had happened at that point and just were trying to stop the bleeding and determine if he would need stitches or medical care.  As he was holding his foot, the rest of us callously noticed the beauty of the birds.

The boat driver said it was probably a coral cut.  We worried about an infection.  When we got to the beach, we got Ray off the boat and onto a lounge chair, where we noticed his foot had a spreading red rash like thing on it and it was swelling a bit.  With the bleeding stopped though we were able to get a better view of it.  Strange thing, it wasn't a slice like you would expect from coral.  It had one cut then another little poked hole... like it had been hooked by something.  I was worrying about a stingray when the boat driver assured us it was coral.  He left and I went down the beach for some ice to help with the stinging and swelling.  The ice burned but helped a little.

The kids all played and swam in the gentle water.  Starfish actually abound here and are watched by a man that makes sure they are safe and not picked up or hurt by tourists.  We helped move a couple away from the shore as the tide went out.  Then while Ty played in the water, the girls did dance shots and took pictures of each other.  (I don't have any of those but they were really cool.)

 Later the bar keeper came down the beach...I figured he would know a coral cut etc...he told us yes coral and went to get some alcohol.  I think that helped the most.  After that we got home and did some research...it looks like it was fire coral from the descriptions.  The alcohol helped a lot.  For the first week Ray put alcohol and Neosporine on it all the time to take the sting out.  Now he still has a cut, but it appears to be healing.

That night we got ready and went to eat sushi (said shushi here).