Panamania

Panama has been a great country. In terms of wealth, it's a stark contrast from Nicaragua and Honduras. It is also a place where we seem to have a lot of open doors. We are working on a photography mission trip to here and through Costa Rica and Nicaragua if Yebbie, Jamie, Ashlee, Keri, Janna and any of the other girls with cool cameras are interested. Basically, we would go into villages (even some thatched roof-type places) and offer free family photos to the entire town. It would be a good opportunity for the churches to get to know the people in their towns.  Also, most of the people in these areas don't have nice photos of their children.

 

There's one random thing I forgot to tell you about Costa Rica. We went into Burger King and ordered their new special...Hamburguesas Mexicanas. I kid you not, it is a Whopper Jr with 3 Doritos on it to provide "Mexican spice.". Haha. Elias was insulted.

 

We have had some good meetings down here. We really clicked with a pastor who ministers to people of the Kunas tribe. They live in thatched roof huts in a place that you have to ride 3 hours by bus then 2 hours in the back of a truck then 1 hour in a canoe to get there. The couple was just really young and cool and we seemed to have a lot in common. The Kunas are one of the shortest people groups in the world. I was trying to think of a creative word to describe them but I'm never one to use big words when diminutive ones will do. Anyway, we had a great time with them and the 2 other pastors that we met on the trip and I hope we can come back and do trips here soon.

 

If you're into clothes shopping, Panama is the place for you.  They have clothes here super cheap. I just bought 3 pair(s) of socks for 99 cents.   One of the weird things about the stores here is that checkouts are often in the back of stores and they're at these giant squares. There are about 15 cashiers and no sort of line. People just run when a register is open. Very strange.

 

Today I got to do some good physical work. We went to a church and installed the electric for a new computer lab and fixed some things around the church. It felt good to do that kind of work. It was a little difficult not having my tools, but it was worth it.

 

Guess what?  Tomorrow I'll be in SOUTH AMERICA!  How cool is that???  I've been hearing stories of SA since the mid 80s when we had a foreign exchange student come from Ecuador. The place seemed so out of reach, but tomorrow...we'll be there.

 

One last thing. Airlines are known for damaging the straps on backpacks, so it's been suggested that we put our backpacks in laundry bags. I forgot to get one before I left and I had been looking all over Central America. What's weird is that even though no one carried laundry bags, everyone had these washing machine covers. Who puts a cover over their washing machine???