Jan 2013 Circuit Assemblies & Meetings under the Tree, Fruit Test

Dear Friends

Sorry to be so slow this month about keeping you all up to date. Had the flu and whatever else was going around. Quite a few here caught it. But most of us are better now, still a few out with the cough and sinus, but all in all recovering.

This month has been very full with service and getting resettled after our trip to the US. Our Study with our neighbors Kuto and Julisea is progressing nicely. They are doing well. They continued with their study through the Christmas season, which we thought a bit unusual. Often in the states when the christmas season rolls around with new studies you just let the “season” pass by because they were to busy or too distracted to study, and having not made enough progress we did not expect them to study anyway. But they asked that we study with them as usual, so of course we were glad too. Of all things they requested we study with them on Christmas Eve.

We discussed between us (Jim and I) whether we would even mention Christmas or not and decided that if they did not ask, we would keep quiet for this year....... so the subject of our study? Yup.......Christmas. So we spent 2 hours showing them the details in the bible, how to do research online and how to use WT library online for even more details.

They wanted MORE. So we showed them the ancient history of Christmas and its origins. Satisfied at last Julisea said....... well I guess this might be our last Christmas !!

My other study Aura has resumed and is also doing very well.

And I have started a new study with a spanish woman that speaks passable english, but said she wants to study in spanish because she doesn't like speaking english. I agreed with her. I don't necessarily like english either.
Here is a Panamanian Fruit Test.  Can you tell which is which and what is what?

which one is the orange?

 

Pretty ugly, what is it?

It is NOT a childs lost ball, it is a fruit, after a fashion.... They tell me they give it to the pregnant women to help with labor.... That must be ONE DESPERATE woman.  The inside of this "fruit" smells like rotting road tar and 30 day old socks!!

Pineapple with an attitude

So I thought I might share in this letter the partial list of all the folks that have come to visit in the last 30 days. There seems to be no end to the incoming stream of visitors. Some are coming to “check it out”. Others are just here to “taste” Panama. Some come every year and spend a spiritual vacation in an area of greater need, thereby accomplishing 2 things in 1. A great vacation with a spiritual boost. One brother even said he came for 3 reasons..... 1) lose weight by walking more, 2) go in service as much as possible, thereby attaining #3) go back to his congregation spiritually stronger and ready to join the full time ranks.

So the list below is NOT complete because I missed a few meetings for the flu and several came and went, but as you can see we get an international flavor here all in one location !!!!!

Donny & Wanda Foster- North Carolina

Andrew and Anna Johnson- Minnesota

Steve and Vicky Stocksdales-and 2 children- Adin and Adison - from Missouri

Dustin & Ginger Dawson- from Missouri

Henry and Lin Ben Buren- British Colombia

Aaron Atkins and Brien ?- from Vermont

Marissa from Ohio

Gerard and Kelley Moorecroft—British Colombia (originally from England)

Adam and Christine Gagliardo- Massachusetts

Beth Ferguson- NYC

Sylvanus and Jean Tugwell- Texas

Judy Wintemute- Washington State

Tony and Pattie Guitterez- Washington state

Becky England- Washington state

Paul and Sylvia Liston- British Colombia

Peter and Gayle Briggs- Yelm, Washington

Adrie den Braber- Belgium

Ken Hayes -North Carolina

Fred Bentley -North Carolina

Maxine Perry- North Carolina

Alfred and Irene Muehr- British Colombia Canada (originally Germany)

A Grand total of 36 visitors in the last 30 days

Would any of you like to join a future list???? I had to put in a plug for our side, don't you know.

There is a sister here that is preparing a guest bedroom in her home for visitors. Very nice accommodations. WiFi, TV, Iron, Washer, Use of Kitchen, Use of cell phone for the visit (with $50 deposit). Walking distance to Kingdom Hall (2.5 miles), taxis, and buses readily available. She is basically offering a bed and breakfast arrangement at 150 per week, or 450 for a month.

If you would like to come taste and see Panama and find out what all the excitement is about........

Let us know if you are interested. Drop us a line. The last time we offered a house a couple called us within 3 hours of getting the email. So to say that you can not be too quick to respond would be understating the obvious. That couple is here now.

Alfred and Irene have come to stay for 6 months from Vancouver BC

I thought in this letter I might also include the “fruit test”. See if you can identify these fruits by their appearance..... see below to the attached pics. Can you tell which one is the orange??

Also attached is a few pictures not included before. Sunrise over the canyon, Bajareque rainbow days, our ongoing construction obstacles (telephone and power poles in the middle of the road).

Today we had to make our “run for the border” as we call it. Every 3 months we must get stamped OUT of Panama, into Costa Rica (or any other country of choice) and get stamped back IN to Panama. It is an all day affair usually and this day was no shorter. We left late (10 am) due to the fact that we are slow.... got stuck behind a diesel truck hauling something heavy uphill ( he was creeping around 15 mph) and could not pass for about 7 miles at least and concluded that we would be arriving at the border at lunch time again..... For those of you that read our last border crossing letter you will remember NEVER to come at lunchtime........ So we did the next best thing.... we had lunch ourselves in the little town of Volcan for $8 dollars for the 3 of us. That included 6 stuffed ham pockets made with ohaldras dough (the Panamanian equivalent of fried dough). They are puffy pockets with ham, onions, seasonings, and these had a hint of cheese too. They were as large as the palm of my hand. And 3 sodas (in glass bottles). All for $8 bucks.

So we managed to arrive at the Panamanian/Costa Rican border just after 1pm. Perfect timing. And this time we even had the copy of our passport that they asked for the last time.

So stamp us out..... walk over to Costa Rica … Stamp us IN. Stamp us out again in the same 10 minutes after filling out a few forms.... and back over to Panama to …....

.Oops... no.... they changed the rules again.....

We needed a 2^nd copy of the passports to get back into Panama, even though the man at the desk had seen us only 15 minutes before............... AHHHHH.

So we had to go into the little town of Rio Sereno to get copies made. The same place we went last time......BUT THEY WERE OUT TO LUNCH !!!! Because we forgot about the time change at the border. They are in Central Time. So we ended up waiting for lunch after all. Finally at 2pm (Eastern Time) we got our copies and finally got stamped back into Panama and got on our way...... 2 1/2 to 3 hours driving home. We got home around 5pm.

One of these trips we might just get it right and anticipate everything they will want. They also wanted proof that we had a way to leave panama, so we showed them proof of ownership of the car. That was sufficient.

The 3 month crossing is only for those who own cars so that our drivers license can be “renewed” every 3 months. For those without cars they only need to do the border crossing every 6 months.

Just another day in the life in Panama. Tomorrow (Saturday) is service and meeting at 6pm. Sunday is a full service day, the best one for the whole week. Panamanians work 6 days a week from sunup to sundown and have only Sunday off. We have many studies that day.

In my last letter I told you about our Circuit Assembly held in David.outside under the tree at the close of this meeting”

We were very pleased to have it so close to home and have air conditioning besides, especially in David. Of the many highlights of the Assembly was the announcement made toward the end Saturday that, “All single brothers between the ages of 23 and 55 are invited to come to the meeting for Single Brothers School. And those also that are younger and would like to attend as stimulus to a new goal may also attend. Our Circuit Overseer has arranged for the meeting to be held

The entire audience started laughing, we all thought he was kidding.......... Chuck Kerwin (the brother giving the announcement) must have realized that we didn't believe him..... So he managed to repeat himself without sounding sarcastic …... “ All brothers that qualify are invited at the close of this session to join the Circuit Overseer outside under the tree. This time you could almost hear the mouths hit the floor as we all realized that he meant it. There was a collective silence, a few giggles and then we moved on with the next part.....

Only in Panama !!!!

So we have had a recent experience that happened only this week in service. On Wednesday we were trying to pick off a few not at homes in a territory that has been worked quite frequently of late, especially with all of our current compliment of visitors here. Since most of our territory maps are being re-drawn and re-divided we have had a challenge keeping territory on hand for our 30+ visitors.

At one house on the highway that has a sign out front “Modista” (seamtress) we found an older man doing Laundry. As we spent a minute at his door telling him who we were (in broken spanish) he was making sure that his “drainline” for the washer was working properly. It ran 25 feet out the back of the house, from the kitchen out the back door. He took the time to accept a tract and then said “un a momento” and dissappeared. Several minutes went by and he came back with a young man in tow about the age of 29 or so. Alvin.

Alvin speaks perfect english. What a shock!!

And his nephew Aris, (20+) very good and passable english.

They are both here for this week only, visiting relatives and family in Boquete.

They both said they wanted to study the bible in English and we had only 1 bible teach book to give them, so we explained a little about it and asked if they could share it for one night and could we come back tomorrow and have a study with them?

Yes, please do.

Thursday, next morning they had their first study. We gave them each a book and one copy of a Spanish Bible teach for any difficulties they might have in comprehension, and asked if they had been able to read much since it might have been difficult to share one book. Alvin had read 15 pages and Aris had read 20 !!!!!

We studied for 30 minutes and covered the main points and scriptures in chapter one.

Since they are only here for one week we asked if they would like to study again tomorrow?? Friday.

Yes, they studied for 1 ½ hours and we covered many of the scriptures and thoughts in chapter 2. They expressed themselves very well and it was abundantly clear they had truly read and ABSORBED what they had read. How far did they read from Thursday night to Friday morning? Both got to page 40 !!!!!

They are scheduled to study again on Monday morning with Jim. Unfortunately I will miss that one as we will be back in the states by then for our 3 week visit.

Alvin is due to go back to Panama City next Wednesday. We are finding a brother to call on him there. And Aris is due to go back to Puerto Armuelles also on Wednesday. We have already located a brother to follow up on him.

Exciting times here. And these are by no means the only experiences from this month. There were a number of bible studies started and books placed and now we must try and keep up with the interest as all our visitors change faces and someone new comes to help us next month. Keep the sheep in your prayers. There is SO much to be done here.

OK friends all for now. Must close this letter.

All our love.

You may share this letter with any that you think are interested in visiting Panama. Let them know that we will help them find accommodations as best we can.

Agape' to All