So Friends, to continue
where I left off.
Horseback riding on
Friday.
They (the local guides
and outfitters) managed to find 9 horses for our group. Our guide
took us to a local “stable”. Not the kind you might imagine. As
with everything else in Panama it is rustic and basic. Our “stable”
was under the trees and beside the banana trees. There were a few
lean-to's in the shady field, but we just sort of wandered around the
meadow while we waited for our “ride” to show up.
We wandered up 2 dozen
hills through meadows and fences and mud, along lush trees and
ditches and over creeks and streams. Our guide kept us more or less
pointed in the right direction and rounded us up if we headed off in
the wrong one. There were hundreds of “cattle paths” to follow
and the horses knew generally where they were headed, mostly UP.
An hour or so later we
approached our first cleared hilltop. WHAT A VIEW !!
ALL THE WAY TO THE
OCEAN !!!
The day cooperated
with clear sky's and sunshine and just a little haze between and and
forever !!
On the ride back our
other guide and I had a nice conversation about where he lived and
various spanish words. He proved to be a great dictionary for me.
The creeks we crossed were pleasantly cool. I asked him the
temperature and in typical Spanish lingo he told me they were not
“frigia” or “caliente” (cold or hot), but “tempio” (that
is Spanish for the “right” temperature) There appears to be no
thermometers anywhere in Panama.
When the wind blows
and cools everything down it is referred to as “refresco” ( no
temperature referred to, only 'refreshing')
We finished our horse
ride about 1pm, having started our bus-ride about 9am.
We all had a wonderful
morning.
Our guide for our bus
ride turned out to be a young man whose whole family is in the truth
in Volcan. He has not been active for some time now. He has allowed
work and money to get in the way of spiritual things. When we told
him we were witnesses visiting his country to talk to English people
his conscience started him talking. Whether he followed through on
his thought to go to the meeting on Sunday (Spanish) or not I have no
way of knowing, but it is now possible to search him out and see if
he will study with a brother.
So our playtime as
scheduled was over. (There is more of that since the local brothers
and sisters were sooooo kind)
Saturday was service.
We walked to the kingdom-hall, three blocks from our Hostel. A
sister took me with her on her study. It was fabulous, as all these
studies appear to be. We spent our 1 ½ hours with her. She will be
coming to the hall before long.
We had to get back to
our Hostel so that we could complete our move. We were scheduled
through Saturday morning so the brothers and sisters divided us up
and we slept in 3 different houses for Saturday nite. Since they did
not want to lose their speaker for Sunday. (We actually ended staying
until Tuesday afternoon)
As I described our
meeting in the last letter ( our “English” room for our meetings,
8' by 20' ) the brothers in Boquete foresaw a size problem, so they
rearranged a bit and lined up all the chairs facing the door from
back to front. They managed to get 23 chairs in that little room
with the Speaker Stand sort of tucked in the corner behind the door.
(capital D, below). The wall is lined with the books in the library
( bbbb in the diagram below). Jim was backed up to the books and
behind the door ( sp is Jim ). The first row was 3 feet from the
stand ( Jim says, “at the most”) and each row was tucked in
behind the next. 3 in the first row with the small area to swing the
door open, 4 in the next, and 5 chairs per row to allow access to
the next row behind, 6 in the back row.
 | |
| Imagine 23 chairs in an 8 x 20 room |
bbbbbbbbbbb
D /speaker
ccc
cccc
ccccc
ccccc
cccccc
With the window open
there was plenty of air to breathe...... We filled 21 seats. We had
a few visitors and a new “move in” that just got back from
Arizona. Arnie and Gwen are the latest additions to Boquete. They
have moved in permanently.
If Boquete keeps
growing we will soon have our own “time slot” in the Main Hall.
For the time being the CO has directed that English meet at the same
time as the Spanish brothers in the front. There are many advantages
to this. The main one being that we can interact with our brothers
and sisters and not be alone. Spiritually this is most encouraging
and upbuilding, “an interchange of encouragement”.
I must share with you
our “shower” experience.
Sunday morning Jim
stepped into the shower (remember our housing accommodations are
borrowed). The lightbulb was burned out and a replacement bulb could
not be found, but there is a window for light, so no big deal.
In the middle of his
shower (shampoo on head nicely lathered) there was brief flash and
Jim thought, “oh good the light decided to work”. He looked up
and, no it wasn't the light. The electric shower-head wires WERE ON
FIRE !!
That shortened his
shower immediately, I can tell you. He comes out to the living-room
wrapped in a towel with lather on his head, with a look of “NOW
WHAT?” on his face........
Jim switched off the
circuit breaker and continued on in cold water. Just one more “only
in panama” experience. I understand that most of the friends have
a growing collection of these stories.
Monday Dan Williams,
one of the brothers in Boquete took us to the “hot springs”. It
takes a 4-wheel drive vehicle to get there.
 | |
| Walking path to the Hot springs |
The Hot Springs is
owned and run by a local family of Panamanians that live about 1000
feet from the spring. It has been in their family for generations.
They collect a small fee per person, $2, and they maintain the bamboo
bridges
that cross the various creeks and runoffs for the area.
They
also live off the land with the usual collection of animals, goats, a
horse or 2, chickens, cats and dogs along with their pet Monkey (he
was a royal pest and stole everything you didn't keep your hands on
including sunglasses and sandals) and a Water Buffalo.
Yup, that's
right, their Water Buffalo. Any of you that have seen American
Buffalo can relate to the size. For those of you who have not, think
“largest cow/bull you have ever seen”. Please see the Awake 1995
7/22 pg 25-27. I got to pet and examine my first Water Buffalo.
 | |
| Follow the planks ahead to the hot springs |
 | |
| House of the owner of the hot springs |
There is a long
history to these hot springs. They have been there for as long as
local memory can go back. The Ngobe called them “the hospital”.
They used it to heal their sick ones and restore health. It is a
“natural” hot springs with only shallow depressions dug by hand.
The deepest “pool” is about 3 feet deep and in “recent
centuries” they have erected stacked rock walls to a height of 5
feet around the pools.
There were 3 or 4 pools, one of them barely
big enough to hold 6 people, if you were willing to sit on your
neighbor.
The water is around
104 or 105 (I don't think there is a thermometer in the entire
countryside). The “floor” of the hot spring is sand and dirt
with bubbles rising lazily, and the occasional moss clump floating
by. Plants are growing out of the “walls” and tree roots provide
“seats” when you need to get out to cool off.
IT FELT WONDERFUL !!!!
When you want a “cool”
dip you walk down to the river, about ¼ mile, and get cooled off.
The river is fairly fast flowing, and remember it is “tempio”.
It is now Tuesday and
time for us to go back to Volcan. Dan Williams took ½ our group in
his vehicle and we followed behind. He took us “the shortcut”
back to Volcan. It cuts off about an hour travel time. We used that
time to explore the uninhabited castle built around 50 years ago by a
rich, but now dead, Panamanian.
His Family wanted nothing to do with
his “project” and have let it sit unfinished all these years. We
took lots of pictures since there is no way to describe this “house”
in print.
The rest of our time
we have spent in Volcan. Service has been wonderful. Jim met a
school teacher that teaches in high school and college. She teaches
English to the students. She accepted a Bible Teach book and said
she would share it with ALL her students. She will be on a regular
call list.
I went on 2 studies
with Rochelle. Rochelle and Haldon, her son, stayed in Panama and
Richard just got back from Newfoundland taking care of business.
Our first study was
with a beautiful family living “way back”. The 2 daughters speak
good English. Recently the mother has been sitting in on each of the
studies. She speaks no English, but the girls translate for her and
she is showing great interest in what she is hearing. We use both
the Spanish bibles and Spanish bible teach books and English and we
hop back and forth between the two languages. They are very sincere
and open people. This particular family (no father) live in a 2 room
house. A bedroom, a kitchen/eating area, and a bathroom ( bucket of
water beside for flushing). There is no front door, no screens on
the windows. Curtains serve as doors to the 3 rooms and we studied on
“the porch”, an extended roof with tin built from local bamboo.
It rained cats and dogs while we had our study, but we were dry and
cool.
Mom made us a meal to
eat before we started our study. The first 30 minutes was spent
visiting and catching up with the weeks events in college (for the
girls). They were obviously curious about me, the tall one, the new
comer. You could see the excitement in their eyes as they anticipated
all the questions they wanted to ask. They wanted to know my entire
history from the age of 0. We tried as best we were able to answer
it all. At 5'10” I tower over them by nearly a full foot, so
naturally one of the questions is how tall are your boys and since
you are so tall how tall is your husband? Peals of laughter followed
my explanation of my “short husband”. They think he is very cute
and they have never met him.
Our “meal” was
chicken with some sort of tasty spice (no idea what) and a cornmeal
pattie (don't remember the name) wrapped in banana leaves and boiled
for 45 minutes in water, similar to what we would call a tamale.
It had spices, onions,
red sweet pepper, and spice. And for a cool refreshing drink she
served pineapple puree with water and sugar (and ice).
That was lunch that
day. I was full for hours afterward.
We covered the chapter
“What is God's purpose for the Earth, chapter 3”. How delighted
they were to see in the bible that the earth would be filled with
righteous people and that the earth would be restored to beauty and
harmony. Mom read her paragraphs in turn in Spanish and shared often
in our discussion. We were there for 2 hours and enjoyed every
minute. The only disturbance in terms of noise was the occasional
chicken passing through and the lazy dogs laying at our feet.
On Monday morning on
the way to the bus station ( more on that later) Rochelle took me on
another study in Dolega, a little town, more an extension, of Bugaba.
The young girl there ( married, 20 and expecting her first baby) was
covering the chapter in the appendix on “Why True Christians do not
use the Cross in Worship”. We covered each scripture slowly and
carefully in both Spanish and English.
She had no trouble
understanding the wrongness of the idea, but seemed surprised by the
scripture that “cursed is every man hanged upon a tree”. It
obviously disturbed her to think of Jesus being “cursed” by such
a death. When we helped her to feel “Jehovah's pain” at the
death of his dear son she saw the clearer how revolting the cross is.
The most moving part
was when we asked her how did she feel about all that she had read.
What helped her to appreciate that the cross was not proper in
worship?. After several minutes of thinking and reforming her words
into English, her response was, “It says so in the Bible. The
Bible is to be trusted above all else”.
Rochelle told me of
another study only a week or so before whose response was, “Does
the Pope know this? Has anyone told him?”
I WANT TO HUG THESE
PEOPLE !!!!!
There are so many MORE
experiences that I have not related, but time and memory would fail
me to relate it all. So we will leave some things for relating
later.
Dear Friends, we are
leaving 2 weeks early. Paper work and responsibilities back in
Florida and for my mother require us to come back. Our hearts are set
to return to Panama, and we are returning home to sell what we have
left that will be of no use to us in our new goal. We have asked
hundreds of questions about every subject we can think of, from how
do we say..... to how do we live...... to what do we do if....... And
we hope we are ready for our next big change in life.
Jehovah willing and
with determination on our part we are aiming for September.
Would you like us to
answer or fill in details for you?
Could “YOU” step
over into Macedonia? We will be happy to help in any way we can or
point you in the right direction so you can get help to join us. We
only know about Panama at this point, but there is a great need in
both English and Chinese. The society is directing those interested
in Chinese to concentrate on Mandarin as it is the “commercial”
language and used by all in the Chinese culture. There are a number
of Chinese congregations forming in Panama. There is also a great
need in Ngobe. They are flocking to the truth in great numbers.
They speak fluent Spanish, but as always, their native tongue is the
better to teach them with. There is a new Ngobe Congregation that
has formed in Boquete and there is one in Volcan.
In only 3 weeks we
have lived another lifetime and look forward to many more adventures.
All for now
Gail, Jim and Lawson
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