Panama City

Looking back the last couple of weeks have been a bit intense. It started in Nicaragua which was a good time (mostly cos my friend Aleeza (who I know from Mozambique) was with me!) but it just felt a bit weird. Nothing bad happened but it felt weird.

The week in Costa Rica was a bit sour with stuff being stolen - 3 girls things. None of my stuff, but not very nice at all. Laptop, ipod, phone, wallet, clothes, Clinique face products (I understand how upset this girl was!). Thankfully no passports went missing. I was then also super sick with dehydration. It took me a while to get over it but my friends took good care of me and fed me a couple of rehydrate satchets which really helped. But overall Costa Rica was very beautiful and I can see why so many Westerners go there on holiday or move there to "find themselves".

Costa Rica

Panama itself is lovely and the YWAM guys have been so welcoming and lovely to us, a downer was one of the guys on our team went missing for 36 hours and that totally freaked me and others out. We had guys in our team looking for him, we put in a formal missing persons report with the police, it was pretty intense. He's absolutely fine and came back on Monday morning much to our relief :)

Gamboa Union Church where we stayed - right across the road from the Panama Canal

The same day he came back (Monday 12th Dec) we'd had so little sleep cos we were worrying about him all Sunday night, we had to take one of our team to the airport as she was flying home to Germany. I didn't go to the airport, but on the way back they guys who did take her stopped at the Police Station in Panama City and our car was attempted to be hijacked while one of our team members was in the car. Not cool. Everything was fine and the car wasn't damaged at all but it's not a nice feeling.

Sleeping in the nursery of the church

We spent the rest of the week trying to figure out how to get us and our cars to Colombia. What a hassle (understatement of the uear). We could fly to Bogota but it's expensive (about $400). So we looked at boat etc options. This is the most complicated border crossing to do! We can't go by land as the Darien Gap (the land between Panama and Colombia)  is basically impassable - no roads, jungle so we'd need to chop our way through with a machete, malaria, danria fever from bug bites (or whatever it's called!), but more importantly the area is controlled by guerrillas and Colombian rebel training camps. So not a good option ;)

After 6 long days at the port dealing with seemingly impossible paperwork to get our vehicles shipped, plus hours spent online and phoning people trying to figure out how to get ourselves to Colombia we eventually got the cars on the ship the week before Christmas (at least I hope we did otherwise I'll be in for a horrible surprise when I get to Cartagena!!) and have flown ourselves to Cartagena (the coastal town when our cars should be shipped to). Due to availability we couldn't all fly together, so most of the team flew on the 20th and 4 of us are flying the 24th.

So it's been a bit rough the last little bit, but it's also definitely had some good points, like last week we went to a family of the church where we're staying for dinner and they treated us to an amazing Indian dinner, it was so good to be in a regular house again! Makes us realise how crazy our lifestyle is and how we really need to get some better more presentable clothes!! We've also been so blessed to have stayed in a surfers missionary base for the last week. It's been AMAZING!!! Our own beds, hot showers, fresh towels and blankets, wifi, couches, AC, such luxury!!! I think my next night of camping is going to be a bit rough!

Panama City

Sat morning (10th Dec) we had a healing ministry time at the Church where the pastor had spent the last week inviting people by word of mouth as well as through his radio station. What a time of ministry, God totally crashed in with people being touched by His Spirit and the power of His love. We had the afternoon off so a few of us did some sightseeing where we went to see a lock in the Panama Canal. That was such a highlight, learning about the history of the Panama Canal, how the locks work etc. Now it all makes sense, what a light bulb moment of understanding!! We're staying at Gamboa Union Church which is right opposite the Canal so we see the container ships sailing past all the time, easily one every 10min.

A few interesting facts I picked up from the afternoon at the tourist centre include: 

Ships pass through the Canal 24 hours a day; there are three locks, the one I'm near is on the Pacific side and is called Miraflores; two more locks are being built to enable more and bigger ships to pass through the Canal, they are scheduled to be completed in in 2014 which is exactly 100 years since the locks first became operational; when control of the Canal was handed over to Panama from the US it was from a Christian president (James Carter); and the cost for a ship to pass through the Canal is between $300,000-$400,000.

YWAM - Panama City (Fri 9 Dec)

Staying at the YWAM base is great, it's good to be settled for a week or so. We're sleeping in a church in various rooms like the nursery classroom and the sanctuary itself. YWAM are so happy to have us with them, it's been so great being treated with so much love. Friday was fun, we went out to look and pray for a hotel they're looking to buy in Panama City. We then went to minister in some slums in one of the poorest and dangerous parts of the city. Plan was to do it in the afternoon so we'd be there in the light which is ok, but we lost our contact in all the traffic (we had 3 cars following him in traffic worse than Joburg in rush hour) so we got there like an hour and a half late. Ministry was awesome, we were in a really rundown barely inhabitable block of flats with really poor inhabitants. One of the social problems of Panama is sexual perversion with it being the norm to have many kids with different fathers and no husbands, take advantage of young girls etc. A highlight of the ministry time include praying for a lady in a wheel chair and her getting up and walking. Yay God.

(PS I'm writing this feedback on this ministry time 5 days later and this is a report back from this night of ministry: 1. The girl in the wheelchair is still walking around; 2. Some of the guys in our team ministered over a gang member. That night he had been planning to do a robbery, but he was convicted of it before doing it so didn't - he had a vision of his destiny in hell right before he would've gone, so he didn't do it but instead gave his life to Jesus. Yay God. 3. The pastor there has been filled more with the gift of tongues so he is operating in more fulness which is great).

This photo is of the nursery room at Gamboa Union Church where 7 of us girls are sleeping. 

Panama City

Calling the mechanics to fix New Wine and all turns out well with just the battery needing to be replaced. I think it was a miracle where God just fixing our car of the other things which were wrong because the problems did not equate to just a battery needing to be replaced, like when the car broke down it was not because of a battery problem at all. 

Anyway, on the road to YWAM Panama City. During our lunch stop Josiah and I sneak out to get some birthday celebrations for Kurt's 30th birthday. We were doing so well until I ran straight into Kurt on the way to picking up the cake at the supermarket. Err. I tried to sneaking off but he came with me to the store, err, I sent him on his way, went quickly to the cake area at the front of the store to find Josiah looking ever so proud of himself having ordered the cake and got "Happy Birthday Kurt" written with icing on it. Quick change of plans, Josiah on a mission to distract Kurt, I do my best to sneak out of a big Supermarket across an open parking lot to our car carrying a big blue cake. Mission successful. Feeling very proud of ourselves we drive off, only to hear a crash as we pull out the parking lot. A sleeping bag fell on our cake, crushing half of it. Aaarrghhh!! Oh well. 

Kurt's somewhat squashed birthday cake

Driving goes well until we hit this rickety old bridge crossing the Panama Canal (it felt like we were driving along railway sleepers). Long story short, we slip and get stuck between two sleepers, cause a traffic jam, have a couple of upset people scream at us, most people were nice and helped us by pushing the car, while another pulled us out, we called for help from the rest of our team. During this time my first thought is we need to hide the cake from Kurt, when who is the first person to help us but Kurt. Half an hour later and we were out with one bust tyre and a bunch of happy people able to drive across the bridge.

Fixing New Wine's very broken tyre

Birthday celebrations for Kurt were a success, even if we gave him a slightly mushed cake ;) The fun of a water pistol fight afterwards certainly made up for it, not to mention the fun of the pinyadas. Let me explain, and then look at the photo to understand the pinyada: it's a 3 foot doll made of paper mache filled with candy and boiled sweets. You hang it from the ceiling, blindfold your mate, spin them around at least a dozen times, give them a stick and then leave them to swing and (hopefully) hit the hanging pinyada. The point is to break the Pinyada down so to get to the candy inside.

Brent giving the pinyada a jolly good swipe

Breck and Josiah messing around with the remains of the Pinyada

Border crossing day - Costa Rica to Panama

So today (Wed 7 Dec) was an interesting border crossing day. It started with 10min into our 20min drive to the border (Costa Rica to Panama) New Wine (one of our cars) had car troubles, turned out a pipe had come loose so we used nearly all our drinking water to refill the radiator. Not having drinking water for a long border crossing is not the best in heat like this. 5 hours of border crossing pain included queuing for 4.5 hours, Josiah (one of our Aussie team members) and I being sent back to guard the cars for an hour or two, which was a good thing as a couple of guys were paying way too much attention to one of our cars and felt obliged to touch one of the RVs... The front of the queue was crazy, people pushing in from everywhere, people being sent to the back of the queue numerous times, and more... I then spent 1.5 hours deboning chicken and cutting veg for lunch while sweating like a crazy lady, dang it's hot here!! 

Panama Border Crossing

On the road eventually and New Wine calls in to say they have trouble with the car, they can't get the gas to go. Turns out it's because they were out of gas! That was a nice easy trouble to solve. And made the rest of us in the other cars laugh :) During this time of checking the car a few of us popped out the cars to go pee in the RV. Picture the scene: run 2 cars up to the RV to pee (in desperate need by this stage). A policeman is checking us at the same time, he asks for my passport, I tell him it's in the other car, he tells me to go back and get it. Aaarrghh. So I run back to get my passport, show it to him and try run back to the RV to pee (time is of the essence before Jesse drives off in the RV), he unfortunately doesn't let me off so easily, he looks at other peoples passports then mine in detail and asks me if I'm married. No. Really? Yes really. Boyfriend. No. Really? Yes really. Can he get my phone number? No. I don't have a phone with me. Really? Yes really. Finally grab my passport (note to self, switch my ring to my wedding finger in this country) and run to the RV. As I'm peeing Jesse starts driving off. Aarrggh. Shout that I'm in the toilet, guys in the RV laugh, Jesse stops, I get out and run back to my car. What a lot of effort just to go to the toilet. 

Later on it wasn't so funny when New Wine had trouble again, this time the steering wheel wouldn't work and the car literally broke down so we had to tow it nearly two hours at dusk to the closest town. The towing went well until we had to pull over as we'd lost the other RV. During this time we discovered that Panama definitely has the highest police presence we've seen for a while. There must've been a cop car on the side of the road every 5 minutes. While we were waiting for the RV police pulled up to see what was wrong. They turned out to be really nice, we explained who we were (missionaries), ministered to them and I gave them a bible. They called a hotel ahead to organise for us to stay there, 15min away. Unfortunately we missed the turnoff to the hotel so we had to cross 2 lanes of traffic and do an illegal U-turn to get back, during rush hour. After spending 10min figuring out the best way to do it, we took so long that more cops came to see why we were pulled over on the side of the road. After a bit of sweet talking they not only let us off but stopped the traffic for us so we could cross safely. Nice :)

The hotel was amazing. We put up our popups in the parking lot and some people slept in a room, we had use of the restaurant, free wifi, a great pool and a hot shower with clean hotel towels. And only $4 each!! 

Costa Rica - Coco Beach

Costa Rica was an interesting week. We spent half our time camping on Coco Beach. It was a beautiful but very touristy area. The beach was beautiful and free which was great, except that not being a campsite we had no ablution facilities. That wasn't as great. We were planning on being there just a night but that one night turned into 3. During this time we did different ministry, like some people went treasure hunting, ministered in close villages, etc. I went with Liz to a beach 2 hours away which is where one of our team members Diane's daughter-in-law Rhiannon tragically drowned a month ago. Liz went with Diane to Costa Rica to support her when the accident occurred, so we went there to pray for Diane, her family and LIz. It was amazing as we found the teenage boy who saved Rhiannon's 6 year old son and hear his testimony of what happened. He was such a hero in saving the boy, but unfortunately he wasn't able to save both of them.

Camping on Playa de Coco (Coco Beach)

It was a special day but unfortunately by this time I was supersonically sick with dehydration which I'd had for a few days. The rest of the day is a bit of a blur but it wasn't pretty, I hadn't been that sick in a really long time. It took me a few days to recover so Costa Rica is a bit of a blur as I really wasn't up for doing much. We stayed at a few more random RV parks on the way to the border before crossing into Panama.

Sun setting over Playa del Coco

Nicaragua - Jinotepe

Family night jamming outside 

Nicaragua we stayed at a town called Jinotepe for a week or so at a church missionary base. It was so great staying in my own bed!! A major highlight was that my friend Aleeza (we know each other from Mozambique earlier this year) came to visit me for a few days so that was so great, we spent a lot of time just hanging out, she really encouraged me and this was a good refreshing time for me. Some of our team were staying at an orphanage close by in a neighbouring village so we went up there a few times to minister and play with the children, held a couple of church services and one afternoon we went into the neighbourhood barrio (township) which was so great, we shared the gospel with so many people and had so many beautiful children hanging onto us. All was well until I saw a lice jump onto my arm, and then I saw all the lice literally crawling through the kids hair. Err.... The memories of our lice outbreak in Guatemala were just too close to home! Another day included taking the bus into Leon, a town 3.5 hours away by bus to see Central America's largest Cathedral. Pretty disappointing if you've been to any Cathedral in Europe. But a good day out. While I was in Leon some other people from the team went to minister at a local seaside village which was a great success.

Nicaragua is a really beautiful country, quite rural in many ways, like the roads are made up of buses, cars, pedestrians, cyclists plus don't forget all the horse and carts as well as just men riding horses! Lots of horses. Kind of felt like I was driving through a big farm which happened to be a country called Nicaragua.

A highlight of the week was a family night where the team hung out as a family. It started with a bit of a dance party outside (see the photo above with Josiah demonstrating a swan dive for us) and finished with us blessing and praying for 3 of our team members who were leaving the group and going home the next day. Maria, Victor and Serena we love and miss you guys!