Sucessful Boarder Crossing and Jehovah Hears our Requests

So we got back a little while ago from our boarder crossing in Costa Rica. As far as customs goes everything went super easy and we thank Jehovah for that. A few people in front of us in line had a rough time and so we were expecting a similar out come but we were directed to a different window and the Immigration Agent at that window was very nice, friendly and we did not have a problem.

We have been getting into the swing of service here and have had many opportunities for Cart Witnessing. It has been so cool and so much fun! We've had some great experiences, and have met lots of friends from surrounding areas because once they see the cart they have to come up and introduce themselves. A few weeks ago we were cart witnessing at the University and a professor there came up and was like "Thank you so much for having this here. I know many of the students don't show a lot of interest like they should, because the Bible is very important and this generation just doesn't respect that" (All the while I'm thinking they respect it ALOT more than most kids around the world do.. but nonetheless I will continue) He kept thanking us and saying how importand it is what we (As JW) are doing ect.. So Ty shows him the Bible Teach Book and gets his information and the guy goes on the his next class. Ty sent him a message and they had a nice little "text" conversation going. Well this week we were back on the Schedule for the University and it was SO HOT! The corridor we were in was brutal hot and no air flow. We were not even an hour into our shift and Ty started in about how all he wants right now is to drink HOT COFFEE in AC. Literally within 5 minutes! The man Ty was texting previously shows up and says hey why don't we go get a coffee and talk. He walked into the Cafeteria and what do you know... ICE COLD AC and they guy bought Ty's coffee. Jehovah listens to the cries of his servants....

More posts and photos to come soon

Expanding our Territory, Fireworks and Potential Boarder Runs

Okay so we have pretty much finished our canvasing the City of David for English speakers after 3 years of searching. We still have not at homes but not very many. We are now going to be expanding our search area to other parts of David, and near by areas which is exciting! Yesterday we went to an area called Los Algarobos and in maybe 5-6 blocks we found 3 English and started studies with each of them. HOW exciting!!! and it was New Years Eve so hardly no one was home. We also got to meet a Missionary brother who lives in that neighborhood. Him and his wife have been here in Panama for 16 years serving as Missionaries! Due to their parents health they are leaving their assignment for a new one in the states. One of taking care of their family members. They haven't heard whether or not they will be assigned as Special Pioneers in the US or not since that has to be approved by a different branch than the one we are under here. Even though the sister is back in the states and taking care of her mom who is very ill... and despite the fact that it's winter...she still managed to get in her 130 hours last month! SO proud of her!! It's motivating to me to see ones like them who have a very busy life, have many responsibilities and challenging circumstances and still manage to keep their vow to Jehovah. Anything is possible with Jehovah's help!

We will be on our way to Costa Rica in about a week for our boarder run. Panama used to allow only tourists to be here for 3 months and then you would have to renew your visa.. well a few years ago that changed to 6 months which is really nice for the friends here.. why then do we have to do a boarder run after only 3 months of being here??? Because when the Panamanian government changed that law they forgot to change another one.. One that says you can only drive using your US passport for 3 months... and so what if you decide to stay 6 months and only drove a car the last 3 months of your stay? It doesn't work like that, they will see that your entry stamp was from more than 3 months ago and assume you have been driving the whole time. THUS the need for the boarder run. So the 6 month visa is really only beneficial for those who do not drive here in panama.

Last night was New Years Eve and OH MY GOODNESS!! Starting at 7pm and going until 5am this morning Panamanians all over the city were lighting off Fireworks and not little ones either this was like a full blown Disney fireworks show in the sky! HUGE fireworks! Every time one would go off... it would set off a car alarm. All night long was nothing but BOOMing fireworks and car alarms and then of course loud latin music. Holidays here are very interesting that is for sure! I wouldn't have minded except I had to wake up at 4am this morning and so I didn't get very much sleep between all that noise. That's okay though. No sleep last night was worth yesterdays day in the ministry starting all those studies! :)


We will post more soon! Love you all!

Update 12/19/2014 Preaching , Food, Earthquakes

Okay I am going to preface this with saying I am sorry for being a lousy blogger! I and going to make it a goal to write at least once a week so I don't have a lot of back log... but for now ENJOY!

Here is the video of part of part of the road from Panama City to David.

For 7-8 HOURS...

Okay so we moved into our little 1 bedroom apartment in David, Panama about a month ago. Since then we have been able to preach so much more! We literally live one block from the Kingdom Hall and we walk pretty much everywhere. Preaching has been great! It's a lot of searching for English but once you find someone who speaks English (normally a Panamanian who is going to school to teach English which is very common) you almost always can start a study with them right away. The other day Ty went and did early morning service (6am) while I was working (5am) and his day did not start off very well... his watch broke, his belt broke, it was HOT and a bird pooped on him... That day we went in service in an area near the cemetery and Ty started 2 Bible studies, I started 1 with the possibility of a second in the same area, all in 1 day. So his efforts were blessed for sure!

 We have lots of opportunities to share the videos with people and kids in English, Spanish and on occasion Ngobere which is an indigenous language here in Panama. Below are a few preaching photos and some of the ones in our congregation here in David. Some of these photos are courtesy of the friends here...

On a Bible Study in the Car

Found this little Gem in service..but DO NOT get in the water it's contaminated upstream!

Double rainbow

These are all of the receipts we had to have to purchase a table that was $49.99

Showing a video while doing public witnessing at the college.
These kids come to the college for English classes. Were very interested in the How to beat
a Bully whiteboard video

The one house in the territory that has an address.. of course it's 1914!

Meet Rango

Everyone here is from Texas! (Most of our congregation)

A darling little Ngobere girl

Risk of being run over (or abused) Watch out cause they mean it!

Decrease your speed.. wildlife is present.

Not everything is bigger in Texas... I think Panamas pot holes are much larger..

The couple in our congregation who have been here the longest... almost 6 years. Special Metro Witnessing.

Showing the Videos to young ones

The roads are less bumpy this way

Imitating Sophia- How to be bold on the bus

The single sisters way out number the single brothers

How many people can you fit into a Toyota Yaris?

A sisters RV's Monkey named Monique.

Our Single Sisters here in David English Congregation

Our new Sister preaching with a brother and his "pet"

Conducting a study on the side of the road

YES we have had some earthquakes and YES we are okay... The fore shock came around 2pm on a Saturday afternoon we were taking a little preaching break downtown. Ty went into a sporting goods store with a brother and the brothers wife took me to a store that had lots of local necklaces and beads. I will give my account since Ty is not here. The sister and I were in the back of the store browsing and one of the guys got a phone call and he started to speak loudly at us and wave for us to come over to him. We couldn't understand what he was saying we thought he was just trying to sell us something like the other 2 people who were near us. He kept repeating himself and got louder and then the other 2 men started to push us and then we understood the ground started to shake and stuff on the walls started to sway and the guy kept trying to push us in a back room and the sister with me was like NOPE we are getting out of here so we run to the front of the store covering our heads to get out of this not so stable concrete building as the quake got stronger. It stopped finally once we were outside and then the guys were like it's okay you can come back in and buy something... buying something was the last thing we wanted to do. Ty and the sisters husband had gone into a sporting goods store somewhere a few blocks away so we went in search of them and on our way we saw a large crowd of people crowded in the street and all looking up... we thought something terrible must have happened what if the building is falling or someone got hit by a bus or we didn't know what to think because there was a lot of police out now too. Well this newly constructed building the outside tiles had cracked and started to fall off! They had evacuated the building  but the police were still letting people walk under the awning of the building that had tiles falling off it... not very safety conscious... but that's okay. The earthquake was 5.8. The one we had a few days later at 4am however was MUCH larger.  It was 6.7 and woke us up. I was looking at our walls today (a couple weeks after the earthquake) and I noticed a crack that I did not see before when we first moved in. I'm thinking it's from the 6.7 earthquake that one woke us up out of bed. There was another one later that same day that was a 5.4 or something like that. So hopefully those are all the earthquakes we will have for the rest of our stay here in Panama.

We had our Circuit Assembly here in David and it was AMAZING we had 250 in attendance. Many studies were in attendance a lot of men studies too most of them came from about 4-5 hours away to attend the assembly. We got to attend the pioneer session as well which was so encouraging. One of the illustrations a brother used on the pioneer meeting was regarding bad thoughts. He said, if a bird lands on your head, shew it away. If a bird makes a nest on your head.. Then you have problems. So it's the same with bad thoughts or negative thoughts. They could come into our mind but don't let them stay there and build a nest. That's when the problems happen. They talked about one sister who said " I LOVE JW.ORG" this sister is 72 years old and was asking the car group what type of tablet she should buy to use in the ministry... the point behind the thought.. Are you trusting that Jehovah will help you adjust to the new tools we have been given?

What does CPR stand for? You may say..Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation but at the assembly we were given a new acronym for CPR- Close Personal Relationship with Jehovah. Just how literal CPR can be life saving. How much more so our Close Personal Relationship with Jehovah is.

We had 5 new ones baptized. Many were need greaters children who have moved here permanently and decided this is the best way of life. Except for 1... We had one Panamanian sister in our congregation get baptized from the territory. She is the sweetest girl we love her to pieces!

Our New Brothers and Sisters

The area 4-5 hours away where we had most of the men studies come to the assembly from is in the province of Bocas Del Toro. They just recently under direction of the branch made the English Congregation a Creole one. The language is Guari-Guari and it's very similar to Patwa from Jamaica. Since they made the switch to Creole the congregation has just taken off. They do have a lot of need greaters there however with the switch to Creole it's not enough. They have so many interested ones there in the islands it's crazy. We are going to be going over there soon to give talks and in February spend a week with them preaching. I'm really looking forward to checking it out and learning a basic presentation in Guari-Guari and Ngobere for that matter. 

Jehovah's name is EVERYWHERE down here. One of the photos is a picture of a persons license plate who is not a witness at where we stopped for water in service the other day. In English is says "Jehovah is my God" The other photo on a table at a restaurant it quotes a scripture that says Jehovah will provide.

Some of the Fruits are interesting... Here are some more fruits and food photos

 

2 for 1

This is it what Chocolate is made out of

Passion Fruit

These are the BEST plantain chips!!

Rambutans- Inside they are like a peeled grape

I don't know what happened to this pineapple...

Our first adventure to Boquette

We went with a numner of the friends in our congregation to Boquette which is about an hour away from where we are currently staying. It was GORGEOUS! We went and saw some amazing scenery, waterfalls, valleys that look like Jehovah stuck his fingers in the ground and drew a design :) coffee plantations, and a local market that had the largest avacados  I have even seen in my life! It was a refreshing day of activity. The 4th photo down is a coffee plantation  and this whole hillside is full of coffee  plants.  There were many  more just like this too it was beautiful  you could smell the coffee all around. The 5th photo down: This trumpet  flower is said to be like a narcotic pain reliver and for sleep.. the story we were told about it today is people dry it into a powder and come selling good smelling paper door to door and when you smell the paper its laced with the powder and you fall alseep and they rob your house.. we also heard the same thing with organ harvesters... bottom line.. DONT SMELL PAPER. The last photo is one of the avacados we got at the market.