Blogs from Veraguas, Panama, Central America Caribbean

Geo: 7.6927, -81.6235We spent all day in transit through the Panama Canal, whichis 50 miles long. The French tried to build a canal in the 1880s under theleadership of Ferdinand De Lesseps, he of Suez Canal fame. Unfortunately, they didn'tsurvey and plan it properly, 1000s of men died of malaria and yellow fever andthe company went bankrupt. The Americans took over in 1903 and the canal openedin 1914. They spent the first two years surveying and planning and getting ridof mosquitoes which by now was recognised as the vector for the diseases whichhad killed so many. A lot of the original workings and machines still operatetoday. A new wider section has been built more recently to accommodate thebigger ships. It cost Regent $201,000 to pass through the canal!We entered from the Pacific side and could see ... read more

Hello, family and friends! Guess it’s been a while since our last post because we’re getting complaints! So, here it is. We’ve had a few more preaching experiences since our last post. We’ll start with the day of the cows. Juan and I dropped off Raquel, Rebeca, and Maria near a house with sordos (deaf) then made our way down a long, extremely rocky road in a very low car. In hindsight, it may have been better to leave the car because I was outside guiding Juan over giant rocks most of the trip. We eventually got out of the car and walked up a hill to a small house with a woman and a couple boys living in it. One of the boys reminded me of myself when I was around two years old: Chubby ... read more

Hellooooo Everybody!!! Today is 11/11/14 5:06pm! We have officially been here 2 weeks. =) Haven’t written much on our blog because I had been sick for a week. I’ll spare you the gruesome details … basically I was in the bathroom a lot, fever of 103, home for a week, couldn’t move too much. But sister Barrera fixed me up with some medicine, and thank goodness it cured me. I thought I might never see the sun again! (Clayton: She’s going to talk about bad things first, but don’t worry. We’re having fun, prospering spiritually, and loving it here.) So some funny things that have happened…while I was sick, we had to venture out to the store to try to find some medicine. So we took a taxi to the supercenter Machetazo (I called ... read more

Last night, Lessly drove us to El Salon del Reino, much deeper into Santiago then where we are. We want to learn how to take the bus so the brothers don’t have to go out of their way. But we are much too far to walk to the hall. We were dropped off early because Lessly still needed to get ready for meeting at her home. One of the first sisters who greeted us in the tiny parking lot was Maria. Maria is one of those sisters that can make anyone feel at ease with her. She’s not shy. Even though I had no idea what she was saying, she made big gestures and had fun facial expressions that made me feel involved in the conversation between her and Raquel. Rachael is called Raquel in Santiago, ... read more

Geo: 7.54575, -81.7822 Panama 9 - 31 March 2014At the end of the last blog we had reached The Golden Frog Inn, El Valle, and said it was a beautiful place. We liked it so much we stayed 11 days and only left then because we had to, it was fully booked. Everything about it appealed to us, the view, as we were high up on one side of the crater valley and looked across to the hills on the other rim, the climate, warm during the day, cooling just enough at night so no air-conditioning or heating is required, and the wildlife. But the bonus was 'Happy Hour' when Becky and Larry the owners, and Adrian the manager invited everyone to join them from 6-7pm for drinks and nibbles. It made a lovely social occasion ... read more