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| childrens games |
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| traditonal ngobe dress |
So we are almost half way through outreach, 3 weeks completed and 4 more to go! Last week we spent at the Ngobe reservation (Tugri). It was beautiful and mountainous. We had no electricity, slept under a wooden house with a tin roof and cooked over a fire. They are trying to start an indiginous YWAM base there so we helped them prepare for teams by clearing out land and digging a latrine. We visited a lot of houses and invited them to our kids programs and services. All the women have handmade traditional dresses called naguas and then men have handmade purses called chácaras. Its interesting to think of beauty in different cultures, to the Ngobe people naguas are a beautiful part of their culture but to us they just look like bright, colourful, formless dresses. I think they appreciated that we wore them though because it is a sign that we respect their culture. Each of us got Ngobe names also, mine is Maligi (it probably isn´t spelt like that in Ngobe). We enjoyed visiting houses and getting to know the people even though to get to someones house you have to hike 5-10 minutes. At one particular house we were offered Chicha a traditional fermented corn drink and out of respect you must drink the whole cup! It was hard but we all did it, at the bottom of the cup there was a nice surprise of corn soot. Unfortunately a couple of the girls ended up getting parasites from it :( We also found out that a few of us got lice, possibly from the kids. Other than that Tugri was a great cross-cultural experience and we can´t wait to reaffirm the relationships we made there for our last week of outreach.
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| childrens program |
After Tugri we made our way to the province of Chiriqui where the new YWAM base is being started. We are staying at Kathy´s house and we have warm showers! :) So far our ministry has mostly been in the hospital, we have been visiting the children there and praying for them. Its so sad to see that there are quite a few children that have been abandoned at the hospital, so they have been living there for years. We have also been visiting the land inbetween the childrens hospital and the regular hospital where many indiginous people live because their family members are in the hospital or they don´t have money to return home. We have been sharing stories with them, bringing them food and praying for them and their families. We have also been working with a few schools in the cities near by, running childrens programs which consist of games and stories. Yesterday we helped clean up the site for the new base and heard about Rich & Debby´s 10 year plan which consits of training schools where indigineous people can learn trades like constrution and farming and also includes an orphanage. Please continue to pray for all the ministry ahead of our team, we will be leaving for Bocas del Torra wednesday morning.
Love & miss you all!
Kayla
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| beautiful garden in boquette |
