The Weather in Our Neck of the Woods

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Home, for sure!

We are here, in our little orange house again, and getting settled. Our return was not nearly as traumatic as last year’s. (Thank you Lord!) There is still a lot to do, and we are plugging away.

The church has had some grumbling reminiscent of the Corinthian church while we have been away. Lots of rumors and talking behind backs. This is normal for rural Panama, but we thought we had made them understand that it is not normal for God’s people, those who are bound by the blood of Christ. This lesson continues to be needed. While we are a bit disappointed, we do see some progress. There are one or two who understand it, but they have chosen to remain silent to avoid conflict in our absence. We begin to work on this now, again!

We left our Yellville home in the midst of the most terrible Ice storm devastation that we have ever witnessed. It made it doubly hard to leave Lynn’s mom, but we knew we had to. Both she and my dad were without power or phone. He still is, 8 days later. They are both fine, but quite inconvenienced. Here we often are without poser. We just don’t open the frig, and other than that, maybe go to bed early. I might even get a meal out, if I am lucky. Not a big deal, but when it is 15 degrees and it is for days on end, that gets a little rough, as many of you are finding out! We are praying for you all.

We have started repainting, but haven’t unpacked everything yet. We still have way too much ‘stuff’! We plan to go to Cerro Punto tomorrow to see what kind of damage the floods left behind, and how we can help. Panama Missions has collected blankets and supplies to distribute there later this month, and we will be helping with that work.

We will also begin buying uniforms next week for the children who are receiving help to go to school this year. That is always a fun thing, and I am looking forward to it!

joy

Words from Lynn:

We left at 6 am this morning for David to get, we thought, our permanent visas. First we took the truck to Gilberto to use for the day. He took us to immigration where we met Ricardo, our attorney. There we had our picture taken for our carnet (i.d. card). We didn’t get the carnet because our pictures need to be sent back to Panama City and signed. Ricardo said the cards / visas should be back to immigration within 3 months. That is when our tourist visas expire (again). We did stay overnight in Panama City when we flew in last Thursday. We went to the immigration office there, paid our $200 and $50 to Ricardo’s brother, Cesar, who is also a lawyer. That was supposed to be all that was needed, but they changed the law from one day to the next, and we needed to wait to take the pictures. Everyone says it is a done deal, we have the resolution, but we still don’t have the visa in our hands. Imagine that! Again we are told one thing and then another happens. It’s all good!