Week Two Report - Bocas Del Toro

We finished up our trip to Rio Hondo and did some sight-seeing in the Panama City area before heading up to Bocas by plane early Sunday am. We would be arriving just a couple of days after our Hosts Dale and Kim Kapsar (pictured at the left) had returned from the states.

Our team helped them get situated, began a work project at a hearby school, held a Bible Club at another nearby school and continued construction on the "Treehouse", a multipurpose building just below the Kapsar's house on the Island of Bastimentos. Check out the videos, plus in future updates, we will have some reports from this years Panama Trekkers.

One big change with this year's team was having a group that can work specifically with children. Linda, Lyndsey and Richard were perfect in that regard. During our time in Panama we had the opportunity to speak to well over 100 children from 4 different indigenous villages.

Here are a couple of videos about our activities in the Bocas Region:





Check out all of the Panama Trek 2009 videos on Andrew Burnett's Youtube.com page: www.youtube.com/user/andrewaburnett

Week One Report from the Panama Trek Team

For our first week in Panama our team joined in the ministry of Alex and Jennifer Cabezon to reach out to a Wounaan village. Jennifer (pictured in the photo with her daughter, Abigail, walking to a VBS at an indigenous village in Panama) gives an excellent report about our stay at Rio Hondo on her blog http://www.cabezon.blogspot.com/ as follows:

Alex lead the group of curious Portlanders up the path towards the community of Rio Hondo (which means Deep River). They left behind the river, the water slowly going down as the tide went out. The boat that had carried them about 50 miles down the Chepo river and out over the Pacific ocean was now resting on a gravely bank.

I can't describe the scene from the perspective of the Americans present, since Abigail and I were safely at home, praying for the safety of the team and success in their mission. But I can tel you what Alex first noticed - the last names of the people in the village. The Wounaan determine relatives by last names. If someone shares you mother's or fathers last name, they are family. And as they were introduced to one person after another, he realized that the majority of the community go by the last name of Cabezon.

The team spent their time participating in the small church consisting mostly of the pastor's family and one other extended family in the village. They carried gravel up from the river in order to put a cement floor in the church and did a Bible Club for the kids of the village (over 75 attended each day). They showed the Jesus film, told Bible stories, did crafts and played soccer with the children.

When Abigail and I arrive at the banks of the Chepo river on Friday to pick the team up, I was eager to hear their observations. They had many, one of the being the remoteness of the community, and limited outside influences. They wondered, as I have heard many missionaries, both short and long term, whether they would be doing more harm than good if they continued to bring in those influences.

Wondering what Alex's take on this was, I asked him as we swerved in and out of Panama traffic in the YWAM van.

He said, "There are so few in the church, and so many lost. And they are all Cabezon's. How can I just leave my own family like that? We need to return." (Alex is a indigenous Wounaan Indian. His family came from Colombia to Panama about 40 years ago and settled in the National Park near the Panama Canal. Jennifer and Alex have been married for 4 years. They have one born child, Abagail, and another is due in January of 2010.)



More videos of the Panama Trek 2009 trip are available on Andrew Burnett's Youtube.com page - www.youtube.com/user/andrewaburnett