Building begins

Today we started on the construction of the much needed goat pen. Dean and Terry (the base director) went shopping for material on Saturday because the stores will be closed for holidays till Wed. The base was blessed with the funds to build this project from friends of the Fehr's. Who will be here today! Today they are preparing the base and hand mixing the concrete. Those of you who have ever mixed concrete by hand will know how much work that is. I will post pictures of the progress as I get them. Pray for good weather and no rain. We will need it.

mission kids

There are so many great reasons why people choose to go on missions. These are some of our reasons.

Fun day in the village

One of our favorite things that we have done is to bring a poleroid camera with us and take pictures of the kids and families to give them. Lots of people living in situations such as this have never had a picture of themselves that they can keep. It is a huge relationship builder. Everyone loves to see pictures of themselves. For them to be able to keep the picture instead of just to look at the picture on some ones camera is huge. The next day after taking the pictures they ran up to me saying "senora photo" they new me and wanted to hug me and walk with me and hold me hand.It is the most fun thing for me to be able to do. (Thanks Con and Lorraine!).




We spent another day in the village teaching the kids and having fun. It was neat to go the second day because the kids came running, knowing our names and wanting hugs. We took the kids to the beach for a couple of hours in the afternoon and played in the water and in the sand and fed them treats. We will miss them.

Visit to the indigenous village

This is the first KidzReach team in action.
Colton and Miranda had fun playing with the kids in the village. Colton made balloon animals. Miranda skipped with the kids and drew with them and they both showed them pictures from back home. The kids were very excited when I brought out the poleroid camera and took pictures of everyone in the village.


This is some of the houses in the village that we visited. They are all built up on stilts. Some of the house don't have walls all around them and babies sometimes fall off the edge.

Sun

Thank you God it is not raining today!!!!!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!! We have had a very different Christmas this year. You would expect that we would be having a very hot sunny Christmas. But this year we have had lots and lots of RAIN. Yes, rain 15-20 inches in the last few days. Everywhere we go is by boat because we are in a house far away from anywhere.
Today we decided to ignore the rain and go by boat to the nearest beach. We could have walked but it is an hour through the rain forest jungle by foot. So we jumped on the boat and headed over. It was a fun little excursion. We played in the sand and ate some coconut and watermelon and headed back. Tonight we will have a ham and potato supper made by our hosts.
We hope everyone has a very merry Christmas and we wish Don a very happy birthday.

Bastimentos, Panama

We are on the small island of Bastimentos Panama. This is the second part to our KidzReach outreach. We have had a busy last few days. It has been raining like crazy for the last 3 days. They say they have never seen it rain like this in December. So it feels a little like Vancouver. I didn't ever think I would miss snow, but I have been talking about snow a lot. It is so much dryer than rain. The blessing is that the house that we are staying in even in the rain is so great. It is up on a big hill over looking the mangroves and the bay.
Today we spent the morning playing with some of the local indigenous kids. They came over to the house and we baked Christmas cookies and just got to know each other. In the afternoon we made the families in the neighborhood a big Christmas dinner of chicken mixed into rice with boiled beans on the side. We also served them the Christmas cookies that we had made for them in the morning. Before dinner started we had to go and pick them up from the village so that they wouldn't have to treck through the jungle in the pouring rain.
We had a bit of a program for them. The kids did a skit for them about the meaning of Christmas. They really seemed to like it. After dinner before they left we gave each child a bag with a toy in it that we brought from home. They were so excited to get this gift. Because not only was this probably the only gift they would get this Christmas. But they also took the left over food home with them so that they would have food for tomorrow.
We talked a lot this evening about how happy we made these families and how that is a great way to be able to serve. We are so blessed to be able to have this experience and can't wait to tell our friends and family more about it when we come home. Merry Christmas!

Colton's fish

This is the picture of the Yellow finned tuna. Notice the rain in the background.

Today Dean and Colton went fishing for the morning. They got up shortly after 5am to get an early start. It was a cloudy day and it looked like it would clear up. It started to drizzle a bit and only down poured a bit here and there and on the way back. Colton caught 1 10lb. yellow finned tuna a king mackerel a and Benito. As you can see Dean is not holding a fish ) - :

Scuba Diving and snorkeling

Miranda's post:These are my friends that I met on the bus ride from Costa Rica, There names are Jen and Kelly. We had lots of fun on the beach. They used to be cheer leaders and they taught me a new move. They are really fun and they are like my big sisters.

Wendy's post: We have been doing a bit of tourist stuff the last few days. We are spending our few free days on the island of Bocas. Yesterday Dean and I went scuba diving and Colton and Miranda went snorkeling above us. It was a great day doing something that we all love.
Miranda's post: Yesterday we saw a lot of starfish and we saw alt of sea cucumbers wen my mom and my dad went scuba diving . There was a lot of Coral . Today my dad and my brother went fishing and me and my mom are going to go on a shopping spree.

miss you

Well ...we've been gone 9 whole days and today not one e-mail. Not even spam. Sigh.. ) - :
Disclaimer: Dean is NOT in favor of this post but Miranda says that I am my own woman and she thinks that I can.

Bocas Del Toro, Panama

Now for the rest of the story....
We did leave in the rain and we packed our bags through the rain to the bus stop. We took the 1 1/2 hr. bus ride to the border and then walked across the bridge from Costa Rica to the Panama customs and Immigration. That in itself is very interesting. The bridge is for trains, cars and also people to go across. The cars and people drive and walk on 2x6's some of which are broken. The bridge is about 150 yards long. So while I was carrying two huge backpacks as was Dean, Colton and Miranda were also each carrying a pack. What fun! Thankfully the rain stopped and we definitely thought that we had had ENOUGH! Then when we arrived into Panama and went to the 3 different places to get our passports stamped we grabbed a taxi bus and headed to the banana boats which we had taken last year. The trip was about 45 min. long. We were so happy to finally get there. When we dragged all our bags down to the boats we were told that there was a tree that had fallen across the canal and the boats wouldn't be going any more till tomorrow. SOOO we got back n to the taxi and took the road back from were we had come and went another hour to the other way that you can get to Bocas. Then when we got there we took a different boat for 1/2 an hour to the town, YEAH, we made it!!
Our bed and breakfast place has hot water and a/c. We are in heaven and we slept. Oh how great it is to sleep and not sweat. Today we did something cool. We went with some people that we met (on the long bus ride from Costa Rica )and rented a boat for the day. We went snorkeling and to the beach. We also tried to learn more about the indigenous by trying out one of their boats as you can see. Big fat Canadians are not meant for little cayuca canoes.
We also studied up on the local wildlife in the area. These are both native to the area and we just happened upon this strawberry poison dart frog and also this very cute howler monkey on the beach. No really, these are in the wild and that is why we love to come here.

Beach

We left the YWAM base after a busy week. It felt like it was a whirl wind of planning learning which was why we were there. It was amazing to see the difference in our whole family when we first spotted the ocean. We all came alive. We all got a new energy that is so fun to see. We started talking about what we wanted to see and do and laughed about how much fun it was going to be. After a long day traveling on a bus for 81/2 hours it was great to have some excitement again. We dropped our bags and headed for the beach to play in the water before it got dark. Also we needed to find something to eat. Dean is o.k. with food on the side of the road but me and the kids are a little more cautious about what we eat. We also had to make Miranda happy and find a coconut and eat it. That was what she wanted to do the most.
The next morning we started the day at the beach finding more coconuts to eat and also to take a walk along the beach rain forest jungle. The path takes you along the beach and in and out of the jungle. We took so many pictures along the way it was so beautiful.
That night it was sooo hot. We lay in bed a sweat. It was so nice to finally get out of bed in the morning and go out into the breeze. But unfortunately it was raining. It would have been a nice light rain other than we had to hike our 5 backpacks to the bus stop and then change buses 2 more times and take a half hour boat ride to get to Panama. Tomorrow you will hear.....the rest of the story.

New Goat pen needed

Here is a picture of the space that needs a new goat/horse house. Here are the kids with a kid.

KidzReach orientation

We have been very busy the last few days. It feel like we have been here a long time and it’s only been three full days. We were very lucky to be able to have our own house. It is a one bedroom house that we can stay in this week that Taja lives in. She works on the YWAM base and is out on Outreach for the next while in Columbia I think.
We started our time here with some tours of the main base. We looked for projects that we could do when the Fehrs arrive in Jan. One of the projects that is really needed is a new pen for the goats on the base. Right now they don’t have the funds to build one and the goats are tied out on ropes all day. Last week they lost one of their best breeding goats because it became entangled in it’s rope and no one saw it in time. So if it works out we would like to build them a space. I will try to download a picture. We have been having problems with our e-mail ever since arriving in Costa Rica. I found that I could get e-mails but I can’t send them from our computer. Ryan showed me how to start a new Gmail account and that seems to be working but of course we don’t have any of our address book in this new account and so it takes a long time to send a bunch of people e-mails.
The other things that we have been doing is preparing for our outreach in Panama. Colton and Miranda have been making prayer journals to document their time while one KidzReach. They have also been packing tracts into the toy bags we brought down from home We went on a bus ride down to the next little town San Rafael and the kids played in the park with the local kids and then after our time there they handed out 25 bags or so. The kids at the park were very happy to get these toys.
Yesterday we started to learn a drama to do for the indigenous in Panama. It is a story about 3 trees and how they were used to glorify Jesus.
We have been having a great time living like the Costa Rican’s, and team building with the Bedencops.

KidzReach

We made it to Costa Rica. We spent today in orientation and went into town and played at a park with the local kids and handed out a bunch of the beanie babies and hot wheel toys that the kids back home collected for us. It was very fun to see the faces on the local kids and also on our kids faces. It was fun to see our friends Ryan and Sarah and the kids again.