Amazing visit from friends and family!!

So for the month of February we had family and friends visit. It was so much fun!! Did a little of everything, service, beach, mountains, city, and lots and lots of walking!!
We had a couple of really nice experiences while we were out in service one day, that I want to share. The first one was with our taxi driver that took us to one of my studies in another town. He started to ask us what we were doing in Panama, he noticed that we were not from around the area. So I explained to him that we were Jehovah's Witnesses and we were there doing volunteer work helping people improve their life by learning about the Bible. He could not believe that it was all volunteer work!! I explained to him that Justin and I support ourselves by teaching English online and it is all volunteer work. The literature is all by donations. He kept asking, "How is that possible? Does the government help you guys?" I kept explaining to him that it was all volunteer. For him it was incredible because he had never met a church that would do that. So at the end of our ride, he said, "I normally charge $3.00 for this trip, but I will only charge you guys $2.00 and put the $1.00 in the donation box." We left him some magazines and an invitation for our meetings. We pray that a seed of the truth was left in his heart!
The next experience was later in the week. We were out door to door and we met this lady that turned out to be an Elementry school teacher. I offered her the magazines and she recognized them imediatley and said, " I love those magazines thats the magazines I use in school for one of my classes, they have amazing articles!!" I offered to bring her the Great Teacher book and she was so excited about it. She told me that any literature I can find for to use in the school she will gladly take!! It's amazing how Jehovah uses people like her to get the truth out to territory we cannot go into, like the schools. We pray that little seeds of the truth will be planted in those little hearts!

Erin and I walking to the service group.

Bonnie and me in front of the house of one of my studies, where the taxi driver dropped us off.

Waiting for a study of mine to get home.

 My little brother also came to visit. It was so much fun having him here. He even gave a talk in our hall. It was a real treat for the brothers having a brother from Bethel in Brooklyn give the talk. They had never had a brother from there come to this little town to give a talk. They truly enjoyed it!! ...and of course being the big sister I was super proud of my little brother!!!

After the meeting we had some treats!

Jorge pretty amazed at the food he was about to enjoy! ;)

 We also had a very nice trip with the family to the town of Boquete. Which is amazing!!

...of course you cannot forget the coffee!!

My favorite picture, on the bus ride to Boquete!! Her face says it all!! Priceless!!!!

 This is us waiting at the Panama Canal for a boat to go thru. We waited and waited and waited...

We had so much fun also with our friends Mike and Dawn. Their first time to Central America! I think they really enjoyed it. We also did a lot of walking with them and Dawn they were even able to go to the sign language congregation here! They really enjoyed it and even though it was Panamanian sign language and not American sign language they communicated very well with the brothers. The brothers of course were super excited to have them visit!

Dawn decided she needed some coverage from the sun!! :)

It was a very busy month but we enjoyed it immensely. It's a blessing from Jehovah to have such a loving family, and friends. We love them all!!!

Preached 12 Towns In Our Territory In One Day!!!

Yes!!! This was possible! The reason is that we got a little help. You see we have lots of territory, but the problem is to get to there we need cars, which in our small hall there is only 3 cars and sometimes they are not in working order. 
Well, we had 40 brothers and sisters, whole families in fact, come from Panama city to help us out in our territory in one weekend. It was amazing!!!
Many of the brothers had cars so we were able to reach those territories that had not been preached in almost three years!!

Our little kingdom hall was full. We had a total of 60 brothers go out in service that day. It was so encouraging!! We got to meet so many brothers and sisters. From different places in fact. We had a family from Spain, a family from Mexico and the rest from Panama. 
So off we all went to the territories. They formed different groups and everybody got their partner, which they had assigned days before. So Organized!!

Some of us were traveling in a small van, "bus" they rented for us.

 
These were our preaching partners. Justin was assigned to young brother, that reminded me of Timothy. He has an unbelieving father, his mom is in the truth and he is now a regular pioneer. Great example!! I was assigned to a sister that has a very strong spiritual background. All her family is in the truth and one of her sisters is a graduate from Gilead. As for her and her family, they all moved to Panama from Spain 19 years ago to serve and have been here ever since! What an amazing morning I had learning and listening to her preach! Years of experience!! 

Loved her CSI cap!!
So...there were not enough cars for all of us to go from town to town, so some had to travel like this...

It was an adventure!! Everybody was so thrilled by the end of the day. Everybody were relating their experiences, and were so excited!!
Once again gifts from Jehovah!!

 

Annual Pioneer Meeting

We had such a wonderful pioneer meeting today. What a loving God we have! The information was amazing, just reminding us the importance of keeping focused at the work at hand and the importance of a simple life!! Love the information!
Our small congregation has at the moment 10 regular pioneers and 2 special pioneers. The two special pioneers are an amazing example of endurance and loyal service to Jehovah. One of our special pioneer, her name is Fannie, has been serving in this field since 1998, many people have come into the truth. She is a single sister who has dedicated her youth and life serving Jehovah, and she is so happy doing this! Our other special pioneer, her name is Mirna, is also a faithful single sister who has been serving in this field since 1988!!!  One thing that I really admire of them is that you will see them in service every single day, no complains. Morning and afternoon, rain or shine!! Great sisters!! The rest of our pioneers are amazing too! I learn so much of the experience of each one of them and no matter the trials they go thru they all show there love for Jehovah and endurance!! 

This dear sister is Julia. One of our older pioneers in our hall. She looks serious but she is hilarious!! Everybody in town knows her and respects her. She has brought so many people in the truth, I don't think she even remembers how many! 😊 She is enjoying her cupcake!!! :)

 I made some cupcakes for all the pioneers. I put there name and the date they started their pioneering. Wanted to do something special for them, they deserve it and so much more!!

Here's all the group of the pioneers from our hall!!

Great day today and great company!!! Blessings from Jehovah never stop, always so loving and knows what we need and when we need it!!

Couple Of More Service Experiences

It has been such a joy and a true blessing from Jehovah to serve in this aspect of his service. What a privilege!!
The other day I came back from service and doing studies in a town that's about 40 minutes away. I was waiting for the bus by myself because I was heading home. This older gentlemen approached me and mentioned that he has seen Justin and me around, It's kinda hard to miss Justin in this small town of Panamainians! ;) 
Anyway he was asking what we are doing in Panama. So I explained to him that we are Jehovah's Witnesses and we are here because we want to help people learn about Jehovah. He was pretty impressed. Then he mentioned that he likes the Bible but he doesn't own one. So I said, "well if you tell me where you live me and my husband can take you a Bible". Then he proceeds to tell me where he lives, but in this part of Panama there are no addresses or numbers on the houses. He starts giving me directions that I don't really understand. So I said to him, "Why don't you join us at the meeting on Sunday and I will give you the Bible there?" He said,  "ok! It's a deal I will be there". Well Sunday came, and I looked around didn't see him so I assumed he didn't come. That day we had so many people come to the meeting. At the end of the meeting a sister comes in running looking for me and says, "There is a guy out there saying that he came to the meeting because you invited him"? I ran out and yep!! There he was!! I was so excited, I told him, "wait here don't go anywhere" I brought Justin out and also brought him the Bible I had promised him. He said he arrived a little late, but the next Sunday he comes he will come early! We made arrangements with him , he gave us his address a little more understandable and said he will be there the following Sunday!
Experiences like these, makes me realize how important it is to always be prepared to give informal witnessing. You never know when Jehovah can use one of his angels to direct you to a sheep-like person!

Our other study that we have, is this young girl that is 15, Darisa. She has been amazing. You can see her excitement every time she learns something new. She really loves Jehovah. She just told us today, "I want to be a Jehovah's Witness, I want to preach"!!! You know how much we yearn to hear those words from our studies!! She has already been placing literature at school and preaching to anybody she can. I told her, "you know that every time you talk to someone about Jehovah, you are already preaching?" She couldn't believe it!! She just kept saying, "Really I'm preaching??" She has been having some persecution from her grandmother and a lot of pressure, but this girl is so determined. She is determined to go to meetings on her own. She prays to Jehovah and loves him so much!!
She has her own little library of our literature and has read them all. She gave me a list of magazines she is missing from the year 2012, she wants me to find them for her because she wants her library complete!! 
Studies like her, are the ones that make everything worthwhile!! We know Jehovah loves her zeal and we are so grateful to Jehovah that he gave us the privilege to find her in service!! We walk a lot to get to her house, but it doesn't matter it's an amazing experience for us every time we study with her!! 

 These little kids are a study of mine. We arrived to study with their mom and this is what we found the kids doing. They were playing house, but it was more Panamanian style!! They were actually cooking real food! I mean rice, meat...I remember doing mud pies at that age with real mud. This was real food and it even smelled good!! I asked the mom if they did that all on their own, she said yeah!
Justin said they were just probably very hungry! :)

Here they are showing the homework I leave them every week. I print out the illustrated activities from the jw.org site and then we review with the book of Bible Stories what they've learned. They love doing those coloring activities! 

So this was a day in service with my friend from Spain and another sister and her husband that also came from Spain. They are moving here in February to serve permanently!! So excited to have them here in Panama! :) 

Showing some little kids in our hall the videos of Caleb. They love it!! The little girl on my left is from the Indian tribe here called "Nove" She is so cute!!! Caleb is pretty famous here in Panama!!
  

A Small "Gira" With Some Friends and Service Experiences.

Last Wednesday, my good friend that is now serving in Chitre, invited me over to her congregation, because they were doing a small "gira" to a small town they had not been at for some time now. So I was happy to go! It was a pretty large group that went out. As I had mentioned a on previous blog, there is a group of brothers and sisters that come from Mexico or Costa Rica that are sent from the Mexico branch. Chitre, the congregation where my friend is at, received 18!!!!!! So many young ones came from Mexico to help out. So that was part of our group on Wednesday. It was so much fun!! It was extremely hot that day, but the response on the field was amazing! 

Love everybody happy faces. We were all tired but what a joy we find in Jehovah's service!!

So this was part of our group coming back after five hours of walking in service.
A funny thing happened to us while we were all there. This day was January 1st, so many brothers didn't work and that's why they took advantage of this day for service. Well...when we went to the territory there were about 2 cars that brothers took into this territory, that is about 10km from any main road. So, we didn't realize that these brothers that have the cars left earlier. So we said no problem, we will take the little bus back out. Well...we found out that there were no buses that day because of the holiday, that can take us out of this town. We were so tired, but we said ok we will start walking out. But then one of the brothers said let me talk to the guy that lives in this house, some random house, and see if he can take us all out, since he has a pickup truck. He talked to the guy, but the guy said he couldn't, he would get fined if he took people in the back. So, oh well back to walking, but that same guy said, "you know what let me take four of you out and then come back for the rest", little by little I can take all of you out to the main road. While some of us were getting in his truck another truck of a neighbor pulled in and offered to take four more. Then they just made an extra trip to pick up the rest.
We were so relieved!! When we got to the main road, we offered the guy a donation and he would not take a penny, we insisted but he said no. So then we offered him the magazines and he said those I will take!! What a blessing from Jehovah!! He takes care of us in every single way, sometimes in little things we wouldn't expect!!!

Pizza Party With My Little Girlfriends!!

So there are not that many young people in our hall, but we do have a couple of little girls that are in our hall. I've been wanting to have them over and make cookies or pizza with them. So, the C.O.'s wife gave me a great suggestion. To make a little party date with the little girls in my house and watch the Caleb videos with them. Since most brothers and sisters in our hall do not have access to the internet, this would be a great opportunity for them.
Wow!!! We had so much fun!!! So we watched the videos, which several of them they had never seen, did a little review, and as smart as little kids are they had great answers in their review! Then we decided to do both, cookies and pizza!! So as you can imagine how hyper they were at the end, but they were so happy!!
We also did a little project. I brought my scrapbooking stuff from the States so I had each of them make a card to any sister in the hall they choose, but it had to be a thank you card for something they were grateful for, and they had to fill it in themselves. They had a blast, there was glue, paper, stamps and lots and lots and lots of glitter everywhere, but it was such a joy for me to see those cute smiley faces!!!!

How can you say no to those little smiley faces!!!

For the rest of the little ones I showed them the videos after the meeting! Caleb is a success here!!! The little ones love them and they learn so much!! What an amazing and loving provision from Jehovah!

International Visitors!!

Well right after our going away party with our C.O. we had some sisters come and visit us. One sister is from Australia and the other sister, Candice,  from Canada. We had met them in the One Day Assembly. I had approached Kay in the assembly and started talking to her and asked them if they would like to come to Guarare and go out in service with us for a couple days. They are the sweetest young sisters. Candice has been serving in a neighboring congregation for the last five months in the sign language congregation and Kay came to visit her for 2 months from Australia. 

This is Kay. Such a zealous young pioneer!!

So I was very excited when I received their call saying that they would come and visit! They stayed with us for 2 days, went out in service and showed them around a little. The sisters here really enjoyed meeting them and being able to go out in service with them! It's such an encouragement for our small hall to have brothers and sisters from different parts of the world come and visit. They come to realize that they truly do have a worldwide family. For us it encourages us because we get to have very close friends all over the world. What an amazing family we have in Jehovah's organization!!

Out in service with the congregation and our new friends!!

A Couple Months Behind On my Blog. Let me Try To Catch Up!!!

So we made it back to Panama on October 10th. We were really starting to miss our studies, service here and the brothers and sisters from our hall. So first thing when we came back, was attend the one day assembly. Caught up with everybody there, had a blast!!! Especially, because as I posted before, we had attended the annual meeting and brought back the new Bible with us. It really brought tears to our eyes to see how excited the brothers in the assembly were to see the Bible live!! They had only seen it online so my poor little Bible was all over the assembly hall, but it was the sweetest thing to see how excited the brothers and grateful they are with Jehovah's provision!! Even though it's only in English at the moment, the brothers here can't wait to get it in Spanish soon!!!

Ride back from the assembly with our congregation.

We came back to Guarare and come to find out that our Circuit Overseer and his wife, which we were starting to get closer to, were being assigned to Belize!! We were so sad!!! For them it was a little shock because they did not expect that. They had only been in this Circuit for a little over a year. So our little congregation planned a little going away party for them.
Everybody had so much fun and really enjoyed the encouragement that the Circuit Overseer gave to each one of us!! We were truly blessed by Jehovah to have them here. They were such and encouragement for us personally when we first got here to serve in Panama!! They gave us so much encouragement and really made us feel welcomed! We are truly going to miss them!! But we know that where they got assigned to they will really be and encouragement to the brothers there and the brothers likewise will love them as much as we all did. We know Jehovah has the perfect place for them!!

Aren't they the cutest!!! Miss them already!!

These are the gifts from our little congregation to the C.O. The little metal soldier has the scripture of Ephesians 6:13 written of the complete suit of Armour from God...a young brother from our hall is very talented and made this for him. And the other gift is a couple of cups for each of them with a scripture on it and their names.( Idea from Pintrest!!! ;))