Shelley finally had the opportunity to visit the Child Development Centers in Panama this week. It was a great trip and here are some highlights of the visits to La Pesa and Espave de Chame. (Next week we'll share some more about some other centers.)
Shelley flew from San Jose to Panama City on Monday afternoon and began touring the area on Tuesday. The view of the city from the plane was incredible!
On Tuesday, the District Superintendent, Shelley and a few other leaders traveled to La Pesa, and area located west of the capital. Like many rural locations in Central America, it was not possible to drive all the way. We had to park a distance from the community. The good news is that the small bridge you see here has just been completed so now you can walk on dry ground! It is hard to believe now that it is dry season, but in rainy season it is not possible to cross this river so the bridge is a BIG deal for this community.
The church consists of two buildings: the sanctuary and a small school building. It is located in rolling, lush green hills. Beautiful!
This Child Development Center has a preschool for the poorest children in the community and also a weekly program to assist in education, nutrition and spiritual development of school aged children. At this moment there are 38 children sponsored by good people like you who send a little each month to help these children. Here are some of the preschool children during the first week of classes. The school year is March-November.
Here are a few of the older boys who have been attending the church and the Child Development Center for two years.
After spending some time meeting with the leaders at La Pesa, we traveled on to Espave de Chame which is located further west of the Panama City. This community is located on a busy highway.
This Child Development Center has a new church building to meet in, thanks to the assistance of a Work and Witness Team from the Mid-Atlantic District. With a roof over their heads, the children can learn in a better environment. Here are a few of the children from Espave during prayer time in their new building.
The people of Espave earn a meager living by making "carbon" or coal. It is not a rock type of coal. The process involves transporting wood to the site, burning it for many days (I can't imagine that type of work in the Panama heat!) and then sacking the burnt wood chips for sale.
One sack sells for about $3.00.
This is not much when you consider the expense of transporting the wood and the labor involved in burning it. The other main occupation is clam collecting since this community is located in walking distance to the Pacific coast.
This Center also provides assistance in education, nutrition and spiritual growth to the children. Here the children are waiting for a hot meal.
Currently there are 32 children sponsored through Child Sponsorship in Espave de Chame and more are added each month. The leader of the Center reviews the schoolwork of the children and assists those who are in need. This little girl got a 5 - the top score in Panama schools and she wanted to show off her good grade.
I am very proud of the leaders of each center, who by the way, are all female pastors. They are so good with the kids and completely dedicated to their work. They do a lot with a little and never give up.
So it was a good week here in MAC South. After returning at the end of the week, we had a surprise flood in our storage building and spent most of today (Saturday) sorting through wet books and papers deciding what we could save. But God helped us in that the most important things, like Bibles, were off the floor and were dry. And, we really need to clean out that storage area anyway and now we have no other option!
You can pray for David as he will be taking a team from California to Panama from the 20th - 30th of March. We'll miss him on Easter Sunday, but know he's doing good church planting work there.
God bless your Holy Week!
The Webb Family
P.S. If you would like to sponsor a child from one of the Child Development Centers, you can find photos and information about children who are waiting for sponsors at www.ncm.org.
1 comment:
The pictures and descriptions are incredible. This week's post just goes to show what you and your family are doing in what most of us would consider very difficult situations. Maybe I am just more in touch with your work this week as Central Church (with our daughter - Laura) just left yesterday for El Salvador. They also have a blog located at: http://elsalteam.blogspot.com/
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