An Update From Panama

Hey everyone!

We are already going on a month in Panama! We cannot believe it! The past few weeks have been some of the craziest of our lives! We just realized we have been married over 4 months already! Crazy! This time working with photogenX has been so rewarding. We have learned so many things and have overcome many obstacles since leaving the mainland and heading to the South Pacific...

One thing I (Ryan), have had to overcome lately is the difficulty of communal living. I truly believe living in close, personal community is healthy and a amazing way to carry out life. At the same time, I have been reminded repeatedly things of substance are often difficult to go through. The saying, "if it doesn't cost anything, it probably isn't worth anything..", is true. It is always difficult to adjust to new situations, to step out of comfort continually, and to be open with your life to other people. However, through the difficulty, I have gained so many close friendships here. I have shared my life, and in return have been entrusted with other peoples lives. Communal living, though not easy, is well worth the struggle. I hold fast and firm to that belief.

Now, on to the last two weeks of our lives. As many of you know, our group is focussing on being a voice for orphans rights here in Panama. We have been visiting orphanages and are trying to collect a database for a publication to support the work we are doing here. We took the last two weeks off of that project though. We were given the opportunity to travel to a people group called the Ngobe. They live in northern Panama, in a region called Chiriqui. 

We were not originally even thinking of visiting the Ngobe people. Their proximity is the main reason we had thought them to be too out of reach. By divine appointment, we met a medical team who was going to be providing a free four day medical clinic for the Ngobe in a region called Cameron Arriba. When learning about the Ngobe, we found out because they were spread out in the mountains of the region called Comarca, they were often never visited. They are a very reserved and shy people group. They are widely malnourished, forgotten, and undiscovered. They are also the largest group of indigenous people in Panama. Their population is over 130,000 in Panama. A few days after agreeing to go to the medical clinic for a few days with the doctors, we received another invite from a small group of people who were visiting the Ngobe in a different region the weekend before. As everything fit perfectly together, we happily obliged.

So, early on a Wednesday morning we set off for the Ngobe people. We had no idea what to expect other than a quiet and reserved people. After 8 hours of travel which consisted of: a one hour ride on a bus resembling a airport shuttle, a 6 hour coach bus ride to the base of the mountains, a 20 minute overcrowded and reckless taxi ride, and finally a 1 1/2 hour ride in the bed of a 4x4 truck up the mountains into a town called Cerro Flores. 

This place....pure beauty.

We bunked down in Cerro Flores, with beautiful views of the mountains, wondering what it actually was we were doing there. The next day we met with a Ngobe man named Rafael. The group of people we traveled there with were planning on providing a song writing workshop for the Ngobe people to help them preserve their culture in song. They found out the best place to do this was actually quite a bit away in the capitol city of the Comarca, called Tugri. While they were finding all of this out, we were walking around Cerro Flores, meeting people, attempting to communicate, and trying to photograph and help in any way we could. We decided to have a community gathering that night, so we invited (through our translators) anyone we came in contact with. We decided that evening we would all make the hike into Tugri the next morning. (We were told it was a 2 hour hike for Ngobe- which would translate into a 4 hour hike for us foreigners) So, we waited in expectation for the town meeting to have one last chance to get to know the inhabitants of Cerro Flores before we continued our journey to Tugri. About two hours before the meeting was to start, it started to pour. I don't mean heavy rain, I mean Panama during the rainy season pour. It continued on for hours. We were discouraged because no one was showing up, and we couldn't blame them, the rain made it treacherous. Little did we know, Ngobe people don't exactly have watches or an idea of being on time...so even though we told them to come at 6pm... 7:30pm seemed more like the time to them.

Women with children came trudging through the mud and rain to the hut that we were all staying in (it was actually the communities Catholic church). I was so excited because a couple of families had shown up I had spoken to. If I explain all of the stories, this blog will go on too long....so you will have to wait until Jeanette and I hold a conference in your area! (Aug. 29th in Lynchburg or Sept. 4th in Grand Haven) Anyways, we had a great time speaking with the chief and many families and sharing our lives with them. Surprisingly, they opened up to us at the end and even shared some of their own stories with us! It was an amazing time of growth for me.

The hike to Tugri, again, not without difficulty... ended up being a VERY tough hike. It took our group almost six hours to finish. We were met with a beautiful scenery of unscathed land. The Ngobe have lived in Tugri for 6 generations, and we were the first Westerners to ever stay there. The mere fact that they accepted us was amazing enough, but again, I will expound on that elsewhere. We were allowed to photograph the people and we urged the Ngobe to celebrate their culture. These people have such a beautiful way of life. They have nothing except what the land they live on gives them. If they lose their culture what do they become? They become another statistic. Another group of poor people on the farthest margins of society. We shared our stories of hope and faith with them, and they shared their history and stories with us. At the end of our time together, they gave us a plot of land. They wrote a deed for over 15 acres of land and gave it to Youth With A Mission Panama... sooo, we began the process of starting a church and a new YWAM base while in Tugri....which was pretty awesome! 

From Tugri, we hiked back to Cerro Flores and immediately took a 4x4 down the mountain and to a region called Cameron Arriba. We finally met up with the medical team. Cameron Arriba was a culture shock to us. The Ngobe there had almost completely lost their culture. They were not the reserved quiet people we had come to know over the previous week. Western society had arrived, and had created quite the mess. Trash was EVERYWHERE. No pristine beauty, just dirty, dusty streets lined with remnants from companies such as Coca-Cola and Doritos. Don't get me wrong though, I met some of the most beautiful people I have ever encountered in my life in Cameron Arriba. We gave them love and free medical help. (dental, eye care, surgical, pharmaceutical, etc.)

But something was missing. Something had been taken from them. It was their beautiful culture. They had all of these ideas of how life should be now because advertising had arrived with the Coca-Cola shipments...but they have no way of ever getting that. Many shunned their culture, forsook their responsibilities, and now live in a filthy town full of false hope. So we affirmed them in their culture. In who they really are, not who others think they should be. They have no running water, they have no sanitation systems... it was hard to see... hard to swallow, especially after Tugri and Cerro Flores. 

If anything, this trip gave me a passion for peoples culture. Culture and language is so important to people. If their culture and identity is stripped from them, who or what then determines what they become? We returned to Gamboa, finally took showers, used proper toilets, and got clean for the first time in what seemed like forever.

It was an amazing trip, and thank you so much for all of your support and prayer. When we left for the Ngobe, we were in low spirits...we had tried to pay our school loans, but our support money came in late and we only had 16 dollars in our bank account. So, we prayed and just told God we trusted Him, and when we returned, we had received some support unexpectedly and had enough for our bills. We appreciate you all so much for going out of your way to support us. We hope to share many stories with you when we return to the States.

 

In case anyone is interested, we have added a secure paypal button on our blog at the top left of the page. Our current needs sit at this: 

-We have realized we need a new laptop before we continue on to South Africa, so we are trying to raise about a thousand dollars for a new one.

-At the end of September, we have a large bill ($9,200) for fees for staying three months in South Africa...this includes places to stay, food, overland transportation, etc. (2,000 of this is a deposit that will be subtracted from our last payment of travel, so each bill gets less and less each time...thankfully!)

We are putting together a benefit concert in Lynchburg on Saturday, August 29th at One Community Church. It should be a great time, and we hope to raise some funds and sell some photography and books there as well.

In Grand Haven and the Grand Rapids areas, we have one confirmed conference at Lakeshore Baptist Church on Friday, September 4th at 7pm in Grand Haven. We are also trying to get in a few other churches while we are in the area, and our in talks with multiple missions pastors.

We love you all, and we pray for you and thank God for you regularly. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers. Please drop us a line anytime, we love to hear from you all. Email: rjwojton@gmail.com

Our skype ID:  rjwojton321

Pray for our work with the orphanages in Panama over the next month. The government is very open to reform and we are really excited about leaving something lasting here!

Blessings, 

Ryan & Jeanette