It's January. We went to Panama in June. It's absurd, I know. But, I will not be deterred. There are a lot of people that sent me money or supplies or prayers for our team or notes that they were thinking of me! And because of them I WILL post pictures from Panama 2011! In the interest of sanity, you will unfortunately not get the in depth story of the past two years. The amount of reading is already stacking up on my desk and the semester is only 3 days in. But, before I begin, I am doing this!
In some ways the Kuna Islands in 2011 were the same as they always are. The people are beautiful. The trip is hard. The islands are hot. You feel motivated and exhausted at the same time. But the trip this year was also very different. The islands were more commercialized because they were closer to the mainland - in fact one of the Silas actually spoke English. And the islands were smaller, we were usually done clinic half way through the second day on each island. Because we were closer to the mainland we drove to the boats instead of flew...that will likely not be happening again now that we've lived through the experience to see another day :) No soldiers this year, and the team was bigger so there was a different group dynamic. In some ways that was sad because we had such an amazing group dynamic last year, but in other ways it was good. You learn different things when you are in different groups, and part of what I love about going on these trips is how much I learn. We had a service team this year, which was really cool because they did different tasks around the island as people needed help. We had more translators which was wonderful. And at the end of the trip we stayed for an extra day in Panama City which was a nice way to decompress and see part of the country that we never get to see other than out the window of the plane.
Every year, it is a privilege to be part of the missions team. I am blessed beyond measure to have been able to go, and to those of you who gave me support in so many way, thank you.
