Dear Friends and Family of the Church of the Dunes

On behalf of the Panama 2015 VIM team, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the generous contributions you made to our work with the Ngabe people. Without your support we would have been unable to offer the quality of medical care we needed on our mission.

A detailed report of our work in Panama will be written for you in the near future.  However, we did not want to delay in expressing our gratitude to all of you for the funds you provided.  Rest assured that your generosity provided us the means to address the distinct and varied needs of the indigenous population.

Blessings,

Bron & Barry Kram, Tom Alguire, Ruth Archer

Home sweet home!

As far as I know we have all made it home safe and sound.  Words cannot describe our experience.  Please talk with the team members you know. Ask them questions about what we do and the feelings we all go through.  Thanks for following our week.  God bless!!
We will try to post more pics by next week! 

Home tomorrow!

We had 27 patients on friday, It was a fairly slow morning, we were only able to stay two hours. The children were a little clingy as they knew we were leaving. We are happy to report we were able to leave Vitamins,Tylenol and first aid supplies and much more for the 12 different local health promoters. We were also able to leave crafts supplies behind too. Leaving the Gnabe was emotional. Our prayer is that they understand Christ's love for each of us and they may see Christ working through us and the people who support this mission. We were very fortunate and we definitely had God's blessing because when we were on the drive back to Panama City we drove through a strom and a huge limb blew down and hit the front of our bus busting the windshield. No one was hurt, just woke some of us up.We were able to continue to drive. We arrived in Panama City around 7:45 p.m. We had devotion and hit the hay! On Saturday we headed out to do some site seeing of Panama City. First we went to old town Panama and visited several churches, Biomuseo museum, did a little shopping at the market and of course the visit to the Panama Canal. While there we were fortunate enough to see the US Coast Guard go through the Panama Canal. The churches were breath taking. Panama's skyline is beautiful. We ate lunch at a Panamanian Greek restaurant. We ate our goodbye meal together at a restaurant looking over the bay. We said our good byes to the Florida folks after returning to the hotel. There were a few tears shed as we are all going to miss them and a very special 12 year old girl. I'm sure there will be tears tomorrow as the rest of us depart from Atlanta. We've enjoyed our time together with each other and most importantly being the best we can be at being desciples of Christ. All week Barry has spoke of Jesus and his miracles of healing people from the Gospels. This mission team has witnessed healing and miracles right before their eyes. Past team member talk of how ill and unhealthy people were 10 years ago and now how they are healthier by practicing better hygiene and better sanitation. As we sat and listened tonight and the emotions they all feel of seeing Jesus at work was overwhelming. This week they talked of maybe two cases of scabies and of in the past too many cases to remember. This is healing. Jesus is working in Cieneguita, healing one person at a time. We are looking forward to seeing our family, friends and telling our church families of our experience here in Panama. Matthew 9:35 “And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.” .

Day four.

First house built in 2012 that they helped with. With the help of volunteer construction teams that took months to build. Floors are just poured concrete out of Sak Crete . The structure is then bamboo or wood. Gnabe associate bamboo with poverty therefore they prefer wood. Most materials had to be carried by hand across a bridge. The houses are 20 ft by 20 ft the cost is $3500. The families help on their own home and at least 3 others. The gnabe are a very hard working group of people the building team asked for a backhoe to make an access road to bring in building materials across the river and the next day the gnabe people had already built an access road for them by using a pick, their hands, their feet, and shovels. To date their are 16 homes that have been built for the gnabe people. When we got to the clinic we took a walk across the bridge to see one of the homes that is being build for a gentleman named david. we were grateful and blessed to be able to see their home before we started another wonderful day in the clinic. Today at the clinic we saw 57 people. The pharmacy made bags for the health care providers. And continued organizing the pharmacy for future use.
The last picture you see is one person who only speaks Gnabe speaking to some who can translate from Gnabe to Spanish to the next person translating Spanish to English to someone who only speaks English.

Hump day!!!

Our day starts with breakfast at 7 and we return to the hotel at 7 pm. We have a devotional and testimony from each team member after we eat thenhead to our rooms around 9 pm. As always we had a good lunch today, the ladies feed the team members, kids and patients each day which is rice and beans, which is delicious and greatly needed to help us get through our busy days. Today is the first day it has not rained as this is the rainy season, it is raining tonight. Today we want you to get to know the Ngabe as we have. There are several reservations or (comarca) which is divided by 9 provinces. The clinic is at the base of the mountain. Many walk 2 1/2 to 3 hours to see the doctors. Some are sick, and others come to get vitamins, parasite meds, or creme for fungus (athletes feet) as there is no local pharmacy. The clinic is open about every 3 months depending on how many groups of Dr's they can get to come. As we have about 17 on our team this trip and some of us need translators, we pick up local Panamanian volunteers along the way as well to help translate to the drs. While the overall conditions continue to improve since this particular team started coming 10 years ago there are still needs for the Ngabe. The smallest little things they enjoy are a smile, providing their needs for the day, and helping them finacially by purchasing their homemade goods. Today we had more people than the past two days. There was a total of 86 patients today. We were unable to see all that were waiting and they will have to return tomorrow to be seen. Any serious illness or very sick get to be seen first. The childrens room was overflowing. At one point we counted 47 kids inside and about 18 outside playing soccer. This is not counting the children who are too shy to come in. God gives us guidance each day and we feel blessed by the opportunity to help them with their journey.

Day two.

We had a great breakfast at the hotel and headed out. When we arrived we took a look at the new dental room and it looked great. A dentist from the states became passionate for bringing a dental facility to the clinic after coming here on a mission trip of his own and he has succeeded with a wonderful facility. They currently have local dentists which are there 3 days a week.
Everthing went smoothly during the day. The kids love soccer and would not stop playing. Bella and Fina made us a delicious lunch like yesterday.
We have added few pics so you can see the beautiful landscape God chose for the Ngabe to call home. We have included a map of where we are staying and where we travel up the mountain each day to the clinic which also has Panama city on it.  Various other pics are from throughout the day from the beautiful rainbow we saw as we started our day, a tired Doctor at the end of the day and many others to help you get an understanding of where we are, what we are doing and the people we are meeting along the way.   Please keep us in your prayers.