I now face myself with the daunting task of writing a blog about the last ten days in about thirty minutes. Which would be nothing if the last ten days were crap and I had nothing much to say about it in the first place. But they weren’t, and I do.
I’ll skip how it all started and just leave it at our other plans fell thru.
So there we were, a group of Americans on a tiny island with a bunch people called the Kuna. Supposedly they are pretty used to us white folk coming over to see how beautiful their beaches are and swim around for a bit. But we weren’t there for that, although we did do that. The island is part of a group of islands in a place off the nothern shore of Panama. This island (I’m sorry, I don’t remember it’s name) consists largely of houses. There’s also a school and a basketball court.
Living in community with the Kuna people was the greatest experience for many of us. There’s a lot of talk about community on the World Race blogs. Many a racer has written that it’s hard living with the same 5 people for a year 24/7. I can tell you that we intraverts look for places to “intravert ourselves” from time to time. We share everything together, 
whether we want to or not. And we look forward to a time when we can have the freedom of a car and a cell phone. It’s awful easy to get away in the U.S. when we don’t really feel like hanging out with a family member.
The Kuna are different. They don’t know anything else. They’ve been raised on an island, apart from everything else. Even if they did have a car they couldn’t drive it. And if they had a boat, they may go to another island. But that would take a lot of money that most of them don’t have. It’s just not realistic. And so they accept and love each other. They are patient, giving and sacrificial. They loved us instantly and accepted us into their community.
I don’t speak much spanish, much less Kuna, but I speak more than most of my teammates. When Aaron, our 1/4 Mexican and fluent spanish speaker, left a bit early I spoke the most spanish of us. So I was forced to translate. That was fun. Really it was. I enjoyed it. I translated 2 sermons and 2 testimonies from my teammates, among many other things. It inspired me to learn spanish and other languages.
Another thing I’m learning is that that’s typical of my temperament – to act on impulse with great dedication. But I’ve got to get that impulse and motivation. Or just know myself and have great discipline.
So we hung out with Pastor Canto and his family, the children, and pretty much half the island. We took the kids swimming on a nearby island. We led church services, depainted a boat, drank parassite infested water, and some other things. I really enjoyed it.
I should appologize for this blog. It’s not good writing and I gave it a poor effort. But there it is.
Tomorrow night we head up to Nicaragua – a 2 day bus drive. Immediately afterwards, the guys catch a bus out to Guatemala for a couple weeks. After these two weeks ignite will get back together for the final 3 weeks together. Hard to believe it’s coming to an end so quickly!
