The Ngobe Indians are an amazing group of people who live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Away from the hustle of the city, so high on the mountain top it seems they live in the clouds. The smell of wood smoke floats by on the breeze. Birds singing and the occasional shout of children playing can be heard echoing through the valley. Horses roam free and are still used as transportation to get to homes deep in the hills.
It seems like a peaceful way of life but its a hard life. Meat is not common and any other form of protein is scarce. Rice, oatmeal, and creamed corn are the typical meals. Women and children carry heavy buckets of water up steep hills for bathing and cooking. Pregnant women or sick children don’t have immediate access to a real doctor. Fighting is normal and some people file their teeth into sharp points as a form of intimidation or to use as a weapon. Like many places, when Jesus is absent, things like physical and sexual abuse in family’s is common, women are treated like livestock, and girls are having babies at an age as young as 12 years old.
In case ya’ll haven’t heard yet, the Nicaragua government canceled our plane tickets due to political unrest in their country. Our leadership back in Georgia re-routed us into Panama which was suppose to be our last country in month 11. No one really knew where we were suppose to go when we got here, so B squad holed up at a little hostel in Panama City for 4 days until new hosts could be contacted and each team had a place to go. It’s a slight disappointment not to be able to go to Nicaragua but already 5 days into this new plan, it is so obvious that this is where the Lord wanted us to be the whole time.
We are working with YWAM (Youth With A Mission) in Potrerillos Arriba, Panama. Our host picked us up in Panama City and we headed for the deep wilderness of the mountains to a small Indian village called Tugri. We stayed up there for 4 days with a discipleship training class for people from a variety of different Indian tribes.
The Ngobe people are the ones that live in Tugri and are an indigenous tribe to Panama. They were until recently, living completely off grid. Over the past year the government has paved a road to them as well as brought in electricity. There was a need for better living conditions as children were constantly sick or dying from living in huts with dirt floors. When it rains 9 months out of the year the homes do not stay dry and with dirt floors this can be an issue. YWAM saw this need and started building homes with concrete floors for the widows, elderly, or families with young children. Soon after, the government followed suit and more people are being offered better living situations. There is negative as well as positive influences coming in from the outside, but they are proud people and value tradition and their way of life and hold onto it strong. A positive is that the more they are reached out to the more they hear about Jesus and learn that there can be a light in their darkness.
Over the month we will be working with a variety of indigenous tribes as well as a boys orphanage. I am so excited to see what this month has in store for my team and I hope yall are just as excited to hear about it.
