Circuit Assembly November 2012

Our Circuit Assembly was held in David this year. It was a nice room that they were able to rent. It was clean, the chairs were fairly comfortable and there was A/C. We were very excited for all that! We had 179 in attendance. The program as you all know was just amazing. So many good parts, demos and talks.  I'll relay some of the stats they announced for the English field. Costa Rica and Panama form one District. All of Panama forms one circuit. Because it's very difficult for ones to travel to the other side of Panama for the one and two day assemblies they have divided our circuit into 3 sections. A, B and C. We fall into the C side of our circuit. In all of Panama there are 218 regular pioneers. There are 111 in Costa Rica. For our side of the circuit there are 310 Bible studies. Just in the last year 10 new English congregations have been formed between Costa Rica and Panama. And numerous groups have been formed or are in the process of trying to become a group.
We were able to meet our district overseer and his wife for the first time. They are so nice. I really admire the sacrifices they have made. There is only one district overseer for all of Central America. So from week to week they are traveling great distances. He had such a love for all the kids and gave them Bible questions they had to research and then give him the answer.

Here's a picture of all the kids in our side of the circuit.

And then a picture of all the teenagers!

Here's a little girl Kaia took a great liking to.  And also a current family picture.

A day in the ministry

We had a mountain territory we were trying to finish up and we had left the hiking part to the last. So one morning it was our family and two more sisters. So off we set. The hike started on a very steep paved road that had a sign that said there was no where to turn around. So we parked the car and started on foot. Once we got to the bottom of the paved road there was a dirt path that picked up. So we kept going further and further down. Once we got to the bottom of the paved path we saw an abandoned house but then on further there were a couple more homes. The only way there was on a packed down grassy trail. So the 6 of us kept going. At the end of the grassy path was a creek that we had to cross to get to the 2 homes. We decided for Adam to cross over and head to the homes and see what was there. He said as he was walking up he noticed a little old lady sitting on her front porch swatting the dogs away with a broom while reading a magazine that looked like the Watchtower. So once he approached he asked if he could see what she was reading and it was! It was the current November Watchtower and Awake magazines. Now I feel I should tell you the date of this service day....It was only November 7th. What we found so encouraging about this experience is that here we hiked probably 45 minutes down this mountain to literally 2 houses in the middle of NO WHERE and even though Adam was unable to have a conversation with this woman...already by the 7th of November this householder had the current magazines. It really showed how Jehovah's word is being preached in the most remote parts of the world!

Puerto Armuelles

The beginning of November we were able to travel to a small beach town named Puerto Armuelles, Panama. There are 2 familes from the States trying to get an English group started there. Once a month they have a brother visit to give a talk. It's only a couple hour drive for us and we were excited to see another part of Panama. We arrived Saturday afternoon and they have their "Sunday" meeting on Saturday night. So Adam gave the talk and we had the Watchtower that was conducted using the Simplified Edition. There were a few Panamanians there and an American couple who are currently studying. I think in total there were about 16 people there. It was so nice getting to know new ones better. We got to talk with a family with 2 teenage boys and they've been here a few years. So getting their insight and seeing how spiritual their boys are was very encouraging. Then there is a new family that has 3 young kids. You'll see in the pictures how excited they all were to be playing with kids their ages!

Here was the group when we visited. There have since been 2 brothers move in to help as well.
We stayed over night so on Sunday we woke up and went to the beach! Here's just a few pictures of the kids playing.

Learning to surf using wood. The kids LOVED this! We've definantly learned it's the little things in life that matter the most.