Panama Outreach

After the first two weeks of lectures in Costa Rica we all went on outreach to wherever we felt like we were supposed to go. There were four of us that really felt called to go to Panama City to work with the YWAM base there! We spent 7 days traveling, working on the base, and living in one of the villages with the indigenous people. 

The YWAM base in Panama work very closely with the indigenous people and are well established with them. They have started a boarding school at the base for 12- 18 year old kids from the villages. One of the reasons they started to school was to get the girls out of the villages because once they get their menstrual cycle a lot of them get raped. When they become pregnant they are the wife to the baby's father, which means these girls are getting pregnant and married at the age of 12-13 years old. The base is trying to pull them out of there before that happens so they can not only teach them text books and the Word of God but basic life logic skill!

My team of four, plus an old friend from high school, spent 3 days living with the Embera Puru people in the San Juan village getting to see and understand their lifestyles, how they make a living, and tons of other things. They live on the banks of the Pequeni river and are made up of roughly 20 families. They make their living hosting groups of tourists who come to experience the Embera culture, along with striving in many ways to maintain their culture. Even though they are being connected more and more with the technology and the modern world. While the older generation is largely illiterate, the younger generation is now starting to go to university. 

It was an amazing time to just get to see the life of these people. We played in the river with the kids, ate in the huts with the women and babies, and worked with the men. Being there in the villages with the people pressed on my heart even more that I want to be doing this exact kind of stuff in Africa one day! Getting to live with the people in villages/jungles to really capture their lives with my photography and then being able to show the world who they really are and how they really live.

[Scott, Christina, David, Greg, me, Seyoung, & Maribel]

Making Plantain

Doing Landuary in the River

Jewelry the women make to sell to the tourists out of seed from the fruit or coconuts

After that we went back to Panama City where we worked with the 6th grades (12-13 year olds) at the boarding school on the base. We had a time of just sitting and asking questions back and forth so we could understand their culture more, how they feel about the boarding school, and much more. The next day we played games with them and then shared testimonies and teachings with them. We also got to see Panama City while we were there and explored the old and new parts of it and the Panama Canal. It was definitely the best outreach I have had and something that really impacted me. 

Bridge of Americas & the Panama Canal