It has been a while since my last post regarding our status here in Boquete, Panama. It has been a great three plus months. We have been involved in a variety of activities in this beautiful area of the world we call home.

We have been active in a local church, Boquete Bible Fellowship. Being a popular area for older expats to retire we find ourselves the youngins… First week we helped paint the interior of our little church and they kept asking the young guy to climb the ladders for the high painting… That “Young Guy” turned out to be me. LOL We have enjoyed a weekly bible study and Gina is also attending a womens bible study each week.

Recently our church started a intercessory prayer group and already we have a dozen people actively involved in praying for others in need of God’s power in their lives. That is quite a high number for such a small congregation and we are very blessed to be participating in this endeavor.

We have also gotten to be friends with other missionaries who have many years of experience serving in Romania and now here in Panama. We are part of the children’s ministries. We have a weekly kids club in the wonderful little park in our local Panamanian neighborhood. We get 15-30 children each week that includes the indigenous (native american) children. We get to practice bible scripture memorization’s, singing songs, sharing a message and playing games. We are also doing nearly the same program at a local government orphanage that houses a few dozen children. A number of which have physical and/or mental limitations.

In addition to this we are living in a Panamanian neighborhood and have a family with extended family members with several children who have many needs. We are blessed to be able to spend time playing with them, providing food, medical care and primarily sharing God’s love with them.

We are renting a home from an american family who are christians that love this neighborhood and as part of the rent they have us pay for a local woman to do yard work 5 days a week and another to clean the house one day a month. This helps us to have a connection with the neighbors and makes us very comfortable living here. A number are Catholic and others Evangelical Christians. We are blessed to be in a cute little two bedroom, one bath home, includes hot water, and all basic household necessities. We have tv and internet. We often have power outages but have become pretty used to them and they don’t bother us most of the time as we don’t have much we have much on our schedules that are too dependent on electricity…. 🙂

We recently had heavy rains (rainy season) that caused some flash flooding in a nearby area killing more than a dozen and leaving many homeless. We just participated in a collection and distribution of food, clothes, etc to this community in  conjunction with several churches. It was wonderful to hand out these items to those in such need. Of particular note is that you really could not tell that most of the recipients had just lost everything they own… They were pleasant, smiling and very grateful for all they received.

As I mentioned in the title of this post, Gina and I are leaving next Monday, Sept 1st for France to begin an epic trek across the Pyrenees and Spain that is 500 miles and will take over a month to complete. This pilgrimage has been completed for over 1200 years and is meant to end in Santiago at the Cathedral that houses the remains of Saint James. If we have time and energy left after reaching Santiago we want to continue on to Finisterre (the end of the earth) at the Ocean which is about 4 additional days journey. The Catholic church issues a Compostella to those that complete at least the last 100 kilometers on foot or 200 kilometers by bicycle. We are excited by the prospect of who God will place in our path as we travel The Way of Saint James/Camino Frances. There are many in search of something to fill the emptiness in their lives…. We pray to reach out to those who God is ready to draw to Him.

We will leave on September 1st and plan to return to Panama on October 22nd or 23rd. This is a 7 week itinerary. We will be taking our cell phones and plan to take and post many pictures to our facebook pages.

We sure miss our family and friends we have left in the States and pray for their well-being in our absence. 

All the best to our friends and family! XOXOX

Bill and Gina Brick

God Bless