An Unlikely Encounter

So there I am, waiting in line to buy myself a cheese empanada right? When all of the sudden I notice another dude in the store who looks undeniably like a U.S. person, which is not that uncommon in Panama especially around the city, but this dude is unique. He is wearing a T-shirt that has a picture of Kentucky with an arrow going to a picture of Panama, and something about the Louisville Church of Christ (or something like that). I decide that I have to say hi to him and see what he is up to down here (for those of you that don’t know, I go to a Church of Christ stateside), but before I get the chance he is out of the store. I get my empanada and when I get out of the store I see another guy wearing the same shirt standing with some people by a bus, so I do what seemed appropriate and used the international Church of Christ greeting, “Hi, I saw your shirts said you were Church of Christ. I went to Harding.” This of course started a conversation where I told them I was here with Peace Corps and we talked about their mission trip they were doing over the next week. Here comes the surprise though.

At one point near the beginning of the conversation they asked where I was from. I told them Florida and they of course asked where in Florida. This was not your typical “O, I wonder if he lives at Disney World or Miami” where in Florida, they seemed to really want to know WHERE in Florida, and so I told them the Sanford area. They asked if I went to the Sanford church and I told them yes. That’s when things got freaky. One of the dudes tells me he is from Ocala, one says he is from Eustis, and the third guy, the one that had already told me he lives in Panama and the church group was there to work with him, tells me that he taught at Mount Dora Bible for 20+ years. “HOLY CRAP IS THIS REAL” was my general thought at this moment, although I of course remained calm, cool, and collected on the outside. He said he probably knew my friends and I asked if he knew the Galloways, Kristin and Kara, and he said “yeah, I taught Kara.” He then told me he lived in El Valle, about 30 or 40 min away and they had just stopped there after picking up the group from the airport. I told them we had just visited a volunteer’s site about an hour away and we were 40 minutes from our dormitories. He then got my email and sent me directions to him and told me to come visit when I got the opportunity. Upon receiving the email I realized that he was David Carter, now time for some perspective.

While I was still stateside Kara and Kristin Galloway’s mother, Ronda Galloway, kept telling me that she knew some missionaries in Panama, the Carters, and would try to get me their contact info and that I should try to find them. I thought this sounded like a great idea, but to find one couple in all of Panama might be difficult just logistically because of communication and transportation difficulties that come with Peace Corps. I could make a very good effort to find them, but depending on where they were and where I was it could prove difficult if not impossible. So there I am, staring at my email, blown away by the way that God works sometimes.  There I am, sitting in the parking lot of another country that I have not even been in for a week yet, meeting the ONE man that I was supposed to find in the entire country at some roadside empanada shop not even close to where either of us live. And there I am, sitting at the edge of a grand adventure into the unknown realizing the I have nothing to worry about because even when I feel all alone and nothing is going my way, I have a mighty and amazing God on my side.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. – 1 Peter 5:6-7

Staging and Pre-Training Retreat

OK, OK, OK. I realize that it has been a little bit into this whole Peace Corps training dealio without any updates as to what life is like. Hopefully this post and the next one will give some insight into how my days have been going.

Let’s venture back in time a little first to staging. Staging, the less than 24 hours we were given in Washington D.C. to prepare us for a journey to Panama. To start with, I met up with some of the other PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) in the airport. They were easy enough to spot being the group of younger people with large hiking backpacks and duffel bags. We all got a van, split the fare, and headed over to the hotel. We then basically spent the day going through some administrative things and having lots of sessions on “What are you worried about and what are you excited for?” type things. It was a nice way to start meeting people in a more relaxed situation. The next day however, we had to check out of the hotel by 2 a.m. Yup, that’s not a typo people, that is 2 in the morning. After exploring D.C. for a little bit, since I had never been there before, I took a roughly two hour nap before waking up and hitting the road again.

Leaving our hotel by 2:30 a.m. allowed us to arrive at the check-in counter at 3. Ensuring that we were first in line to check in since it didn’t open until… well… 4:30 a.m. Although this seemed quite the bother at first, we ended up being thankful for it because our flight was at 6 or 6:30 (I don’t really remember) and a lengthy line had formed behind us.  We took that plane to Miami, and took that plane to Panama City, Panama. At approximately noon on Wednesday June, 18^th we had arrived to our destination country.

Ah, Panama City, Panama. The first thing you notice flying in is the many tall skyscrapers that are as nice as any United States capital. Why would Peace Corps be here? This place seems to be doing great. Well as you continue to bank into the final approach for landing you realize. Using one word to describe the justification for Peace Corps’ presence in Panama it would be this: disparity. As you pass the skyscrapers you start to realize that you could stand on the top floor and probably throw a stone into one of the poor neighborhoods, or barrios as they would be called. The acquisition of complete control of the Panama Canal has been rushing money into the country, but its distribution has been all but equal. Certain parts of the country are growing rapidly, other parts are remaining fairly stagnant, and the far reaches of the country are not even touched. That is why there are PCVs here, not because the city is turning into a great hub of business and trading, but because the rest of the country is not.

But I digress, back to the story. We arrived in Panama City and were swept off to our pre-PST (Pre-Service Training) retreat at the Peace Corps Office in Ciudad del Saber. This place is nice. I’m talking gated community/compound thing, wifi, warm showers, flushing toilets, A/C, tons of development agencies have training offices here…nice. We spent Wednesday to Sunday here, mostly doing administrative things and “Welcome to Panama here is health and security” seminars. It gave us a great opportunity to get to know people as we all started to bond and become friends. Everyone here is pretty fantastic. I will not bore you with most of the seminars that we had to go through, but on Saturday we took a trip to visit a nearby volunteer’s site. It was neat to see the work that they had accomplished and especially the relationships they had formed with the people in their site. They had worked on an aqueduct project and we got to see the final product since we arrived the day before they were going to COS (close of service) and leave. It was an understandably emotional day for them (it was a married couple, thus the plural usage), but really cool to see a volunteer’s site and what their daily lives would look like. On the way back from this site visit we stopped at a little roadside store to grab some empanadas that were supposed to be pretty good (Spoiler: they were) and I had an experience that will make an appearance in my next post, so stay tuned for more!

Too Short for a Title

I am sorry for the brevity of this post, but fear not a longer post explaining this whole deal will be on it's way shortly.

Suffice it to say that I have had a very busy first few days. We have been getting up at around 6 every morning, and those of you that know me  realize I have a better chance stateside of going to bed at 6 a.m. than getting OUT of bed at 6 a.m. We then have events scheduled until dinner which occurs typically at 6 or 7. It has been a lot of early prep and administrative stuff, but today we visited a PCV's (Peace Corps Volunteer's) site and got to see what it was like. When I explain this in detail in another post it may even include a few pictures! I also happened to meet the one person in Panama that I was told to look for. Not only did I meet him, but it was the most random scenario! That will be my cliffhanger because I really need to sleep now. I just wanted to let everyone know I made it, I am safe, and it has been awesome!

A Rolling Pickle Gathers No Moss

I love the mountains

I love the clear blue skies

I love red arches

I love the cliffs so high

I love the whole world

And all its sights and sounds

Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da

Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da

Welcome to my post about the trip I took out west! If you just read through those lyrics and wish you had a catchy tune to put with them look no further than this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC-jau-fpJY

There you have it! A new song to sing and make up lyrics to (you will notice my posted lyrics are slightly different) as you adventure. You are welcome. And that concludes my post on my adventure out west. Thanks for stopping by...just kidding.

How do you tell the stories of so grand an experience? What words can you use to properly convey the serenity of watching the sunset from within a sandstone arch? Is it possible to describe the immensity of towering canyon walls only 40 ft apart? How do you invoke the sense of presence and challenge a mountain gives when you stand at its base looking only to its peak? It's simple, you don't. These are impossible feats, and therefore I will not attempt them. What I will attempt to do is portray some of the captivating moments of this trip in a manner that will inspire you to venture out and experience some of these things yourself.

For starters this was a summer vacation. A celebration of my friend Kelly graduating undergrad and being accepted into UF Vet School. Wait wait wait wait....I said SUMMER vacation, right? How do you explain this?!?!?

I don't know. Some people said things about "It's early season" and "It's 8,000 ft of elevation," but I don't care. It's May and there is no snow in May. Well nobody sent mother nature the memo, so she decided to start our trip off with scurrying about Colorado trying to out-run a large snow storm. The good news is that we managed to never get stuck, and stayed on schedule with all our visitations (even added an additional one in). The snow was not that bad though, after hiking about ten minutes we would warm up.

Now I suppose I should include a list of places we went. I will do this with a photo or six from each of the stunning locations.

First up: Rocky Mountain National Park

First picture of the trip!

First hike destination of the trip!

What it lacked in snow, it made up for in chipmunks.

Then on to Black Canyon of the Gunnison:

The visitor center had a nice view.

The "Black" Canyon sure was white.

Colorado National Monument:

This was the additional stop.

Arches National Park:

Landscape Arch

Double-O Arch

Sitting inside Double-O Arch.

Landscape Arch from above.

Double Arch (no O)

Sunset from the western arch of Double Arch

Zion National Park:

Although scarce in photos, the narrows were amazing fun.

Grand Tetons National Park:

Somebody forgot to take the mirror cover off the lake this morning.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

It's the bear necessities...

And our final park Yellowstone:

Turns out Old Faithful once cheated on another geyser.

Mammoth hot springs had no mammoths.

Fairy Falls had no fairies.

Grand Prismatic Spring did have a grand prism of colors though.

The stories that occurred during and between these photos are far too numerous to recount on here. This has already been a pretty lengthy post, albeit almost entirely pictures, without the stories. Of course if you wish to know about a park or the journey as whole I would love to talk about it. Send me a message or catch me in person and I can delve into as much detail as you care to sit around and listen to.

This trip was an astounding journey to some marvelous destinations, but to be fair none of the sights seen or trails conquered can compare to the quality of people I got to spend it with. I would like to give a quick shout-out to the friends that made this fun trip into the fantastic experience it was especially since most of you I will not see again for at least two and a half years.

Carolyn - If I had to pick one word to describe you after our short time together: spunky. You were definitely a trooper doing all those hikes through the snow in your Nikes, but you made it just fine and I don't recall you ever complaining about it. The greatest part of your spunk however is the passion it gives you for the Lord. I appreciated your input in our devos and the way you found a blessing in everything. If I had to qualify how I felt about getting to meet you just before leaving on this trip what would I say? So blessed.

Caroline  - You are like a homing missile for adventure. If there is adventure out there, you are going to find it. You have a wonderful tenacity for taking on any challenge and completing it yourself, no helping hand needed. I hope these next two and half years present you with plenty of mountains to conquer, rivers to raft, rocks to climb, and trails to blaze. Hopefully you have an adequate list of new adventures for Gainesville as well now.

Janzen - My British humor co-fan. It saddens me that our time on the trip together did not overlap longer. I am thankful however for all the laughs you brought to the camp site and trails. You really did hop in and blend into the group dynamic perfectly, a seamless transition from no-Janzen to Janzen. Also I just want to add that I am still impressed that you just hopped on board right after hiking the entirety of the Grand Canyon. If you ever get tired of hiking one of the wonders of the world and wish for a new adventure, feel free to hike to Panama and say hello!

Melissa - The strong independent single rider. I know I know I know... you are going to quietly say "that's not true at all" as I repeat so much of what others said whilst we were on the trip, and that is that nothing would have progressed on our trip without you. And while I do hate waking up cold and damp, without you taking on the necessary evil of waking us up bright and early and preparing for us to leave we certainly would not have had the time necessary to complete all the things we desired and set out to do. You were a joy to be around, even if it was early and cold.

Kelly - Where would I be without you? At home on my butt and laptop a lot more, that's for sure because I would have nobody inviting me on super fun snowboarding trips or epic cross-country extravaganzas! I sincerely appreciate your invitations on these last couple trips and hope that I helped out and was fun enough to merit having me. Fortunately you just got into vet school, so I am much more confident of where you will be in two and a half years than anybody else. Go ahead and plan for me to come visit you in Gainesville when I come back because we will have plenty of catching up to do.

Kristin - The one friend I will see again after posting this and before Panama, so I better make it good  I suppose. I have known you for-basically-ever and if I had to describe you as a friend in one word it would be...*drum roll*...faithful. I considered making some joke instead of a serious word there, but I decided that word was too perfect. You are a faithful friend that is always there for those you care about, and you are faithful follower of Christ Jesus that always keeps Him as a focus in activities. I could go on for ages about our friendship, but for brevity's sake it will suffice to say that I deeply appreciate our camaraderie.

I would also like to extend a special thank you to Mr. Darrell and Mrs. Joan for their generosity in making this trip possible. Also a very special thank you to the Tesses who housed Kristin and I in Bozeman, Montana with so much hospitality you would think that we were related (although we are family, not in blood but in Christ).

Thank you to anyone reading and the next post will most likely be from Panama!

Romans 1:20 - "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."