We have seen the first quarter of this year come into being, robust, with much anticipation of a relaxed COVID schedule. In January, we held a nutrition and plant growing seminar in connection with Dr. Dan Daves of Global Food Providers. The location for this event was at Pastor Manuel’s church at San Felix in the district of Oma, which is a part of the Comarca in the Province of Chiriqui. We had a good number of Ngabe pastors and 3-4 women listening to the presentation and taking notes about nutrition. Moringa plants were given to the attendees and moringa tea powder, plus plastic bags that contained ground dehydrated “super greens” (kale, swiss chard, spinach and mustard greens). Global Food Providers also provided fresh produce for those in attendance. The last portion of the Nutrition Program allowed Cleft of the Rock Ministries to add a spiritual dimension, as we presented Bibles (large print in Spanish) to the pastors that were in attendance. Rogna Burnett from Idaho donated money and requested it to be for the Bibles. The Pastors appreciated it very much. They would never have been able to afford these Bibles. Thank you, Rogna.
ON-SITE CHORCHA
Plans for the construction of a Children’s Feeding Shelter in the community of CHORCHA located on the Comarca (Reservation) demanded a lot of time and coordination and detail. Upon the consolidation of equipment and building supplies needed, we made the trip to the Ferreteria (hardware store) and ordered the materials and equipment needed to do the job! The trip to deliver the supplies is quite a challenge by itself. It takes almost an hour and a half (18 miles) each way for a large truck with 4 WD to negotiate a road with streams crossing at numerous places and areas that are low lying and wash out from the heavy rains!
With meetings and planning with projected goals, our construction began in late April and continued into the early part of May. Sam personally traveled there via a 4WD Taxi with Armando and spent the better part of two days, thinking that he would help put down cement and finishing. To his surprise, the community with the help of Cerila Dixon, wife of Armando Dixon had organized a construction crew to take on the project! All he could do was look on, as they moved ahead with the construction. They had cleared out the land and leveled it off and had holes made ready for the posts and cement. To aid our construction, we purchased a small 100-gallon water tank for water to be available for cement mixing. You will notice in one of the photos a Ngabe with a horse, he offered to carry 5-gallon jugs of water to keep the supply in the tank available for the cement mixing.
To the integrity of the community, there was a Ngabe who donated a large tree and another Ngabe who had a portable chainsaw mill. He cut the tree for lumber to build the structure above the posts that made the support for the roof. This lumber was treated for termites upon construction. The construction workers were all Ngabe; one was a builder who acted as foreman, another was an active Ngabe who worked for the National Police and donated his week off to help, and two others were Ngabe who had helped in other community building projects. It was quite a challenge for me, to see a small community of workers do everything without electricity, cement mixer or electric drills or running water to bring the project to completion in (2) weeks of time.
The building project is now complete, and our next challenge is to install a large 650gallon water storage tank for rain collection off the metal roof via PVC conduit to the tank. We also are getting ready to place (6) picnic tables in the shelter where the children may be seated for feeding and after school learning and Bible Study lessons.
Adjacent to the feeding shelter will be a bamboo and plastic constructed “small scale” green house where those in the community may practice their skills and knowledge of growing plants, since several of these Ngabe were at the Nutritional seminar at Oma district in San Felix this past January.
It is our hope that all our readers remain in good health and spirits, despite all the disruptions in the lives of many in this chaotic time in which we are living!
