Jennifer and Alex Cabezon

After saying goodbye to a great team from Oral Roberts University, we have seen the doors opening more than ever for ministry. We celebrated with the girl's soccer team from Shaday church, who won the local championship. We sponsored a dinner for them and had a great time sharing with them about making good decisions. There is so much potential in these Wounaan young ladies! The women's bible study is growing and the ladies are full of vision. They are already planning on a Christmas outreach for children, and thinking about how include more women. This coming Saturday we are going to make rice "bollos" to sell, and use the money so that all the women from the church can attend an upcoming workshop that will be held at another church. We have been blessed by how the Wounaan have opened their lives and hearts to us. Alex has had numerous opportunties to council people and to act as a mediator with conflicts within the church, thankfully ending in reconciliation...

I sat in a tiny house in the community of Yaviza.   The small, one room house was home to seven children and two adults.   One child, the oldest, was confined to bed because of severe arthritis.   The youngest, about two months old, lay sleeping in a hammock. The girls and I had just as many after four days in the area, so my heart went out to the poor thing.   Those bites really itch.   So I sat down and began rubbing her legs.   I thought she might be frightened of me, but the relief from the bites must have been greater than any fear.   She quieted down at once as I rubbed her legs and spoke to her in a soothing voice.   Suddenly, in that moment, all that was wrong in the community of Yaviza seemed to have focused in that child.   All of the poverty, the forgotten children, the lost youth, the lack of sanitation, and the hunger, was there before me in the face of that child. Just one child, crying, with no one to respond....