Welcome to the jungle...

June of 2006. Troy boards a plane and heads to the jungle. Smiling ear to ear, naturally. A picture says a thousand words and that is great for Troy because he loves to take pictures, but talking... not so much. We will let his images pave the way, and I will do my best to give you words. Behold the Panamerican Highway. Actually, I'm not sure if it is, but it shows the conditions of the road.

Here you can see how daunting a task it was to load the truck up and actually get out to the sight with supplies so that construction could begin. Of course, getting the supplies was no easy task either. Here's how it works in a nut shell. You will usually have to do work to get to the point where you can do work. These guys had to repair the road after every load they hauled in. The rainy season takes no prisoners! Don't let the natives standing around in this picture fool you. They worked hard. Very Hard. Troy rarely meets anyone who can out work him, but in Panama the rules are different. They know how to get it done.

The pictures of the construction are awesome. I had to share this one of Jaime Escobar. It's not Troy, even though this is our blog we are equal opportunity when it comes to showing you the love of God in action. Here it is:

The team was there to build a church. That is much easier than you would think it would be because it isn't nearly as complicated as what we build in the states. The outcome is the same though. People have a place to come together to worship God and learn of Him. What a rewarding project to be part of. Here is a shot of the structure of the building that they were building. I do not have a completed picture, since they did not get the roof on before they left. This shows what the gist of it all was.

The building and repairing the road is not what captured Troy's heart though. The people were all he could talk about. The Choco Indians that he met were wonderful industrious people. He really enjoyed getting to experince their world. The children were bright and happy and so very alive. The Panamanian Pastor was a pleasure to work with and this is going to be an awesome church, but the kids are what it is all about.

That's a start boys and girls. More to come later. This is what happened in June. There is a lot of things to fill in since then. Keep on the lookout for more posts.