Bates Family Travels: November 2012

We've been so busy that I have multiple posts to put up.... bear with me as I get each one done I will add them. I am hoping to do them in chronological order but, there's no guarantees! :)
We have had a really crazy Novemeber. We had a Circuit Overseer visit in Spanish the first week of the month. It is definitely a challenge to attend meetings in a foreign language and literally not understand a word of what is being said. (We have to have at least 15 publishers in our group before we are assigned an English Circuit Overseer - presently we have 8) But, we know in time we will learn the language and/or we will grow into a congregation! Naturally, we would like to see both things happen!! =)
Then the following week we had our first Circuit Assembly in English. It was located in David (pronounced Dah-veed) which is about an hour and a half from where we live.
It was so exciting to get to meet and greet other brothers and sisters (most of the attendees were fellow needgreaters and their studies) from various congregations located in Chiriqui Panama. We had an attendance on Sunday of 179.

We were so wonderfully spiritually fed that weekend! The brothers gave such energetic and stimulating talks! It was really cool that the few other needgreaters we have met in the past 2 months, had parts on the assembly! From our group, Ken, Rita and Tyler Ward all had parts. We have a new brother that just moved into our group, Jordan Dolph. He did microphones and stage all weekend. He flew in from Washington earlier that week and was being used at the assembly days later!

There were a few other families there with small children too! One brother made a comment that really made us laugh, he said "your family single-handedly moved in and doubled the kid population!!" It was exciting because we knew these children were going to be raised around our kids and hopefully encourage one another to serve Jehovah forever!

We got to meet other brothers and sisters who had moved here when their children were small and now they were teenagers giving talks at the assembly! Their words were very encouraging to us. They too had sold their homes and left their lives to serve Jehovah more fully and knew the things we were going thru. We also met brothers who had wonderful success in the preaching work for many years, and to this day did not speak Spanish. That was also surprising. They knew tips that they said they would gladly teach us on how to reach the Panamanians and what reasoning points we can use. It was especially exciting to be invited to come visit them so they could take us with them on their studies, and also that they were willing to come down to Puerto Armuelles to join our ministry!!
I was so overwhelmed with appreciation for an English program that I started crying during the song right before lunch. I never realized what a privilege it is to learn in your own native language.
Many things about those two days were AWESOME and we truly needed it!

I admit, attending any assembly with small children is tough. But doing it in a foreign country was even more challenging. Getting all of us checked into a hotel, purchasing groceries and locating the site for the assembly while not speaking Spanish was interesting! It's funny the things that seem challenging that I never even thought of.... Like being in a hurry to get our lunch for Sunday (because we got lost on the way to the assembly, our hotel was 5 minutes away but, it was very confusing and we ended up truly lost!)
I wasn't able to identify what specific foods were at the store because they were all in Spanish!! Usually I can take my time, pull out a dictionary if necessary and figure it out. We ended up with imported Oscar Meyer lunch meat and slices of cheese! It worked beautifully, although it was quite expensive. For those of you wondering.....yes, we made it on time! =) I don't even want to begin to tell you how silly we must look attempting to order breakfast for a big family at McDonalds and not speak the language! Trust me, we will not be doing any drive-thrus for a long, long time!

Everyone knows taking a family pic on Sunday at the end of
the Assembly is never a good idea. But we tried :)

I apologize I didn't take more pictures. There were so many things taking my attention I didn't document the weekend very well. :( I'll work on that! Some of the other sisters got a group shot of all the kids. Once I get those pics I'll put em up.
Oh and if you're wondering why so few pics of Jace on this post?! He is Mr. Social and we could barely keep track of him! Each time we lost him, he was found having a personal conversation with our spectacular District Overseer! :-)