A
letter from Mona Dresbach
August 8, 2001
Michael and I, Elizabeth and Bert Leigh, and Seth and Lori gave a small farewell diner party to the Rev. Becky Michelfelder on June 2 at a very nice restaurant. She moved back to the States be the Rector of a Church in Ohio. We've been though CDSP together, so it'll be strange not to have her around. She'll be missed and the congregation in Ohio is blessed to have her.
On Friday, July 6, we participated at a dinner honoring Sue Williams (the Missionary who works at the Girl's Home) and Norma Blackman (a long-time member of St. Christopher's) as a fund raiser for the Girl's Home. Michael said the opening prayer and I sang a duet with Elizabeth Leigh to Heiteres Duett Der Zwei Katzen by Gioacchino Rossini.
Anne began teaching on Wednesdays and Fridays with her friend Dorm at the public school in Paraiso down the street from us. They teach Religion and help counsel problem students. The school had asked Dorm's church for religious counselors; he volunteered and then recruited Anne. She really enjoys the students and the work. There is no separation of church and state here, so there's no problem about teaching religion in public schools.
Anne also volunteered to work at the World Youth Festival, which involved over 5000 young adults from around the world held at Fort Howard between July 21 through the 28. Anne thought it was the most disorganized function in which she's ever been involved, but found out that it appeared organized to the participants.
Michael's sister Melanie Castillo and her four children came for a three week visit. Her son, Richie, is 10, and Ryan, David, and Colleen are seven-year-old triplets. We took them to Elizabeth Leigh's house to learn Wounaan basket weaving. The Wounaan Tribe is one of the many indigenous tribes here. Elizabeth arranged for us to take a canoe across the Chagres River to their small village. There, the women demonstrated several of their native dances before teaching us basket weaving. The kids thought this was great fun and each kept the basket they worked on as a souvenir. It was interesting to see how the Indigenous people live with a mixture of traditional and modern ways; they live in the traditional huts, but use modern pots, clothes hangers, etc. Thier children attend the school down the street from us, where Anne is working.
We also took the kids to El Camping Resort to swim in the water park, which they loved so much they went twice. We went to the Miraflores Locks where we saw two large ships pass through. Last year, we had bad timing and never saw ships at the locks when Richie [Dresbach's brother-in-law] and Melanie [Michael's sister] visited.
Melanie also played a wonderful organ recital on July 18 after Evensong in celebration of our Patronal Festival. It had shades of St. Mark's in Berkeley's Evensong-organ recitals with wine and cheese afterwards.Our friend the Rev. Kate Flexer arrived during the last week of Melanie's visit. Since Anne was at Ft. Howard, she stayed in Anne's room. After the family went back home, we took Kate on the usual visitor's tour, which is always great fun.
Even with all our visitors, I still worked on the Ms. Episcopalian fund raiser for the campground in Santa Clara. Michael continued his services, visitations and other responsibilities at the church.
I'll be in the States from Aug. 14 through Sept. 4. The purpose of the trip is to attend my class reunion in Fresno on Aug. 25. I'll be at St. Francis in San Jose on Aug. 19, and St. Mark's in Berkeley on Sept. 2. I'm looking forward to visiting as many family members and friends as possible.
In Christ,
Mona and Michael Dresbach
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