February 16, 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

The last couple of weeks have been very hectic and Carnival has started.  It’s never dull here.

Michael worked very hard preparing the services to be held during convention week held from February 6 to the 11.  He not only organized them, he wrote a booklet with Morning Prayer, At Noon, In the Evening, and all the readings and music for the week, as well as the bulletin for the big final service at St.  Luke's.  All of them were bilingual and that creates more work.

He participated in the Youth Convention held at Iglesia Episcopal San Francisco de Asís.  There he played guitar with the youth band.

He then organized and lead the service of Healing and Revival held at San Pablo last Wednesday evening.  It started out as an ECW service, but seems to have been changing to the youth service.  Most, if not all the youth who came for their convention participated in it.

Then he worked with the Very Rev. Maizee Lennan at St. Luke’s during the ECW service Thursday morning.  Afterward, both of us went to the first part of the ECW convention as visitors.  I took lots of photos.

Friday, Michael hosted the workshops for the convention delegates at St. Christopher’s.

Saturday, Michael spent the day at Colegio Episcopal for the business meeting.

Sunday, he was the MC at the closing service at St. Luke’s.  It was three and a half hours long, but never boring. The Bishop gave awards to very special people in the diocese, including our very own Mrs. Moore. She’s eighty-something and has been the back bone of St. Christopher’s for years.  Recently, she broke her hip and has been told to rest. We were also happy that the assisting priest at San Cristóbal, Reverendo Luis Cáceres, was made a Canon! After the service, as we were about to leave the compound for Napoli’s for lunch, the Bishop invited us to his home for a party.  It was really nice.

This week, we had Vacation Bible School for the neighborhood children.  Michael usually plays guitar for them during the opening prayer service.  But, when we got the the church last Monday, we learned someone had stolen the copper wiring that brings electricity into the church.  The Senor Warden dealt with the bureaucracy to have them replaced so we can have electricity.  We finally got it back Friday.  Michael typed all the bulletins at home because the secretary doesn’t have a home computer.

The cooking class for Monday was cancelled because of the lack of electricity.   Michael was to teach them how to make Indian Curry Chicken.  He was scheduled to teach Japanese cooking on Wednesday, but taught the group how to make curry instead.  The wire for the part of the church with the kitchen wasn’t removed, so they didn’t cancel that class. The kids who taught Vacation Bible Study were still there and were able to talk the teachers into some food when it was being served.  One of the boys said he wanted to hire Michael to cook at his house.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working with the girls at the Hogar.  There are two new girls, sisters, who have never been to school.  They are Sinilda, 10, and Mari Isabel, 8.  It’s really a challenge to work with children who can’t read or write.  The first day I worked with them, they couldn’t even make a circle for the letter “O”.  This week, mostly because Tía Sue has been working with them daily, they were doing much better.  I have to use the ¨follow the dot¨method to get them to write letters correctly.  The best thing was after doing that, Sinilda was able to copy her name fairly well. This is a big step.  Last week she couldn’t do that at all.

Michael has posted many of the pictures we took during convention week.  Please check out his blog to see all the photos.  He posts a lot every day so there’s always something new to see.  He also writes about the Saints on their day. This is a good way to keep up with St. Days.  This week we have Cyril and Methodius and Feast of Absolom Jones.   There’s pictures of the cooking class and VBS, too.  If you go through a couple of pages you will see how lovely St. Christopher’s looks now that the new ceiling and paint job is complete.  You can also see pictures of our very beautiful granddaughter, Evelyn. Please visit and feel free to post comments.

http://padremickey.blogspot.com

Your missionaries in Panama,
Mona and Michael Dresbach
mgdbach@hotmail.com  - Michael
mldbach1@yahoo.com  - Mona

Please pass this letter on to everyone. If you would like to make donations or a monthly pledge to our mission, please contact St. Francis Episcopal Church, 1205 Pine Ave., San Jose, CA 95125, 408-292-7090. Please feel free to check St. Francis' web site at www.stfrancisepiscopalchurch.org , which includes an archive of our letters and pictures of our mission.