Dear Family and Friends,

This year the Panama Project happened to be the same time as General Convention. We started out with four people, but two decided to go to General Convention instead and another had a family emergency. John Owens, a student at CDSP from the Diocese of Nebraska, was the sole seminarian. The Rev. Nancy Eswein, Professor of Field Education at CDSP, is the new Panama Project co-ordinator and came to see how Michael and Walter Smith work the project. They both went through the orientation week and John did his field work in Colón. We had him over for dinner before he left for Colón and he spent the night at our place after his Colón ministry, and seemed to have had a terrific experience.

During the time Bishop Murray was away for General Convention, retired Bishop Hayes passed away. A week before, Michael and I were at a dinner for a Retirement Group that Bishop Hayes helped begin. It’s for West Indians who worked in the Canal Zone. The Bishop was unable to attend and Michael received a certificate on his behalf. Since Michael was involved with the Panama Project that week, he decided to bring it to Bishop Hayes the next week. Michael often passes Bishop Hayes’ home on his morning walk, and while passing it that morning he reminded himself to call the bishop and make arrangements to come by that morning. Once he returned home he received a telephone call from a member of the parish asking if it was true that the bishop had passed away. Michael was surprised since everything looked normal when he passed the house. Bishop Murray flew home for the funeral service.
A funeral for family, close friends, and clergy was held at St. Luke’s Cathedral in Ancon, and another funeral for the general public was held at the Nuñez Balboa room at the Hotel Panamá, the same place at which Bishop Murray was consecrated Bishop. Michael helped to plan both funerals and they went well. Bishop Hayes was an important educator in the Republic of Panama. He founded Instituto Episcopal San Cristóbal, which is one of the best schools in the country. The second funeral was well attended by members of the community and by the students of the school. Bishop Hayes was instrumental in our coming to Panama and we will miss him dearly.

My work with the youth choir at St. Christopher’s continues. The youth bring in songs from CD’s they want to do. They learned “Cuando Pasara”, (a song originally sung by Mundo), for Father’s Day. I’ve recruited John Catón to help out with the music. He plays organ and has a lot of ideas for songs for the kids. He’s also going to be working with them while I’m away in
Berkeley to be with family.

I’ve been working with Rosa Mari at the Girl’s Home lately. She’s nine-years-old and in second grade. She has a learning disability and is in special education. I work with her on her numbers (1-60), simple addition, and reading. She adds by using her fingers. It’s not easy to get her to work for more than a few minutes at a time, but lately she’s taken to me and is doing very well. I bring a pack of cards and she loves to play Go Fish. It’s really a fun way to help her read numbers better and practice counting. She sometimes doesn't read 6 or 9 correctly and forgets what 10 looks like. She enjoys counting our pairs throughout the game to see who is ahead. This week, after practicing addition and reading for a test, we played cards. She was very giggly and cheated quite a bit. She even helped me cheat. It was really fun.

Some property next to St. Christopher’s is currently for sale. The church is looking into buying it. The church has another piece of property on the other side of the church across the street from the school on which they plan to build a community center. This has been a dream of Michael’s for several years. By doing this, we would be helping to upgrade the neighborhood. The community center would have three floors, one as a parking garage, another for classrooms, and the top floor as an auditorium.

One of the classes that was recently taught at St. Christopher’s was a class on tea desserts. The chef that taught the women had them dress the part of chefs with white chef hats and white chef aprons. The food was wonderful. The classes were taught on Saturdays during the time I worked with the youth choir and I always went to the kitchen to see the delightful treats they baked. They were indeed wonderful. One of Michael’s ideas is to have the ladies in these classes work in the kitchen of the Community Center when banquets are being held. Panamanians love holding banquets as fundraisers. They usually honor two to three people and everyone in the Diocese is welcomed to participate.

I mentioned above that we plan on going to Berkeley soon. Our daughter Tara is due to have her baby at the end of July. We will be visiting not only Tara and baby Evelyn, but also St. James’ Episcopal Church in Sonora on July 30. They have been very generous with helping us and we wish to extend our thanks to them. Michael will preaching at St. Francis Episcopal Church in Willow Glen on Aug. 13. St. Francis is our home parish and we cherish them as family and am grateful for all their support over the years. We plan on being at St. Mark’s on 20 speaking at the Adult Forum. We hope to see as many of our friends and family as possible. Please email me if you would like to visit us and can’t make it to any of the church dates.

Please pray for Anne Gordon. She’s from the Diocese of Washington and has been staying in the Darién among the Indians. She came down with an unknown infection about a month ago. The doctors don’t really know the cause or source of the infection. Recovery time is unknown. Her mother and sister put her in an air-ambulance this week to take her back to Washington. Anne worked on the movie” The End of the Spear.” Her mother is looking for help and prayers.

Bless you all and thank you for all the help and prayers you have been giving us. Please feel free to pass this newsletter around to anyone you think would be interested in reading it.

Your missionaries in Panama,
Mona and Michael Dresbach
mgdbach[atstf]hotmail.com -Michael
mldbach1[atstf]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.  The St. Francis Contribution Services allow you to set up regular checking account debits or make online credit card donations, or you can send in a check.  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.