Panama Trip Day One – Jumped by a Monkey

I arrived in the country of Panama last night to make arrangements for our mission team that is coming down in March. While yesterday was pretty uneventful with nothing more exciting happening than traveling down here today, our first full day in country, was a pretty busy.

We started out with breakfast at the hotel where Roger, my traveling partner, spotted a monkey running by on the fence. I gotta be honest I really didn’t believe that he saw a monkey. Not that Roger would lie I just suspected that whatever he saw appeared to be a monkey to him but was actually some other kind of animal.

We left our hotel and traveled to the community of La Chorrera to meet with leaders from the local church there that we will be working with in March. The meeting was very productive and we left with a complete list of ministry activities for the week that will only need to be fine tuned a little before we arrive for the main trip.

We also booked hotel rooms in the community and checked out food options. If you are one of our mission team members reading to check in on how the trip is going let me just warn you in advance that the upcoming trip to Panama will be like nothing experienced in the past.

The craziest thing that happened to me today is actually the craziest thing that has ever happened to me in Panama. As we were walking out of the hotel tonight to go to dinner we saw Roger’s monkey on the gate that goes out to the road. When the little guy saw us he climbed to the top of the gate and looked right into my eyes. Roger had just said, “Look out that thing is about to jump on you!” when suddenly he did. So there I was in Panama with a monkey on my back. We still have three days here but it is going to be very difficult to top that moment. The adventure is just beginning!