Volcan…
Hi Guys! Just made it back from my weekend trip out to Volcan. I had a really good time out there. Not the most relaxing weekend of my life, but it was good. Left Friday morning about 4am to drive out, and got there about 5 and a half hours later. We found the DTS doing ministry at a school in Paso Ancho (same one you guys did the medical outreach at Bec). Friday afternoon Andrew had to help cook dinner, so I hung around there and helped out a bit. Friday night the DTS put on their Drama that they’ve been using on outreach. It was actually the first time I’d seen it, and I was pretty impressed. It’s like a 40 min long evangelistic Drama showing creation, the fall, man’s present state(problems we deal with today) and Christ’s death, ressurection, restoration of man, power over satan and so on. The DTS put a ton of work into this drama. The costumes are quite elabarate, there’s lots of good props, and the music is pretty interesting. One other thing that makes it really cool is that they have this picture slideshow that fits all the different seens and music and it plays while the drama is going on. It’s pretty powerful stuff. If any of you guys just happen to be passing through Panama in the next couple weeks I highly recommend it 
Hmmm…. Saturday was absolutly crazy. I did something I had done before, and said I’d never do again; hiked to the top of the 11,000 foot ”Volcan Baru”, the highest mountain in Panama. I really didn’t want to go, but Andrew was going with a group of people, and I had gone out there to see him so I gave in. We left the house about 5:15am and got back at 7:30 at night. It was totally exhausting. On the way back down it rained for about 2 hours, so that made it even more interesting. The trails got really muddy and slick in some places, and not everyone had rain gear so some people were totally soaked. Andrew, being the gentleman that he is, gave up his rain coat to one of the girls, got soaked to the bone and freezing cold, and ended up being sick the next day. Anyway we all made it up and back in one piece, which was a pretty good accomplishment. I actually had a really good time, and it was much more memorable than anything else I could have done that day. Today I took it easy in the morning, and finally about 2 o’clock got on the road and started for home. Driving home today I got my first ticket ever 
that kinda sucked. The thing is that I know there are lots of time I deserve to get speeding tickets, but this wasn’t really one of them. So here’s the sad story. We were just pulling out of the city of David and the road was changing from 4 lane to 2. We were obviously leaving town and I was speeding up for the long haul home. Anyway just as that was happening we came around this corner and there were these orange plastic posts in the middle of the road. I wasn’t sure what it was and a second later started slowing down, just in time to see a police officer start to walk out in the road and point me over to the side. He asked me how fast I was going and I honestly said I didn’t know. I didin’t think I was going that fast. As it turns out the speed limit droped to 25 klm/h for this police check point area. Supposedly there was a sign, but I never saw it. Anyway with the help of the cop we decided I was going about 90klm/h, so that was far enough over to get a ticket. (25 and 90 klm/h is like 15 and 55 mph) oops! Anyway I’m not sure if I’d feel better or worse if I got a ticket when I felt like I really deserved it. Hopefully I don’t get another one to find out. Anyhow all in all the weekend was really good and I’m glad I went. I’m really looking forward to having Andrew and the rest of the DTS back here at the base soon!