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The 13 missioners from Florida plan on traveling by church van to Miami on Friday, June7, 2002.  A 4:00 AM start will be needed to get to the MIA airport in time to catch the 10:50 AM American Airlines flight.         After arrival at the Panama City International Airport 2 ½ hours later, a local church bus is to transfer the group to the Panama City National Airport (across town), where an AeroPerlas flight is to carry the group to David, about a one-hour flight.  David is a large city in western Panama, near the mountain range that runs across Central America.

         The “Metodista” Church bus is to meet the group in David, and make the one-hour drive to the host church in Volcan.  This small town is at 4,500 feet (the nights will be quite cool), and looks up at Volcan Baru, the highest peak in Panama at about 11,400 feet.  A Friday evening arrival is planned in Volcan, and the 13 missioners will stay “bunk-style” in the local Methodist church, where electricity is promised (“at least part of the time”), and warm water is created in the shower by an electric attachment to the water nozzle.

     Saturday, June 8, will be the official “tourist day,” with visits via the church bus to an ancient Indian site and to an old Swiss settlement up on that Volcan Baru Mountain.

     Sunday will see the group rest, attend the local church, and then travel to Bongo to set up the clinic.  Bongo is a poor, rural community where United Methodist Volunteers In Mission built the small clinic several years ago.

     Monday through Friday should see the missioners travel each morning to the Bongo Clinic (in the muggy heat of the rainy-season, Central American summer), work to serve as many patients as possible each day, and then travel back to the church in Volcan each evening......up to the higher (and cooler!) elevation on the side of Volcan Baru.  It is purported to be a 30 minute drive in the church van.

     Saturday, June 15, will start very early for this group, with a 5:00 AM trip back to the airport in David, and then a flight back to the Panama City National Airport, the bus transfer to the Panama City International Airport, and finally the American Airlines flight back to Miami.

     Please note:  these are the scheduled plans.  They are tentative guidelines.  Any actual correlation between these plans and what really happens will be somewhat coincidental......or maybe even accidental.  Only the Number One Missioner up above knows what will really happen.  The 13 missioners from Florida are just there to try to fulfill whatever roles become evident, and to try to help the people of Bongo in whatever ways they can.