METETI, PANAMA - In 90-degree temperatures, visitors from the United States sweat and scratch bug bites as they unload egg crates spilling over with colorfully wrapped presents.

Despite the festive trimmings, the Christmas spirit seems elusive here. That is, until the children arrive.

Quicker than one can shout "Feliz Navidad!" scores of children surround the visitors, beaming with the same smiles of anticipation as their northern counterparts.

"Many children here have never received a gift," said Jose Calderon, a minister who assists mission teams. He and other Panamanian Christians choose the sites and handle most of the logistics for the gift distribution.   

Church members from about 70 congregations, from Nebraska to Maryland, filled 4,600 plastic shoeboxes with toys and personal items for Operation Christmas Joy, an annual event sponsored by Alabama-based Panama Missions.


Director Larry Brady and a small group of volunteers traveled to Panama and helped distribute the boxes in schools, churches and rural villages inhabited by Panama’s indigenous people, including the Kuna and Embera Indians.

In the Kuna village of Ipeti, children started asking when the "gringos" were coming at 7 a.m., said Alvareno Ponce, one of two ministers for a small Church of Christ on the outskirts of the village. Later, the youths march into the church building and sing hymns in their native Kuna language and Spanish. Then they line up as Ponce distributes stacks of presents.

In Meteti, 5-year-old Yarilis de Gracias quips "Barbie!" when asked to name her favorite gift in her shoebox. But the fashion doll is quickly set aside when the child discovers her new Dora the Explorer jump rope, which she promptly tries out.

GIFTS FOR A 'FORGOTTEN PROVINCE'

"We may not be preaching, but this is an evangelistic trip," Brady tells the church members at a morning devotional in Sanson, a small town near Meteti in Panama’s Darien province.  

This is Brady’s eighth visit of the year to Panama, and he hasn’t done much preaching on any of them. Instead, he’s helped push supplies across customs for medical mission teams and helped install a generator that will power a small medical facility next to the Church of Christ in Sanson.

Brady, an elder at the Davenport, Ala., Church of Christ, first visited this crooked arm of land, which connects the continents of North and South America, while working for the U.S. Air Force. As crew chief for a C-130 transport aircraft, he traveled to about 40 countries, but in Panama he found "some of the sweetest people I’ve ever met."

Using vacation days, he returned to Panama twice each year until he retired in 2003. Now 61, he has seen Panama Missions grow in scope from evangelism to include medical missions, construction teams, relief distribution and a scholarship program for Panamanian youths. Churches in states including Alabama, Mississippi and Colorado contribute funds and workers to Panama Missions, which is overseen by the Childersburg, Ala., church.

Much of the ministry's work is concentrated in Darien, an eastern province of Panama that borders Colombia. U.S. visitors, and even some Panamanians, avoid the region because of its reputation for drug smuggling and kidnapping by Colombian rebels. Mission teams get police escorts into Darien’s most dangerous regions. They also work among communities near Torti, a town just west of Darien.

Andreas Dominguez, an entrepreneur in Torti, said he’s glad when mission teams come to town — not just because they eat regularly at his restaurant.

"I like to see what you do," Dominguez said.

The people of Darien suffer from poverty and a lack of social services, and the church members' work makes a difference in what Dominguez calls Panama’s "forgotten province."

Mike Ray, a member of the Childersburg church, makes regular trips with Panama Missions and says he finds the time spent here a blessing.

"I get more out of this than anything I've done," he said. "The people are so receptive ... so open to the Gospel. I don’t remember a single time I’ve been turned down for a Bible study."

Such experiences lead other Christians to visit — and revisit — the country, Brady added.

"It’s not because you enjoy hot weather or cold showers," he said. "It’s the people that bring you back."

MAKING HOSPITAL ROUNDS

After enduring high humidity and pesky insects in rural Panama, Brady battles Panama City's bumper-to-bumper morning traffic to reach the Hospital del Nino (Children's Hospital). Donning a red suit with white trim, he and his helpers — who don’t much resemble North Pole elves — walk the hallways with big smiles.

"Santa! Santa!" a little girl yells as she bounces on her hospital bed. Other children aren't so sure about the tall, white-bearded gringo. But most warm up to him — especially after he hands them shoeboxes brimming over with goodies.

"Those boxes are just great," says J. Thomas Ford as he watches a child spread out his new treasures on his blanket — crayons, coloring books, toy cars and flip-flops.

Ford, a native Panamanian, serves on the hospital's board of directors. A devout Episcopalian, he oversees The Gift of Life Foundation, which helps underprivileged children receive medical services.

Ford helps Brady coordinate gift-giving visits to medical facilities in Panama City, including a rehabilitation center, cancer center and pediatric hospitals.

When Brady meets children in need of medical care, Ford helps them find treatment in Panama City. Likewise, Ford contacts Brady when he encounters a patient in need of services that Panama Missions teams provide, including cataract surgery.

"He knows Panama better than I know Panama," Ford said of Brady. "I have seen what he's done in the lives of the Panamanian children. I’ve seen him on the bedside of a mother whose (child) was dying. And he was praying with them."

One of Ford's cousins was visiting the Hospital del Nino and accompanied the group as it made the rounds. He watched as church members hugged the children, laughed with them and shed tears with their parents.

The next morning, while strolling through a park, he asked Ford, "What inspires those people to do all this?"

In response, Ford simply lifted his gaze skyward. His cousin got the message, he said.

For more information on Panama Missions, see www.panamamissions.com.