Jamaica 2010

Well, let’s see – where do we begin with Wednesday.  Yesterday at the end of Morning VBS, Mrs. Wright accidentally kicked Pastor Greg in the foot as she was walking by bending back the nail on his little toe. It bled and turned black & blue, but seemed to be OK.  Overnight it throbbed and was really hurting him this morning.

Regan woke up sick in the middle of the night with a fever, cough, and headache, so she stayed behind for the morning session.

Seven of our group (Melissa, Lisa, Becky, Chrissy, Lori M, Angela, and Julie) went with us to Sav, but then got on another bus for their journey to Kingston.

That left ten of us to do VBS in Sav. We had our biggest crowd yet (165 kids + our team) and it was a great day. Perhaps it was because today’s Compass Point was “God’s Word is Surprising,” but everything seemed to flow surprisingly well.

We looked forward to an afternoon of rest & relaxation, but there was a wedding scheduled at 2:00 in the afternoon at the hotel and they were using the ocean terrace for the ceremony and the pool bar for the reception.

Most of us went to our rooms to relax. Some took taxis down to Catcha Falling Star or Rick’s to swim.

Ben showed up for the evening service feeling under the weather, but really wanted to go and participate, so we loaded up the bus and traveled to Sav. It was actually a relaxing night for us as we were not ministering, just simply participating in their  mid-week Bible Study.

When we got to the church, Pastor hadn’t  arrived yet, so we played Ninja with some of the kids, talked with others, and just hugged on the little ones.

Pastor Wright brought a message from Psalm 1 on the Happy Man. We looked at his Reaction (staying away from the ungodly), his Occupation (with God’s Word), and his Condition (being fruitful and useful). After the message we broke off for prayer groups and we prayed with about 6-7 boys under the age of 12. Several of them prayed and it was touching.

Following the service, Pontus was outside the church. When I walked out, he said, “Hello, Pastor Greg.”  Those are the first words he has spoken to me (other than asking for stuff) in eight years. He asked when we were going back to the US and said that he would like to live in Texas one day and work in a restaurant. Randy and I spoke to him for about 10-15 minutes while Matt was jumping around and playing with the kids inside the church. I looked at Matt & said, “Man, I wish I had that much energy.I’m getting too old to do that.” Pontus replied, “You know you never get to old to serve God.”  WOW!

I got called away from the conversation, but he prayed with a couple of our team later on — not for salvation, but just prayer in general for him.

The Kingston Team had a LOOOOOONG day.  They left the hotel with us at 7:45 am to travel to  Sav.  The immediately left Sav when we arrived at 8:45 am.  It took them about four hours of driving in a non-air conditioned vehicle to reach Kingston at about 1:00 pm.  They arrived at the orphanage & were warmly greeted by the directors. It turns out that the director’s husband was present at a missions meeting in Lancaster 18 years ago when Pastor John presented his vision of starting New Life! he remembered Pastor John and thanked them for coming.

Apparently several churches have canceled their trips to the orphanage due to the recent gang activity in Kingston. She appreciated their “bravery” for coming.  The kids were well behaved & very receptive of the team. They were able to minister to all ages (birth - 12 years old). The one limit that was put on them was that they couldn’t take face shots of the kids. Apparently it is against the law…

That’s OK, we got plenty of them holding kids and ministering to kids with profile shots!

Pastor Watson & the Jamaican director of IGM were there as well and were very impressed with the girls and their program that they put on for the older kids.

On the way back, the van almost stalled,the battery almost died, and there was a giant rainstorm, but they made it safe and sound.

By the way, when it started to rain, the driver said they should close the window — that he would turn on the A/C!!  Such is Jamaica…

The ladies arrived back at Sav just as we were leaving the evening service. We traveled to the Sea Star for dinner & then went to the Sunset to pack snack bags for tomorrow.

Please be deep in prayer as tomorrow is the salvation invitation.  We’re prayed up and ready to go. We’re expecting great things from God!!!

Tuesday was a gorgeous day here in Jamaica. Hot, sunny (not a cloud in the sky) and low humidity.

Morning VBS in Sav went well. We had 160 kids and they were well behaved.

It’s amazing to see how far the kids have come in 8 years!  The first time we came to Sav was to build the building. VBS was done impromptu on the street in front of the church. The next year we went back & did VBS in the unfinished church building. We had kids fighting and a near riot at the end of the week.

Each year the kids are a little more behaved & a little more respectful. Several team members have built relationships with kids and it has helped to settle things down somewhat. 

Even the town “tough guy,” Pontus ( who is only 17), has been unusually compliant this year.

Of course he still tries to intimidate us by sticking his hand in the window trying to grab snacks or making comments to us, but we think we’ve earned his respect over the years so that he doesn’t push us as he has in past years.

Llandillo was a challenge tonight. The kids were really rowdy & were hard to keep still for the lesson. There is another church from California doing the same VBS as us in the morning so several of the kids have already heard the major points, but nobody does VBS like we do. Several of them have mentioned that they like coming to the evening session.

The other thing about Llandillo that is giving us fits is the tech stuff.  The church’s amplifier simply quits if it gets too hot, and last night was hot, so we had no sound. We had to go “old school” and sing several ‘oldies, but goodies’ like “Deep & Wide”, “If You’re happy & you know it”, “The B-I-B-L-E”, etc.

About an hour into VBS, the sound system suddenly started working again & we sang two songs. In the middle of the third song, it quit again. Oh well, such is mission work!

We’re excited about tomorrow (Wednesday) as several of our team will be going to Kingston to minister in an orphanage there.

We showed up at Hope Baptist Church to do VBS and there was no electricity in the entire neighborhood. We started singing accapella & things were going well, but then the electricity came back on at 9:30 & we were good to go!

We had about 150 kids in attendance and they were pretty well behaved. The PB&J sandwiches went over well and the kids loved the frisbees we had them make.

Our lesson was on “God’s Word is True (AHOY!)” and it was neat to see God answer our prayers and supply what we needed.

We relaxed in the afternoon and then returned to Llandillo in the afternoon to do VBS. It rained the whole way there, but when we got to the site, the sun was shining & we were able to do VBS. We had about 50-60 kids. They were great. We had an awesome time.

One of the new things we’re doing this week is holding meetings for the teen girls at the church in Sav. Tonight’s topic was recognizing your worth in God’s eyes even when people don’t see it. Even though the turn out was low (only 4 girls came), the depth of sharing was phenomenal. This week, we’ll be addressing self-esteem, abstinence, and choices.

This blog will be updated when able. We do not have internet at our hotel and so we have to do it whenever we’re at the Sea Star for a meal.  Stay tuned to hear what God is doing.

Today we did church at Hope Baptist Church in Sav. Attendance was down. Only about 30 in attendance.

The Sunday School message was on “How to TEST your decisions” and the church message was on “How to have Hope at the end of your Rope”

Everything went well with the services. We then returned to the hotel to investigate our accommodations. All we can say is, “WOW! God is good.”

We’re right  on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. There’s a place where we can swim in the ocean or they have a large pool too.

The rooms are nice and the accommodations are better than the Sea Star (where we were supposed to stay). It’s also quieter and more peaceful.

God really knows how to supply when we trust Him.

We spent Sunday night making 250 PB&J sandwiches for the snack on Monday.

Well, so far our Jamaica Missions Trip has turned out to be quite the adventure.

Everything was going smoothly until our arrival in Negril. We were greeted by the entire hotel staff who were excited to see us, but then informed us that we didn’t have a reservation. We’re not quite sure where the mistake happened, but the end result was that they were full and we had no place to stay.

The hotel was very helpful and secured us accommodations not too far away at the Sunset on the Cliffs hotel. Since we were a last minute check-in, things were quite hectic as rooms were assigned and re-assigned, and then re-assigned again. The final person in our group got their room at about 9:00 PM.

So far everyone has been wonderful in accepting the change and have been extremely flexible and understanding.

To confuse things even more, the food at our original hotel is cheaper than at the Sunset so we’re eating there every day to save money.

Oh yeah, one more thing…

Friday begins holiday weekend here in Jamaica. Thousands and thousands of people travel to the beach to celebrate, so we don’t have anywhere to stay on Friday night. We’re looking at options, but every single hotel seems to be full.

Hopefully God will provide and we’ll have a place to stay or we may cut our trip short and come home on Friday. It’s all in God’s hands at this point.

There is no wireless access at this hotel, so we’ll update our blog when we’re at the Sea Star each day.

We know that God will do great things in us and through us this week.

As they say in Jamaica, “No Problem, Mon. Everyting Irie!”

We are excited to keep you informed on what is happening with the team while we are in Jamaica!

We will try to blog every day as long as internet connections and time allow. Our goal is to have different people write on different days so you get to see the trip from many perspectives.

Check back often and please pray for us.