Jamaica 2010

Saturday morning was great!  We woke up, had breakfast at the hotel (omelet, toast, and sausage).

After that, we headed to the beach – only to be met by bad news – the elevator to street level was down and we had to hike 14 flights of stairs to the beach. Not so bad going down, but coming back up was a pain.

The beach in MoBay was much different than Negril. The sand was grainier and the water was much cooler than any we had been in all week. We swam for about 2 hours while little fish nibbled at our toes.

One really cool God sighting – while shopping, one of the shop keepers asked if we were part of a Missions Team. He offered us his phone to call home if we wanted. He said it was something he liked to do to help those who were helping in Jamaica.

A few of the team called home for the first time all week. It was a very touching gesture. Before we left we prayed for Raj (who is Hindu) that God would bless him for his generosity and kindness. Please pray for Raj that he would come to know the one true God through his interaction with the many Missions Teams that come his way. Also, if you’re in MoBay sometime, stop in at Doctor’s Cave Beach and shop at his store – Heaven 67 on the Hip Strip.

The trip through the airport was uneventful until Lori went through security. The confiscated her little 1 oz. hand sanitizer that had been with us to China and back because it was not in a baggie. It is good to know that a little plastic bag would save our lives if it had been explosive. Oh well, such is Jamaica.

At the ATL airport, Julie met her husband, Shane, is is going through job training. She hasn’t seen him in two weeks, so she canceled her flight with us to spend a couple days with him.

Our flight to Pitt is delayed, so we’re just sitting around the airport waiting. Looks like we’re not going to get back to the church until atleast 2:00 am. Yeah!!

See you tomorrow at church. We’ll be giving our China presentation in All STARS, so be sure to be there!

By the way, our next posting to this blog will be of all the God Sightings we had on this trip. You won’t want to miss it!!

Well, treated the gang to their final meal at Margaritaville. It’s been a tradition since we started coming to Jamaica.

We know the service is slow, but tonight was the last straw. It took 2 hours for the food to start coming out & then they forgot three meals.

Lori and I got our food about 2 1/2 hours after we sat down.  Most of the food was cold, too.

After complaining to the manager, we ended up getting about $100 off the meal.  Atleast that’s something.

As of Friday morning, Steve, Regan, Ben, and several others are fighting various chest, head, and stomach ailments. Many more have a scratchy throat or sunburn, but we’re still in pretty good spirits!

Several of us began the day with an early morning snorkel with Famous Vincent. He is the greatest guide in Negril. He actually gets in the water and guides you through the reef. It is an experience that everyone should have atleast once in a lifetime!

We were able to handle sea cucumber, sea urchins, and even puffer fish!!  We saw a giant manta ray & several stingrays as well as many different kinds of fish and sea life. As Pastor Matt said last year, “It’s a very religious experience!”

We returned to the beach where we swam and played for about 45 minutes before we had to leave to go pack for our trip to MoBay.

As you may remember, we started off the week with lost reservations at the Sea Star Inn. They graciously found us accommodations at the Sunset on the Cliffs hotel which was WONDERFUL, but the Sunset had no rooms on Friday night due to the Jamaican Independence Day Weekend.  This is the one weekend a year that everyone travels to Negril for parties and fun. There are NO (and I mean NO) rooms to be had in all of Negril.

Thankfully our travel agent was able to find us accommodations in Montego Bay at the El Greco Resort.

The ride there took about 2 hours and we arrived at about 3 in the afternoon. At the check-in desk they said they “just received our reservation” and the rooms weren’t ready yet.

We went to the hotel restaurant and got a complimentary fruit punch while we waited. The view was spectacular. The hotel is up on the hill overlooking MoBay. We watched as planes would come in and land at the airport. It was incredible to see them come in over the water so low.

We only waited about 15 minutes and then were taken to our rooms — on the third floor — with no elevators — carrying 2 suitcases and our carry-ons. It was worth it!!  The suites were incredible. God blessed us so much.  Each room has two upstairs bedrooms, three full baths, a complete kitchen and a living room.  WOW!  Thanks to our travel agent, we got a great deal at a reasonable price!

We spent a couple hours at the pool and are heading out to shop on the Hip Strip and go to Margaritaville for dinner.

We leave tomorrow (Saturday) at 3:04 pm so we’re hoping to hit the beach which is right across the street for a couple hours before we depart.

I don’t know what’s going on with this trip, but we’re all getting sick.

Thursday morning, Ben woke up with a raging migraine so he stayed behind for the morning session. Day four was our gospel presentation. The compass point was “God’s Word is life changing” and it really was. We saw over two dozen kids come forward for first time decisions!  Many more came forward for assurance of salvation. God really moved. We gave Pastor Wright’s wife many names for follow up.

Thursday afternoon, three of the girls from Sav came back to the hotel to swim with us. After a lunch of hamburgers and fries, several of us went down to Rick’s and watched Pastor Greg jump off the 35 foot cliff. Several of us swam in the ocean and we all hung out at the pool.

We had to be quick because we were off again at 4 for our final VBS in Llandillo. Steve was sick so he stayed behind at the hotel. We had our largest attendance yet (about 65 kids). While no one made any public decisions, we know that we planted the seed and hope that it will take root and grow.

The girls went back to Sav for their final day of Teen meetings and it was a huge success. They had 10 attend and one salvation decision! The teen meetings have gone over REALLY well with the girls sharing their thoughts and feelings on various topics.

The evening was spent playing in the pool and repacking suitcases for our transfer to MoBay on Friday.

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.