SEPTEMBER 9TH
On this day we visited one of the elementary schools.. I don’t remember the name of it but I remember it really well because we get there, it’s stinking hot. At first we spent some time getting Kirk introduced to the principal who was fascinated by him. Then out of no where, there came this massive cloudburst… it seriously rained like 7 inches in the half hour we were there, it was crazy! Anyway we got a chance to hang out with the kids then… Their roof wasn’t thatched though so they had a ton of leaks. It was dripping water left and right. Man I wish I wrote these blogs the day of so I could remember everything.
I remember that I talked to the principal a lot… he came up and just started talking about what it’s like to work there, his family, the island, everything. He stopped at one point to make a super random comment about my eyes, how much he liked them and how he’d never seen anything like them… which I thought was really odd. See people on the island have really strong accents and sometimes tend to talk really fast… he just said something about it and then went right back to the conversation… it was really bizarre.
That night we had crawfish that the boys caught for dinner, and baked potatoes. Us girls decided we wanted to set up a nice table so we set it up with a sheet and plates and prepared a lot of side dishes and fruit for them… It was really fun… it’s like a giant game of house.
We also passed the time drawing pictures on the board of the daily events, which I have a few pictures of up on my Facebook I believe.
SEPTEMBER 10TH
Another school day…another elementary school. We get to this one and again, it’s their lunch time, we get to just hang with them. After talking to some of the kids and learning their names and ages etc… some asked me to play teeter totter, that was fun and then I pushed a few on the swings. When lunch was over, all the kids were gathered into one room so that we could do a kind of presentation for them. We did a funny version of the story of Jonah… I’ll try and get the little bit of video that I have of it up later but it was pretty funny to watch. I liked the way we did it where most of us got involved in the story telling and asking questions, which I think made it more interesting for the kids. In the end, they kinda wanted to know more about Kirk than anything else… this one little girl just kept asking question after question and she was so cute about it too!
After the school we went to this beach at the end of the island.. It was beautiful, just like all the other beaches. I got to climb a tree there, which I love doing only I had to jump right back out cause there was a bee… still fun. On the way back I changed cars and rode with Bethany in P. Jimmy’s truck. We both kinda dozed off the whole way back… there was one point I woke up cause P. Jimmy had stopped to get this mango for Bethany, they were out of season but he got one! (BEST MANGO I’VE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE!) It took us a lot longer to get back than it took everyone else… by the time we got back everyone was at our house. Anthony and Bethany ended up going off somewhere while we hung out online and I drew on the wall… We had really delicious pasta for dinner… and again, I can’t remember any other details from this day! I know that they watched a movie cause it’s in my notes and I couldn’t but I don’t remember what I did instead…?
Monday, September 14, 2009
Two In One
Ok, so these are two posts in one... from last week sometime, I should have the dates written right before the post itself. Sorry it's taking so long, one of them I wrote the day of and just never posted cause I never wrote the other blog. Anyway here they are!
SEPTEMBER 7TH
This day, I woke up and I was actually very sick... I don't know why... well I do know why but I just had the worst headache and I was super super naseous (I don't know how to spell that)... Well all morning no matter how much water I drank… I still felt like my throat was on fire! I am not exhaggerating when I say that I drank about two gallons of water in 3 hours and went to the bathroom like 12 times!
I really don’t remember much from this day at all… I know that next, we waited for David for like 3 hours longer than we thought we would and then he took us all fishing… well the guys, he left Bethany, Marissa and I on the other side with Dionis and we went shell hunting. I found some cool conch shells. It was really fun to just swim in the reefs too. Later we had a leadership meeting at the church for the youth leaders which I think went well.. David led it which makes everything so much more interesting but it was really good.
We had a late dinner again. I really don’t remember anything else from this day and that’s ALL the notes I had written down! Haha… sorry, I doubt anything too exciting happened anyway, I mean maybe, but it was too long ago.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER EIGHTH
Okay this is only yesterdays blog.. I've been too tired to write the other ones... but i didn't want to fall too much behind and last night was so fresh in my mind that I had to write it all down!
Today (Tuesday, September 8): Today I woke up a little later than I would have liked but it was ok... I was still feeling a little crappy from the day before, but not really, it was more like.. I woke up with this giant weight of selfishness, pretty much I was grumpy. The weird things was that I wasn't really outwardly... I let things go and stuff... but inwardly I was getting really really frustrated and I was just being really selfish... anyway, I think a lot of it came from just feeling like crap the day before. I went to the guys house early cause I was hungry. Luckily the door was open, I had some toast, cleaned up a little bit and then realized that I needed some alone time. So I took the van back to our house and picked up Bethany and Marissa, and they left me at the beach for an hour by myself.
It was good, just dying to myself.. and asking God to refocus my heart. Sometimes we just gotta do that. That's what I learned throughout the day... Not every day is filled with excitement and feeling of purpose and selflessness... everyday should be since we walk in the blood of Christ... but we still fail because we are human. Sometimes, there is just some humbling that needs to happen. Anyway, spent time with God for a while on the rockface, waves crashing, tearing away at the stone. It was really nice, and it was nice to know that I was alone. There was one point where I layed down on the rock and was just listening... this one wave came... I thought the rock was going to split apart... the whole thing shook and all of a sudden I found myself really wet.. when I wasn't that close to the edge at all!
Well in the end I walked back.. I was still feeling kinda sick... Marissa was there to take me back to the house. At the house we waited for everyone to get up and then had our staff meeting... We discussed going to the schools and ideas we needed to have... Then Kirk put me in charge of doing the touch card again. I was really disappointed to because Pastor Jimmy needed someone to go get produce with him and I was volunteered and agreed to it.. I really wanted to go! But later when they were about to leave and someone was asking me if I was going, I said "yes!" and then kirk said "no!". I felt like my heart couldn't even sink to a greater depth. Going to the beach, i prayed and spent time with God but I was still in a place where I needed to let things go... I wanted so bad to just get away and go get fruit pretty much... and then "no." from kirk. I feel bad that I did whine just a little bit about not wanting to go... which is just like us humans isn't it? I say that because I know for a fact that God was answering my prayer yet again just then... and I was complaining. He is a good God and He loves me, He wasn't about to let me sink into my selfish mood, so he provided me with an oppurtunity to break free of it. It took a little bit of work but it worked out in the end. Kirk wasn't making me stay back cause he wanted to ruin my day and I knew that, he needed my help and this was my job. He apologized but I told him I was just having a long morning.. I really was, it was tough. Praise God though that He helps me through and when I give my all to Him, He is my strength and my redeemer! After hours, literally hours, of slaving with Kirks computer, I wanted to die. I was yelling at the program, at Kirk's computer... see he has his keyboard programmed very differently.. it's very hard to operate, especially when you don't know how.. Also I was using a program I didn't know, to edit the poster for Kirk. Hours. Honestly though, it was through that time and giving myself to God and what He asked me to stay and do that helped me overcome in the end... from that point on, the rest of my day was amazing! Heavy spirit of selfishness lifted and the joy of Christ in it's place! Once I was finished, the finished product looked great! It was so satisfying!
Then Marissa, Bethany and I headed to the grocery store to get food for dinner. When we stocked up we cleaned up the guys house a little bit, then went to ours and cleaned it up even more because our living room as a mess from the previous two nights. We set up a table with a sheet for a table cloth and started to make our part of the dinner for the guys (who were out spear fishing for their part of the dinner)... we made the baked potatoes and cut some green oranges and veggies for the potatoes. The guys showed up not much longer after we got the food going with a really good catch... two crawfish (though they caught more, I think P. Jimmy took some), a "grubber"? (which is actually really really good!) and some other small fish. Anthony and Ian cooked up the crawfish and the fish... after a little while of waiting.. we all sat down to eat together! I honestly don't remember eating together "as a family" so many times in a row! Every night for dinner we sit down together, it's really nice.. this time we had a fancy table all set up. Dinner was fun, we joked around about stuff for a long time as we ate. After clean up and some computer/hangout time... we embarked on one of the greatest adventures I have ever had! (Anthony, Ian, Josh, Marissa and Me!)
The five of us head out to go crabbing, and there are a few videos of this on I think Josh's facebook. First thing that happens... Ian squashes a huge crab on the road, he swerved, FOR it! And it was one we could have caught! We all repromanded him for it.... then we started heading down some roads to catch some crabs... finally after a few.. we head down this beach road and right after seriously praying for crabs, I think God wanted to laugh at us by sending one... right in the middle of the road!!!! Anthony and Josh go after it.. that thing was seriously the fastest crab I've ever seen! But they got it and stuck it in the bucket. Off witht he rest of the night we go...
Ok, well Ian is driving. Ian... is kinda a scary driver!!! These roads are not like back home... they are either dirt, sand, really rocky or it looks like someone just splattered pavement here and there and then carved out some pot holes just for fun. We drive an old Kia van whose front seat is all torn up and makes a sad "I'm falling apart" noise. Ian is driving this thing like 50km/h through these roads. NOT A GOOD IDEA! First thing that happens.. we jerk so hard that the crab flies out of the bucket. Josh can't get it to put it back so now its under the seat and everyone is yelling to put their feet up.. theres a ledge so it can't get through but we pull over and open the door and it crawls through the side, and then through the side to where I'm sitting in the front seat. The video to this is also onfacobook. Well now I have to fight with it to keep it from going underneath the dashboard on the engines side... so instead it crawls up the dashboard on the wheel side.. it just burrows into it and won't budge.. I never realized how strong crabs are but they can be like stone if they want to be. I couldn't fight with it so Anthony wanted to give it a try... He fights for a while and then I remembered that I saw plyers in the car when I cleaned it out earlier and I got them for him... Anthony grabbed one of it's claws, but it was so determined not to come out that it let Anthony rip its claw off the poor thing. Josh gave it a go and got his finger pinched instead. So we decided there was nothing we could do and I just kept my feet up as we drove.
There was one point which was just so funny for me... Marissa is sitting in the back between Josh and Anthony... all of a sudden she says "We should play corners guys!" How could anyone not take advantage of that?! She set herself up SO perfectly! I couldn't help but say "You would like that wouldn't you Marissa?" I mean, the words were out of my mouth before I had time to stop them.. it was like I was watching them float away in slow motion and there was nothing I could do... they were spoken! But it was funny!
We saw one of those bat moths and agreed that those things have to be possessed... their eyes glow!!!
Oh! Another favorite moment... We drive up to this beach bluff, and its really pretty... I mean Atlantic Ocean waves continually crashing and the moon is bright... dark thunder clouds all around, lightning flashing across the sky.. While the guys are taking pictures at one open space on the bluff.. I walk around to another space... Well someone yelled my name when we started heading back, I couldn't tell who... so I did and I was quite nearly directly behind them. I was right behind josh,well a little to the side as he turned, and yelled my name again! I couldn't believe it! He didn't know I was right there! Well he gets in on the left side of the car and I'm riding in shotgun.. So the first thing I do is get to my side and drop down. Anthony is in the back on my side and looking at me through the window figures out what I'm doing, he's in, once he's in, their all in. Josh is freaking out now... "she would wander off on her own" he says as he heads out to the bushes when he sees i'm not in the car; calling my name... some of the others call for me too, to add effect.. while he's out there I got in the car.. I shoulda just stayed out of the car the whole time but oh well.. I got back out as he came back asking for a flashlight.. shined it into the bushes, called my name some more and then got into the car to drive forward and check somewhere else... we move forward and I just walk next to the car.. he gets out again and goes to look for me and I get back in the car.. a minute or two later he starts to come back and sees me or heard the door or something.. he just gets back into the car and says "I hate you guys" and we all laugh.. we only caught the very end on video... where ian explained what just happened.. but it happened.. and it was funny! I havn't laughed that hard in a long time.. but then I laughed really hard this whole night! ok moving on...
On our way back, Ian swings around to another road instead of heading all the way back... Almost immediately we come across this HUGE puddle.. (vid of this on facebook), I hear Ian say as he comes to a stop "Thats a puddle. ... That's a biiiig puddle." He puts it into reverse and we're all convinced that he's just going to turn around... after pulling a few yards back, he guns it for the puddle! Oh Ian.. as we're driving down this road, we for some reason come to a stop, and we're video taping this part for some reason as well.. All of a sudden someone yells spider, everyone (including ian who isn't even in the back seat!) jumps out of the car... I just looked back to see what was going on and saw the look on everyones faces and heard Josh and Anthony's girlie screams... When I shined the light on the roof of the car.. I couldn't believe just how TINY the spider was! I understand fear of spiders.. but all four of them! I think I was just surprised because from their screaming, it sounded like it must have been one of those huge ones that we always see in the bushes, so I was fully expecting to turn and see one of those.. it took me completely off guard to see one that looks just like the ones back home.. But I must have laughed till i cried it was so funny! AND IT'S ON VIDEO!
Anyway, then we drove home, oh at one point I crushed Anthony's fingers in the door.. which sucked.. but he was ok thank goodness... that was when something happened to the van, I didn't really understand what it was but we made it back ok, Thank the Lord!Getting back, we upload photos to our laptops and watch the videos.. As we do this, Anthony is fast asleep on the couch! So Ian and Josh start sticking pencils and crawfish shells from dinner all over him... we videotaped the whole thing, go watch it it's funny! That was the night.. that all ended at like 12:40... now its like 2:30am...
SEPTEMBER 7TH
This day, I woke up and I was actually very sick... I don't know why... well I do know why but I just had the worst headache and I was super super naseous (I don't know how to spell that)... Well all morning no matter how much water I drank… I still felt like my throat was on fire! I am not exhaggerating when I say that I drank about two gallons of water in 3 hours and went to the bathroom like 12 times!
I really don’t remember much from this day at all… I know that next, we waited for David for like 3 hours longer than we thought we would and then he took us all fishing… well the guys, he left Bethany, Marissa and I on the other side with Dionis and we went shell hunting. I found some cool conch shells. It was really fun to just swim in the reefs too. Later we had a leadership meeting at the church for the youth leaders which I think went well.. David led it which makes everything so much more interesting but it was really good.
We had a late dinner again. I really don’t remember anything else from this day and that’s ALL the notes I had written down! Haha… sorry, I doubt anything too exciting happened anyway, I mean maybe, but it was too long ago.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER EIGHTH
Okay this is only yesterdays blog.. I've been too tired to write the other ones... but i didn't want to fall too much behind and last night was so fresh in my mind that I had to write it all down!
Today (Tuesday, September 8): Today I woke up a little later than I would have liked but it was ok... I was still feeling a little crappy from the day before, but not really, it was more like.. I woke up with this giant weight of selfishness, pretty much I was grumpy. The weird things was that I wasn't really outwardly... I let things go and stuff... but inwardly I was getting really really frustrated and I was just being really selfish... anyway, I think a lot of it came from just feeling like crap the day before. I went to the guys house early cause I was hungry. Luckily the door was open, I had some toast, cleaned up a little bit and then realized that I needed some alone time. So I took the van back to our house and picked up Bethany and Marissa, and they left me at the beach for an hour by myself.
It was good, just dying to myself.. and asking God to refocus my heart. Sometimes we just gotta do that. That's what I learned throughout the day... Not every day is filled with excitement and feeling of purpose and selflessness... everyday should be since we walk in the blood of Christ... but we still fail because we are human. Sometimes, there is just some humbling that needs to happen. Anyway, spent time with God for a while on the rockface, waves crashing, tearing away at the stone. It was really nice, and it was nice to know that I was alone. There was one point where I layed down on the rock and was just listening... this one wave came... I thought the rock was going to split apart... the whole thing shook and all of a sudden I found myself really wet.. when I wasn't that close to the edge at all!
Well in the end I walked back.. I was still feeling kinda sick... Marissa was there to take me back to the house. At the house we waited for everyone to get up and then had our staff meeting... We discussed going to the schools and ideas we needed to have... Then Kirk put me in charge of doing the touch card again. I was really disappointed to because Pastor Jimmy needed someone to go get produce with him and I was volunteered and agreed to it.. I really wanted to go! But later when they were about to leave and someone was asking me if I was going, I said "yes!" and then kirk said "no!". I felt like my heart couldn't even sink to a greater depth. Going to the beach, i prayed and spent time with God but I was still in a place where I needed to let things go... I wanted so bad to just get away and go get fruit pretty much... and then "no." from kirk. I feel bad that I did whine just a little bit about not wanting to go... which is just like us humans isn't it? I say that because I know for a fact that God was answering my prayer yet again just then... and I was complaining. He is a good God and He loves me, He wasn't about to let me sink into my selfish mood, so he provided me with an oppurtunity to break free of it. It took a little bit of work but it worked out in the end. Kirk wasn't making me stay back cause he wanted to ruin my day and I knew that, he needed my help and this was my job. He apologized but I told him I was just having a long morning.. I really was, it was tough. Praise God though that He helps me through and when I give my all to Him, He is my strength and my redeemer! After hours, literally hours, of slaving with Kirks computer, I wanted to die. I was yelling at the program, at Kirk's computer... see he has his keyboard programmed very differently.. it's very hard to operate, especially when you don't know how.. Also I was using a program I didn't know, to edit the poster for Kirk. Hours. Honestly though, it was through that time and giving myself to God and what He asked me to stay and do that helped me overcome in the end... from that point on, the rest of my day was amazing! Heavy spirit of selfishness lifted and the joy of Christ in it's place! Once I was finished, the finished product looked great! It was so satisfying!
Then Marissa, Bethany and I headed to the grocery store to get food for dinner. When we stocked up we cleaned up the guys house a little bit, then went to ours and cleaned it up even more because our living room as a mess from the previous two nights. We set up a table with a sheet for a table cloth and started to make our part of the dinner for the guys (who were out spear fishing for their part of the dinner)... we made the baked potatoes and cut some green oranges and veggies for the potatoes. The guys showed up not much longer after we got the food going with a really good catch... two crawfish (though they caught more, I think P. Jimmy took some), a "grubber"? (which is actually really really good!) and some other small fish. Anthony and Ian cooked up the crawfish and the fish... after a little while of waiting.. we all sat down to eat together! I honestly don't remember eating together "as a family" so many times in a row! Every night for dinner we sit down together, it's really nice.. this time we had a fancy table all set up. Dinner was fun, we joked around about stuff for a long time as we ate. After clean up and some computer/hangout time... we embarked on one of the greatest adventures I have ever had! (Anthony, Ian, Josh, Marissa and Me!)
The five of us head out to go crabbing, and there are a few videos of this on I think Josh's facebook. First thing that happens... Ian squashes a huge crab on the road, he swerved, FOR it! And it was one we could have caught! We all repromanded him for it.... then we started heading down some roads to catch some crabs... finally after a few.. we head down this beach road and right after seriously praying for crabs, I think God wanted to laugh at us by sending one... right in the middle of the road!!!! Anthony and Josh go after it.. that thing was seriously the fastest crab I've ever seen! But they got it and stuck it in the bucket. Off witht he rest of the night we go...
Ok, well Ian is driving. Ian... is kinda a scary driver!!! These roads are not like back home... they are either dirt, sand, really rocky or it looks like someone just splattered pavement here and there and then carved out some pot holes just for fun. We drive an old Kia van whose front seat is all torn up and makes a sad "I'm falling apart" noise. Ian is driving this thing like 50km/h through these roads. NOT A GOOD IDEA! First thing that happens.. we jerk so hard that the crab flies out of the bucket. Josh can't get it to put it back so now its under the seat and everyone is yelling to put their feet up.. theres a ledge so it can't get through but we pull over and open the door and it crawls through the side, and then through the side to where I'm sitting in the front seat. The video to this is also onfacobook. Well now I have to fight with it to keep it from going underneath the dashboard on the engines side... so instead it crawls up the dashboard on the wheel side.. it just burrows into it and won't budge.. I never realized how strong crabs are but they can be like stone if they want to be. I couldn't fight with it so Anthony wanted to give it a try... He fights for a while and then I remembered that I saw plyers in the car when I cleaned it out earlier and I got them for him... Anthony grabbed one of it's claws, but it was so determined not to come out that it let Anthony rip its claw off the poor thing. Josh gave it a go and got his finger pinched instead. So we decided there was nothing we could do and I just kept my feet up as we drove.
There was one point which was just so funny for me... Marissa is sitting in the back between Josh and Anthony... all of a sudden she says "We should play corners guys!" How could anyone not take advantage of that?! She set herself up SO perfectly! I couldn't help but say "You would like that wouldn't you Marissa?" I mean, the words were out of my mouth before I had time to stop them.. it was like I was watching them float away in slow motion and there was nothing I could do... they were spoken! But it was funny!
We saw one of those bat moths and agreed that those things have to be possessed... their eyes glow!!!
Oh! Another favorite moment... We drive up to this beach bluff, and its really pretty... I mean Atlantic Ocean waves continually crashing and the moon is bright... dark thunder clouds all around, lightning flashing across the sky.. While the guys are taking pictures at one open space on the bluff.. I walk around to another space... Well someone yelled my name when we started heading back, I couldn't tell who... so I did and I was quite nearly directly behind them. I was right behind josh,well a little to the side as he turned, and yelled my name again! I couldn't believe it! He didn't know I was right there! Well he gets in on the left side of the car and I'm riding in shotgun.. So the first thing I do is get to my side and drop down. Anthony is in the back on my side and looking at me through the window figures out what I'm doing, he's in, once he's in, their all in. Josh is freaking out now... "she would wander off on her own" he says as he heads out to the bushes when he sees i'm not in the car; calling my name... some of the others call for me too, to add effect.. while he's out there I got in the car.. I shoulda just stayed out of the car the whole time but oh well.. I got back out as he came back asking for a flashlight.. shined it into the bushes, called my name some more and then got into the car to drive forward and check somewhere else... we move forward and I just walk next to the car.. he gets out again and goes to look for me and I get back in the car.. a minute or two later he starts to come back and sees me or heard the door or something.. he just gets back into the car and says "I hate you guys" and we all laugh.. we only caught the very end on video... where ian explained what just happened.. but it happened.. and it was funny! I havn't laughed that hard in a long time.. but then I laughed really hard this whole night! ok moving on...
On our way back, Ian swings around to another road instead of heading all the way back... Almost immediately we come across this HUGE puddle.. (vid of this on facebook), I hear Ian say as he comes to a stop "Thats a puddle. ... That's a biiiig puddle." He puts it into reverse and we're all convinced that he's just going to turn around... after pulling a few yards back, he guns it for the puddle! Oh Ian.. as we're driving down this road, we for some reason come to a stop, and we're video taping this part for some reason as well.. All of a sudden someone yells spider, everyone (including ian who isn't even in the back seat!) jumps out of the car... I just looked back to see what was going on and saw the look on everyones faces and heard Josh and Anthony's girlie screams... When I shined the light on the roof of the car.. I couldn't believe just how TINY the spider was! I understand fear of spiders.. but all four of them! I think I was just surprised because from their screaming, it sounded like it must have been one of those huge ones that we always see in the bushes, so I was fully expecting to turn and see one of those.. it took me completely off guard to see one that looks just like the ones back home.. But I must have laughed till i cried it was so funny! AND IT'S ON VIDEO!
Anyway, then we drove home, oh at one point I crushed Anthony's fingers in the door.. which sucked.. but he was ok thank goodness... that was when something happened to the van, I didn't really understand what it was but we made it back ok, Thank the Lord!Getting back, we upload photos to our laptops and watch the videos.. As we do this, Anthony is fast asleep on the couch! So Ian and Josh start sticking pencils and crawfish shells from dinner all over him... we videotaped the whole thing, go watch it it's funny! That was the night.. that all ended at like 12:40... now its like 2:30am...
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Sorry so late!
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 6TH
Ok I don't remember much about this day... it was a little bit ago and so many things have happened since that it's long form fresh in my mind.. that's what I was afraid of; but there's nothing I can do now. I will do my best to get the main gist of it down.
We had church on Sunday of course. It was really different. We get there and David (one of our favorite islanders) opens up with some scripture and then we sing a song. After that we all crowd into a small side room with some of the youth kids for their morning sunday school church. It was very different, and we all almost automatically saw things that needed to change. Not that we were just going to step in and demand that they change... only that we saw the issues at hand. It was interesting for most of us. Following Sunday school was the actual church service. Worship was honestly really long, again, some changes needed to be made... but P. Jimmy brought a good word :) It was my first oppurtunity to see him as a pastor, doing his job pretty much. Every other time I've been around him it's always been having fun out on the cays or something. We had communion (i don't know spelling for that), and then lunch at P. Jimmy's. Honestly, P. Jimmy should be banned from having food at his house. Seriously, it's just all so so good! And they had so many amazing cookies and little cheese cakes and stuff, man, to-die-for. No joke. There were a lot of bees tho.. mostly just this one, but I just can't handle those warrior wasps so I ate inside. Sigh... I will conquer this fear by the end of the trip, I promise.
Oh we met some of the kids, that was pretty cool... I met this girl Nicole and as soon as I saw her God spoke to me to remember her name... ever since she was really heavy on my heart.
I really don't remember every detail anymore, but I think after that a lot of ppl spent time on laptops and then I did all the guys laundry, folded it and stuff.
Later we all went to the beach together. It was super fun, I ran ahead, I felt like running and I wanted to explore at the same time. So I ran ahead... I got to the corner of the rock and the shore and there was a shark! No joke! And it was huge! I mean not a great white or anything... but it was longer than I am tall. Well it was only a few feet away from me when I saw it and I was pretty much in the water... I mean it wasn't a huge deal but it nearly gave me a heart attack. It just turned around and slowly started to swim away. I ran back and then Ian and Dionis ran to me and I shared in all my excitement about the shark. We walked up the edge of the rockface together and finally spotted it swimming within the shoals. Once the rest of everyone caught up to us we just hung out and climbed the rocks for maybe forty five minutes to an hour. We were out there for about an hour and a half if I remember. It was super fun though. I love it on those rocks, it's gorgeous and watching the waves can be mezmorizing.
I stayed behind a little bit as everyone else started to walk back cause I needed to talk to God about a few things... One of them being the need for me to refocus my heart for the trip.. I really needed a reminder of why I was there... well, we get back from the beach and Dionis runs in to P. Jimmy's house, when he came out he said that Kirk needed me. I went and got cleaned up and then headed over to P. Jimmy's house. Getting there Kirk threw at me that he wanted a touch card (a card with info and media about a youth group etc.). He wanted it that night, for the next day. We talked about it a little bit and then P. Jimmy's son came out, apparantly he was assigned to help me with this project. He had been asked to come up with a good name for their youth group. P. Jimmy's son's name was Blake and he was just a young teenage boy. After having the oppurtunity to spend some time with him though, he ended up being one of the coolest guys. Kirk and I talked to him a little bit about the card and then I asked if I could be free to ask a few questions. I wanted to make him think a little bit about stuff to kind of get him more excited about helping us with this. I also wanted to get a better idea of where he was with God. I asked him what God meant to him and what He looked like in his youth group, what he wanted Him to look like. This whole time Blake has one of those, "yea yea let's get this over with, this is weird" attitudes about him. I am not swayed. Kirk and I discussed with him about how sometimes we like to think of God as a thing and not a personal God, which he is most definitely the latter. God is so much more than a personal God, He designed us specifically for relationship with Him. Anyway we also asked him if he could hear God, he said not really... then we asked him if he could talk at the age of 1... he didn't think so.. we asked him why... well he was still growing, developing... so why can't he hear God? Well he's still growing and developing in his relationship with God. It was pretty cool, he didn't soak it all in right away but he's one of those kids who's listening even when you don't think he is.
After that, Kirk sent the two of us to work. So we went off and started to hack at what we wanted to do as a touch card design. Oh I should probably explain that we came up with the name "project-x" for the group, for these three months that we're here at least. So, after some prayer, we really dove into the project. I kept questioning him to keep him thinking and make this his project... since we were talking about growth I asked him what best represented growth... he said plant or tree. So I started to break down with him the different trees that are in the
Bahamas (I wanted it to be form their country) and how different aspects of that tree represent our relationship with God. We found out that they have evergreen trees down there and actually stuck with that one because Blake felt it fit the best. Evergreens stay green, they never fade, their roots go deep... they have many branches and sometimes they can get overgrown (the bushy ones are the ones that they have)... so they have to get trimmed back. All excellent comparisons to our growth in the Lord. Once we had the tree down I asked him if thats all he wanted to do, draw a tree and then write project-x? Then he came up with the idea of making a timeline of growth. At this point I could see that Blake was getting much more into what we were doing, and getting a little bit excited!
Ok I don't remember much about this day... it was a little bit ago and so many things have happened since that it's long form fresh in my mind.. that's what I was afraid of; but there's nothing I can do now. I will do my best to get the main gist of it down.
We had church on Sunday of course. It was really different. We get there and David (one of our favorite islanders) opens up with some scripture and then we sing a song. After that we all crowd into a small side room with some of the youth kids for their morning sunday school church. It was very different, and we all almost automatically saw things that needed to change. Not that we were just going to step in and demand that they change... only that we saw the issues at hand. It was interesting for most of us. Following Sunday school was the actual church service. Worship was honestly really long, again, some changes needed to be made... but P. Jimmy brought a good word :) It was my first oppurtunity to see him as a pastor, doing his job pretty much. Every other time I've been around him it's always been having fun out on the cays or something. We had communion (i don't know spelling for that), and then lunch at P. Jimmy's. Honestly, P. Jimmy should be banned from having food at his house. Seriously, it's just all so so good! And they had so many amazing cookies and little cheese cakes and stuff, man, to-die-for. No joke. There were a lot of bees tho.. mostly just this one, but I just can't handle those warrior wasps so I ate inside. Sigh... I will conquer this fear by the end of the trip, I promise.
Oh we met some of the kids, that was pretty cool... I met this girl Nicole and as soon as I saw her God spoke to me to remember her name... ever since she was really heavy on my heart.
I really don't remember every detail anymore, but I think after that a lot of ppl spent time on laptops and then I did all the guys laundry, folded it and stuff.
Later we all went to the beach together. It was super fun, I ran ahead, I felt like running and I wanted to explore at the same time. So I ran ahead... I got to the corner of the rock and the shore and there was a shark! No joke! And it was huge! I mean not a great white or anything... but it was longer than I am tall. Well it was only a few feet away from me when I saw it and I was pretty much in the water... I mean it wasn't a huge deal but it nearly gave me a heart attack. It just turned around and slowly started to swim away. I ran back and then Ian and Dionis ran to me and I shared in all my excitement about the shark. We walked up the edge of the rockface together and finally spotted it swimming within the shoals. Once the rest of everyone caught up to us we just hung out and climbed the rocks for maybe forty five minutes to an hour. We were out there for about an hour and a half if I remember. It was super fun though. I love it on those rocks, it's gorgeous and watching the waves can be mezmorizing.
I stayed behind a little bit as everyone else started to walk back cause I needed to talk to God about a few things... One of them being the need for me to refocus my heart for the trip.. I really needed a reminder of why I was there... well, we get back from the beach and Dionis runs in to P. Jimmy's house, when he came out he said that Kirk needed me. I went and got cleaned up and then headed over to P. Jimmy's house. Getting there Kirk threw at me that he wanted a touch card (a card with info and media about a youth group etc.). He wanted it that night, for the next day. We talked about it a little bit and then P. Jimmy's son came out, apparantly he was assigned to help me with this project. He had been asked to come up with a good name for their youth group. P. Jimmy's son's name was Blake and he was just a young teenage boy. After having the oppurtunity to spend some time with him though, he ended up being one of the coolest guys. Kirk and I talked to him a little bit about the card and then I asked if I could be free to ask a few questions. I wanted to make him think a little bit about stuff to kind of get him more excited about helping us with this. I also wanted to get a better idea of where he was with God. I asked him what God meant to him and what He looked like in his youth group, what he wanted Him to look like. This whole time Blake has one of those, "yea yea let's get this over with, this is weird" attitudes about him. I am not swayed. Kirk and I discussed with him about how sometimes we like to think of God as a thing and not a personal God, which he is most definitely the latter. God is so much more than a personal God, He designed us specifically for relationship with Him. Anyway we also asked him if he could hear God, he said not really... then we asked him if he could talk at the age of 1... he didn't think so.. we asked him why... well he was still growing, developing... so why can't he hear God? Well he's still growing and developing in his relationship with God. It was pretty cool, he didn't soak it all in right away but he's one of those kids who's listening even when you don't think he is.
After that, Kirk sent the two of us to work. So we went off and started to hack at what we wanted to do as a touch card design. Oh I should probably explain that we came up with the name "project-x" for the group, for these three months that we're here at least. So, after some prayer, we really dove into the project. I kept questioning him to keep him thinking and make this his project... since we were talking about growth I asked him what best represented growth... he said plant or tree. So I started to break down with him the different trees that are in the
Bahamas (I wanted it to be form their country) and how different aspects of that tree represent our relationship with God. We found out that they have evergreen trees down there and actually stuck with that one because Blake felt it fit the best. Evergreens stay green, they never fade, their roots go deep... they have many branches and sometimes they can get overgrown (the bushy ones are the ones that they have)... so they have to get trimmed back. All excellent comparisons to our growth in the Lord. Once we had the tree down I asked him if thats all he wanted to do, draw a tree and then write project-x? Then he came up with the idea of making a timeline of growth. At this point I could see that Blake was getting much more into what we were doing, and getting a little bit excited!
Monday, September 7, 2009
Saturday the 5th!
Sorry I didn't get this blog up for a while, I had laundry to do the other night and I was sick last night.
So yesterday... pretty normal morning... woke up, headed to the guys, cleaned the guys house, ate breakfast... only this time the boys didn't wake up till way late and Kirk wanted to have a team meeting so we had one without them and then when they got up we headed over to the church for a little prayer meeting with Pastor Jimmy. After that, our plan for the day was to visit the deepest blue hole in the world... Pastor Jimmy had some things to do first so we planned to meet him at 2:30, until then we were gonna just hand out.
Thats what we did for the most part, we hung out, ate, and SOAPed until Pastor Jimmy was ready to go. For a while Anthony Josh and Bethany were playing music at the church together and Ian and I headed to P. Jimmy's to drop some stuff over for Kirk... so while we were over there P. Jimmy asked us to come with him to one of the nearby islands... he owned that island, like many others and has a house that he's working on over there. We got to check it out and it was amazing, all these boardwalks that go throughout the island and really really nice decks, even the house itself... once it's all cleaned out is going to be a really nice vacation spot. Later we finally started getting ready to go to the blue hole.
P. Jimmy makes it over, we all hop into the back of the truck and then take the 30 minute drive to the blue hole. For being one of the deepest in the world... I was surprised that, no one was there. I'm realized a long time ago that Long Island.... is NOT a touristy place. I never thought it would be but just seeing just how much it isn't is surprising to me because there are some really beautiful places on this island. Anyway we went swimming in the blue hole, it was crazy thinking about how far down that thing went, and we were over it... oh man. There were a lot of fish, which was cool; and I got a chance to practice diving just a little bit! I used to be good at it actually, until my ears started giving me serious problems... and you can imagine the pressure at a 600' deep hole. I was a little nervous about being a barracuda... but Pastor Jimmy just keeps telling me that their harmless... yesterday he says "Oh, it'll just smile at ya!".... yea... really. But here's how I feel about the whole barracuda thing anyway.... we've all heard Pastor James' experience with the barracuda, and I see it as we just can't get past it... we've focused on how they tend to attack you while all the islanders here aren't bothered by them at all. P. Jimmy is determined to get me past this fear.
When we get back... we all get cleaned up and then it's dinner time! When us girls were walking to the guys house, Anthony was heading out to pick up food for dinner with Ian. I stood outside and watched as these giant thunder clouds rolled in. Lighting was everywhere, but no thunder. It was the one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I didn't realize it at the time, cause at home storms like that just come up and role away, we don't get many lightning storms. No, these things were getting bigger and heading over. For the next few hours after they rolled over, we just had endless lighting... hitting right over the island, and right over out heads! It was pretty intense.
Anthony gets back and then him and Ian get to work on the dinner... it took twice as long to make cause we had to improvise on finding ways to cook the food. But it ended up being amazing... we had spaghetti, it was enough to feed an army of people, no joke, we have a ton of leftovers. Still, it was super good.
After dinner, we all just sat down together and then Josh suggested that we do SOAPs. We all agreed and after Dionis, Josh, and Anthony shared theirs, Ian and I shared ours. It was cool because ours were all different but then connected too... I didn't think mine would apply at all, but as Anthony shared his, especially the end of his I was encouraged that it totally connected. Anthony talked at the end of his about our relationships with each other and how God told him that He wants us all to be best friends for life after the end of this trip (or to build those kind of bonds).... and it was cool because God was just endlessly talking to me about how He wants to use our relationships with each other and the things that He wants to do in our group etc. Then I shared how that morning, when we had the prayer meeting with Pastor Jimmy, God gave me a vision of how the group of us are a stick... and He is taking a knife and making us into a spear. Well this stick has branches and moss and whatever else gathers onto a stick, so there's work to do and He's cleaning us off and sharpening us, to make us usable. It was cool. Then we had a really awesome conversation about how sharpening hurts, "there's going to be some OW within some of us on the trip," Kirk says. I totally concur. After that we got into a discussion on calling each other out on stuff and what that means and then a little about how we ought to do it in love and not for our own selfish reasons.
Oh and I have to add that yesterday poor Josh cut his hand trying to climb some cave cliff… who knows.. but he was understandably afraid of a shark attack after that and I’m driving the boat away from him at that point…
I know that there was something else I wanted to say on this blog but I can’t remember what it was at all… not at all… This is why I need to make sure I write blogs the day off.. oh well, sorry! I’ll write it later if I remember!
So yesterday... pretty normal morning... woke up, headed to the guys, cleaned the guys house, ate breakfast... only this time the boys didn't wake up till way late and Kirk wanted to have a team meeting so we had one without them and then when they got up we headed over to the church for a little prayer meeting with Pastor Jimmy. After that, our plan for the day was to visit the deepest blue hole in the world... Pastor Jimmy had some things to do first so we planned to meet him at 2:30, until then we were gonna just hand out.
Thats what we did for the most part, we hung out, ate, and SOAPed until Pastor Jimmy was ready to go. For a while Anthony Josh and Bethany were playing music at the church together and Ian and I headed to P. Jimmy's to drop some stuff over for Kirk... so while we were over there P. Jimmy asked us to come with him to one of the nearby islands... he owned that island, like many others and has a house that he's working on over there. We got to check it out and it was amazing, all these boardwalks that go throughout the island and really really nice decks, even the house itself... once it's all cleaned out is going to be a really nice vacation spot. Later we finally started getting ready to go to the blue hole.
P. Jimmy makes it over, we all hop into the back of the truck and then take the 30 minute drive to the blue hole. For being one of the deepest in the world... I was surprised that, no one was there. I'm realized a long time ago that Long Island.... is NOT a touristy place. I never thought it would be but just seeing just how much it isn't is surprising to me because there are some really beautiful places on this island. Anyway we went swimming in the blue hole, it was crazy thinking about how far down that thing went, and we were over it... oh man. There were a lot of fish, which was cool; and I got a chance to practice diving just a little bit! I used to be good at it actually, until my ears started giving me serious problems... and you can imagine the pressure at a 600' deep hole. I was a little nervous about being a barracuda... but Pastor Jimmy just keeps telling me that their harmless... yesterday he says "Oh, it'll just smile at ya!".... yea... really. But here's how I feel about the whole barracuda thing anyway.... we've all heard Pastor James' experience with the barracuda, and I see it as we just can't get past it... we've focused on how they tend to attack you while all the islanders here aren't bothered by them at all. P. Jimmy is determined to get me past this fear.
When we get back... we all get cleaned up and then it's dinner time! When us girls were walking to the guys house, Anthony was heading out to pick up food for dinner with Ian. I stood outside and watched as these giant thunder clouds rolled in. Lighting was everywhere, but no thunder. It was the one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I didn't realize it at the time, cause at home storms like that just come up and role away, we don't get many lightning storms. No, these things were getting bigger and heading over. For the next few hours after they rolled over, we just had endless lighting... hitting right over the island, and right over out heads! It was pretty intense.
Anthony gets back and then him and Ian get to work on the dinner... it took twice as long to make cause we had to improvise on finding ways to cook the food. But it ended up being amazing... we had spaghetti, it was enough to feed an army of people, no joke, we have a ton of leftovers. Still, it was super good.
After dinner, we all just sat down together and then Josh suggested that we do SOAPs. We all agreed and after Dionis, Josh, and Anthony shared theirs, Ian and I shared ours. It was cool because ours were all different but then connected too... I didn't think mine would apply at all, but as Anthony shared his, especially the end of his I was encouraged that it totally connected. Anthony talked at the end of his about our relationships with each other and how God told him that He wants us all to be best friends for life after the end of this trip (or to build those kind of bonds).... and it was cool because God was just endlessly talking to me about how He wants to use our relationships with each other and the things that He wants to do in our group etc. Then I shared how that morning, when we had the prayer meeting with Pastor Jimmy, God gave me a vision of how the group of us are a stick... and He is taking a knife and making us into a spear. Well this stick has branches and moss and whatever else gathers onto a stick, so there's work to do and He's cleaning us off and sharpening us, to make us usable. It was cool. Then we had a really awesome conversation about how sharpening hurts, "there's going to be some OW within some of us on the trip," Kirk says. I totally concur. After that we got into a discussion on calling each other out on stuff and what that means and then a little about how we ought to do it in love and not for our own selfish reasons.
Oh and I have to add that yesterday poor Josh cut his hand trying to climb some cave cliff… who knows.. but he was understandably afraid of a shark attack after that and I’m driving the boat away from him at that point…
I know that there was something else I wanted to say on this blog but I can’t remember what it was at all… not at all… This is why I need to make sure I write blogs the day off.. oh well, sorry! I’ll write it later if I remember!
Friday, September 4, 2009
Ocean Swells
Today was yet another good and amazing day! Woke up early, Bethany and Anthony pick up Josh from the airport, and while they are gone… I get the opportunity to finally sweep the floor entirely and get rid of all the food on the floor. Then I did my devotions. When the guys woke up, we had breakfast and by then the gang was all there. We pretty much just relaxed all morning.. Kirk had errands to run, try and get DSL up and running so we have good internet up at the guys house… so we all just hung around waiting till he and P. Jimmy got back so we could go on the boat, which was the plan for the day.
Dionis wanted me to make sure that I blogged about how we wouldn’t let him nap earlier. See what happened is, we were all super hot, it was a little unbearable this morning. Then Bethany suggested to Marissa and me that we go hang out in the guys actual room because it’s air conditioned. We didn’t know anyone was in the room. Well I was about to jump onto the mattress when I noticed that the giant bundle of white sheets was Dionis mummified. So glad I noticed as soon as I did! Well I didn’t jump onto that mattress but there were two others that the three of us climbed onto… then later Anthony and Ian decided it would be a good idea to come into the room too and poor Dionis couldn’t sleep… not that I feel too terrible for him cause he was up tonight on my laptop and keeping me from writing this blog sooner so he must not have been that tired! Oh and he wanted me to mention that were making him breakfast specially tomorrow because he always wakes up late and never gets any.
Oh I also want to mention that Feisty… the crab that Anthony caught last night… CRAWLED OUT OF THE BUCKET overnight! Those crabs are nuts! The one I caught was still there tho!
Once Pastor Jimmy got back with Kirk, and after a lot more working things out…. We get on the road to get on the boat… after buying water and gas, we head to the docking beach and shipped out. P. Jimmy just drove that thing as fast as it went around these beautiful islands… we just got 30-45 minutes of just enjoyment of the ride and the view… so beautiful! After pulling by a few islands, pastor Jimmy turns to me and says that he was going to show us the coolest beach in the whole world… the best one he says. I remember thinking about how I would react, if it would actually be that cool… what would make it so cool… I believed him, I just didn’t know what to expect… well were going and going out on the ocean, and then all of a sudden, when were a 1000 yards away from this island… he slows down, in what looked like the middle of the ocean. The thought kinda flickered through my brain of what it was but it was just so unbelievable to me that I shook it off…. The beach was UNDERWATER!! It extended all the way to the island and far in two directions… P. Jimmy said that when the tide is low it’s just perfect white sand… but we could get out and it was just ankle deep water…. It was crazy, trippy, and unreal.. but gorgeous! We all want to go back there again, it was probably the coolest thing ever!
While we were in that section, we saw a Nurse Shark, that was pretty cool too, we chased it around for a while poor thing. Then we were off once more, into the ocean blue. We get to this strip of rock and put on our snorkel gear, grab some spears and head out to spear-fish. I didn’t spear fish, but I did snorkel! So cool! Being able to see everything and all the fish, and watching the guys dive after fish, trying to spear them.. pretty awesome.. We looked for fish on both sides but couldn’t really find anything worthwhile. Out there though, further out, the swells were so high.. we would get the boat air borne and then land… which caused a lot of bruising, mostly for Marissa. But it was sweet… even Kirk just loved it! Sometimes a little to intense, there was one point where I thought he was going to fly out of his chair, I was standing right behind him… and it scared me… Praise God he was fine! We drove under this raincloud, and the drops were like bullets, shooting like crazy!
Everyone wants to make sure I tell the story about how a flying fish came out of the water and hit Josh in the arm and made his arm slimy.. I missed this whole thing, I don’t know what I was looking at, but I remember looking over and wondering what was going on.
We tried out a few more places for spear fishing, but mostly drove the boat around a lot… Anthony got a little motion sick and started throwing up over the side… that was pretty gross… glad we didn’t swim there. I don’t know why they wanted me to make sure I said something about that too. Then one of the last places P. Jimmy took us spear fishing.. I got out but after a while got pretty tired, it’s hard to swim against the swells while you’re holding your breath (I wasn’t using the snorkel, it limited my breathing so much that I figured I might as well hold my breath). All us girls were in the boat but the guys were still on the hunt… P. Jimmy was thinking about joining them (he never ended up doing that), so he wanted me to drive the boat. At first I was just like.. he must be joking! He was dead serious! Kirk is just like “why not?”….so I finally said I would but P. Jimmy has to show me how… so for the next hour, I’m maneuvering this thing on these swells that want to push us into the rocky islands! It was actually pretty fun, you have to get the hang of it, and I was still kinda off with my steering sometimes by the end of it but it ended up ok!
There was one point where we were trying to pick up Anthony after we decided that that was it for the day and I was up alongside him when P. Jimmy was like, ok go around.. so poor Anthony was about to go in when I start going around in circles around him… it was funny though!
I have to say…Josh and Anthony had spear-fished before, but Ian was beast! He caught a few of the fish! And loved it! He did also spear a blow fish though… which we all felt bad about… you can’t eat those things, and when you spear them… they tend to explode.. I mean, it’s like popping a balloon.
Going back, the sun was setting and it was gorgeous! Awesome trip back too.. we were all exhausted but it was a good feeling. While we were getting the boat out of the water… all my bug spray had washed off in the ocean.. so within minutes of being on land… I got bit by some kind of horsefly (which hurt really bad!), and later I found 10 more bites all over my legs… and these ones are bad compared to the ones I’ve had before.. Marissa faced the same problem on her arm.
Heading back we were dropped off at our house to get cleaned up and then we went over to P. Jimmy to have dinner! It was amazing! I honestly am so blessed by P. Jimmy and his family right now… I wanted to cry at dinner… Just how generous and loving they all are, the ways that they help us and provide for us and take care of us is just incredible. They barely know us! I pray that I would never be ungrateful because it is truly amazing and an amazing blessing! I mean they help us out with groceries, so we don’t have to spend 100s of dollars everyday on food, they make us food, they take us out on a boat all day… they invite us into their home… they show us around…. They give us anti-itch cream that is the best that they have on the island…. They are amazing people! Again, I am more than blessed!
At dinner (which was amazing), we had some interesting conversations…. We were all pretty tired I think and in an interesting place haha… but it just made me think a lot about stuff. Just how different our perspectives are, and yet how the same they can be, about our disagreements and differences really… just the group that God put together down here in general I guess… I just had a really cool thought that encouraged me so much… I really believe that a lot of what God is going to do down here through us is through our relationships with each other. How fitting is that? After our church has been diving into community to have that be part of this trip? What a demonstration of who God is! Not only that He is going to use our relationships with each other but who He chose to do that with. Our group has so many odd puzzle pieces that you wouldn’t really know how they would fit…. But what God just kinda put on my heart that really encouraged me was that none of that really matters… because we are unified in His Spirit… we all serve the same God, love the same God, and love each other through the same God. He is good and He is bigger than who we are, bigger than our differences… and He uses those differences, because He can. How awesome is He that He would use the least likely circumstances for His glory?
What’s really cool is that reflecting on it now I am reminded of my S.O.A.P. from this morning which was:
God is love. Whoever lives in love, lives in God, and God in him. --1 John 4:16
He just spoke to me through that verse this morning about that… living in love, living in God, and what that would look like, what it actually means.. How it would change relationships and perspectives. God is love… love conquers all, and love lives in us. So what does anything else matter? By our love for each other, His name will be known! Praise God that He always has the end in mind, He always has a plan, and it’s always for the best! Miss you all! Keep up with the blog!
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Inaccuracy
Ok so my blog isn't lined up with the time down here... Both of those last two posts were written at about 12:30 in the morning on the 4th of September. It's 1:15am now... so just add three hours if you need to know the time.
Island Living... American Style
Today was our recoop day. Bethany and I set our alarm for 8am but when it went off... we tried to get up but after we agreed that we could both sleep for so much longer, we did... for two more hours. I remember the first thing I noticed when I got up was that it was pouring down rain outside... again! Ha! Well I was super hungry and the guys have all the food back at their house so I was like... Bethany I have two raincoats so we're going to get food! Walking in that rain, you honestly get drenched within SECONDS... but it was nice. I was really surprised I must say, that we had mosquitos swarming our faces while we walked... in the rain. It seemed so impossible to me but it happened! We then get to the boys' house, and it's locked. They are still in bed. So after waiting outside for a very long time, trying to find another way in... I finally decided that they needed to get up (it was 10:30) and I wanted food... so I tapped on the window and thankfully Anthony heard us and let us in.
Ok... That was just the beginning of our day. We decided we would like a good breakfast; you know eggs, sausage, pancakes... the works... so we go to the grocery store. After loading up on food... we head home to make it. We needed dish soap too cause we had all these greasy plates from our dinner the night before that weren't clean yet and we needed food. While Bethany started the dishes, I went straight to getting breakfast made. Well first thing I did was rip open the box of Aunt Jamima's Pancake Mix... It was a little difficult to open... for some reason the cardboard wouldn't tear the way I wanted to... I guess it was all just to add a little bit to what I was about to face. The box of pancake mix.... was alive. Hundreds of these tiny bugs were crawling all over the inside!!! It was absolutely disgusting! So, both boxes were like that, so we took them back to the store and got good ol' bisquick instead. Had a hearty breakfast and then decided that we really couldn't do that again cause it ended up costing us a good amount of money (it is EXPENSIVE)!
We had a little bit of a team meeting started after we ate and cleaned up... but it was more just chill hangout with each other time. Pastor Jimmy got a list of things we needed and brought back all this stuff for us (which was awesome, he is awesome)... anyway, one of those things was a broom; because see, these stupid ants were swarming the floor and they hurt when they bite, so we wanted to get rid of them. Now, I don't remember how this happened exactly but I was sweeping and somehow a door was opened somewhere and this (what I like to call "warrior wasp") flew into the house. I can handle spiders, I can handle the bat moths, I can handle the land crabs, I can handle the geckos, and I can handle the scorpions.... bees, wasps of any kind... no. I was out the door... then saw that everyone else was following me, screaming all the way ... guys included, Ian just as scard as us but managing to say "why are we running out the door?" as we ran! These things, seriously, are creepy... we have them back home too, they are just in greater number down here. Anthony grabs the broom for me and starts going at it... after a while of us running around to keep away from the thing, it flies out (thank the Lord). Only later when we had our real team meeting, they were buzzing at the screen doors and I was convinced they had come for revenge.
Another good Anthony killing bug story was later when Dionis reached down to grab something from Kirk's backpack... I don't remember who yelled that there was a bug on the bag but we all looked to see this cockroach right next to Dionis' hand.. it was huge. He screams and runs and then after a while Anthony finally kills the thing.. but it really didn't happen till an hour later.. those things just don't die.
Bethany and I drove to the airport to get Marissa with Kirk... I got a kick out of hailing everyone as we drove.. also, driving on the other side of the road is pretty fun... but I mostly really enjoyed how you can just wave to everyone as you drive, infact its the culture! While we were getting Marissa, Pastor Jimmy was taking the boys spear-fishing.... well once we got Marissa, they were still out there, the doors to their house locked, Kirk stuck in the van with us... so after some driving around and endless calling of Anthony we drove over to where they took off and hung out with Pastor Jimmy's kids till the boys showed up. They finally did and we cut some coconuts and went home (coconuts are really good by the way, their milk is my favortie).
By this time I was super super hungry again! So we finally got back to the guys and had leftovers and cereal for dinner. After dinner, another team meeting... Bethany shared an old soap, but it was perfect, fit in with a lot of our hearts and just stuff God wanted to say... we talked some and then prayed, it was really good.
All this time, Anthony is determined to take us land island crabbing. Pastor Jimmy brings a crab in and demonstrates for us how to catch them... they are beastly. So we go, and that's what we were doing until 12:30 in the morning... driving down choppy roads hanging onto the car and running after crabs when we saw one. We only caught two.. but I caught the second one!!! It was pretty sweet :) I was so happy to have had the oppurtunity to do that! It was really very fun even though the roads we took had virtually no crabs... we were at it for probably more than two hours and couldn't find that many at all.
One last word about today... the mosquitos.... are.... terrible. Poor Bethany got pretty much eaten alive today... I have a lot too, but not as many as her and not as bad as her.. I don't know if she's allergic to the ones down here or what but it was pretty bad. Anyway, we'll be praying for that, it's a small thing but God cares even about the small things, sometimes they are the most important.
So, that wasn't even a full day and look at everything that happened! Just wait till we start ministry... woah baby :) Anyway we miss you all! Although I'm adjusting to the heat I still miss the cold... the thunder storms every night on the horizon I must say are pretty cool too. And how it doesn't really get dark here that much. But still miss home! Miss you middle school girls! Remember, I want to hear testimonies! I'm so excited for what God has in store for you guys in your schools this year! I really believe it's going to be big!
Ok... That was just the beginning of our day. We decided we would like a good breakfast; you know eggs, sausage, pancakes... the works... so we go to the grocery store. After loading up on food... we head home to make it. We needed dish soap too cause we had all these greasy plates from our dinner the night before that weren't clean yet and we needed food. While Bethany started the dishes, I went straight to getting breakfast made. Well first thing I did was rip open the box of Aunt Jamima's Pancake Mix... It was a little difficult to open... for some reason the cardboard wouldn't tear the way I wanted to... I guess it was all just to add a little bit to what I was about to face. The box of pancake mix.... was alive. Hundreds of these tiny bugs were crawling all over the inside!!! It was absolutely disgusting! So, both boxes were like that, so we took them back to the store and got good ol' bisquick instead. Had a hearty breakfast and then decided that we really couldn't do that again cause it ended up costing us a good amount of money (it is EXPENSIVE)!
We had a little bit of a team meeting started after we ate and cleaned up... but it was more just chill hangout with each other time. Pastor Jimmy got a list of things we needed and brought back all this stuff for us (which was awesome, he is awesome)... anyway, one of those things was a broom; because see, these stupid ants were swarming the floor and they hurt when they bite, so we wanted to get rid of them. Now, I don't remember how this happened exactly but I was sweeping and somehow a door was opened somewhere and this (what I like to call "warrior wasp") flew into the house. I can handle spiders, I can handle the bat moths, I can handle the land crabs, I can handle the geckos, and I can handle the scorpions.... bees, wasps of any kind... no. I was out the door... then saw that everyone else was following me, screaming all the way ... guys included, Ian just as scard as us but managing to say "why are we running out the door?" as we ran! These things, seriously, are creepy... we have them back home too, they are just in greater number down here. Anthony grabs the broom for me and starts going at it... after a while of us running around to keep away from the thing, it flies out (thank the Lord). Only later when we had our real team meeting, they were buzzing at the screen doors and I was convinced they had come for revenge.
Another good Anthony killing bug story was later when Dionis reached down to grab something from Kirk's backpack... I don't remember who yelled that there was a bug on the bag but we all looked to see this cockroach right next to Dionis' hand.. it was huge. He screams and runs and then after a while Anthony finally kills the thing.. but it really didn't happen till an hour later.. those things just don't die.
Bethany and I drove to the airport to get Marissa with Kirk... I got a kick out of hailing everyone as we drove.. also, driving on the other side of the road is pretty fun... but I mostly really enjoyed how you can just wave to everyone as you drive, infact its the culture! While we were getting Marissa, Pastor Jimmy was taking the boys spear-fishing.... well once we got Marissa, they were still out there, the doors to their house locked, Kirk stuck in the van with us... so after some driving around and endless calling of Anthony we drove over to where they took off and hung out with Pastor Jimmy's kids till the boys showed up. They finally did and we cut some coconuts and went home (coconuts are really good by the way, their milk is my favortie).
By this time I was super super hungry again! So we finally got back to the guys and had leftovers and cereal for dinner. After dinner, another team meeting... Bethany shared an old soap, but it was perfect, fit in with a lot of our hearts and just stuff God wanted to say... we talked some and then prayed, it was really good.
All this time, Anthony is determined to take us land island crabbing. Pastor Jimmy brings a crab in and demonstrates for us how to catch them... they are beastly. So we go, and that's what we were doing until 12:30 in the morning... driving down choppy roads hanging onto the car and running after crabs when we saw one. We only caught two.. but I caught the second one!!! It was pretty sweet :) I was so happy to have had the oppurtunity to do that! It was really very fun even though the roads we took had virtually no crabs... we were at it for probably more than two hours and couldn't find that many at all.
One last word about today... the mosquitos.... are.... terrible. Poor Bethany got pretty much eaten alive today... I have a lot too, but not as many as her and not as bad as her.. I don't know if she's allergic to the ones down here or what but it was pretty bad. Anyway, we'll be praying for that, it's a small thing but God cares even about the small things, sometimes they are the most important.
So, that wasn't even a full day and look at everything that happened! Just wait till we start ministry... woah baby :) Anyway we miss you all! Although I'm adjusting to the heat I still miss the cold... the thunder storms every night on the horizon I must say are pretty cool too. And how it doesn't really get dark here that much. But still miss home! Miss you middle school girls! Remember, I want to hear testimonies! I'm so excited for what God has in store for you guys in your schools this year! I really believe it's going to be big!
Bat Moths!!
NOTE: This is September 2nd's blog.. I just didn't know how to get internet access until today so I'm posting it now.
Hey everyone! We made it! We’re in the Bahamas! We don’t have internet access yet so I am writing this on a word document before I forget the events of our travels. Let me just say, you do not want to be with any of us individuals after the lack of sleep that we all faced on our way over! I don’t even know who was worse; we were all a little crazy by the end, and passing out left and right at different layovers. After over 24 hours of having our bodies be completely lost about what time it could possibly be… we finally land on Long Island… guess what, it was raining! There is something about us Seattle people… I’ve decided that we are born with some kind of inherent rain magnet. Even this missionary couple commented on how unusual it was to get this much rain; but the whole afternoon, overcast, thunderstorms on the horizon and rain. Although, it wasn’t bad, it was so warm and humid outside that the rain didn’t affect any of us in any huge way. Regardless, the rest of the day was more relaxed as we settled in… we drove around to our houses, dropping off luggage and checking out our beds… Let me just say that I was warned about tarantulas, I was warned about scorpions (I havn’t seen either of those yet)… No one told us about BAT MOTHS!! AND GIANT WASPS! The bat moths aren’t so bad, just creepy… but I am terrified of bees and these giant wasps with dangly legs that just swoop over my head are not going to be my favorite part of this trip. We did see a pretty big spider, but it wasn’t a tarantula… it reminded me of the bird spider from Woodland Park Zoo… Ian is not the friendliest with those Ian actually is probably the funniest person on this trip so far when it comes to our experiences. Later, we went to the supermarket to get some groceries. After some bowls of cereal we just hung around the guys’ house and the church.
At dusk we went to check out the beach! Oh my word… these beaches are amazing, they aren’t huge but they are beautiful. The sand can go up to your shins and the waves just crash and wash over you, incredible. We hung out there, taking some pictures and messing around and then went back to the guys’ house to wait for Kirk and Pastor Jimmy for dinner… which by then was at about 830. We couldn’t have been happier, I couldn’t have been happier, after eating cliff bars and odwalla bars for the past 48 hours, I was more than happy to stick cheesy noodles into my mouth. Sooooo gooood. After dinner, Bethany and I cleaned up, cleaned our room.. she crashed and I’m writing this… now I’m going to crash too, I am exhausted. Tomorrow… spear fishing and recoop! Also, Marissa will be joining us and it’ll be awesome to hear about her trip over!
Hey everyone! We made it! We’re in the Bahamas! We don’t have internet access yet so I am writing this on a word document before I forget the events of our travels. Let me just say, you do not want to be with any of us individuals after the lack of sleep that we all faced on our way over! I don’t even know who was worse; we were all a little crazy by the end, and passing out left and right at different layovers. After over 24 hours of having our bodies be completely lost about what time it could possibly be… we finally land on Long Island… guess what, it was raining! There is something about us Seattle people… I’ve decided that we are born with some kind of inherent rain magnet. Even this missionary couple commented on how unusual it was to get this much rain; but the whole afternoon, overcast, thunderstorms on the horizon and rain. Although, it wasn’t bad, it was so warm and humid outside that the rain didn’t affect any of us in any huge way. Regardless, the rest of the day was more relaxed as we settled in… we drove around to our houses, dropping off luggage and checking out our beds… Let me just say that I was warned about tarantulas, I was warned about scorpions (I havn’t seen either of those yet)… No one told us about BAT MOTHS!! AND GIANT WASPS! The bat moths aren’t so bad, just creepy… but I am terrified of bees and these giant wasps with dangly legs that just swoop over my head are not going to be my favorite part of this trip. We did see a pretty big spider, but it wasn’t a tarantula… it reminded me of the bird spider from Woodland Park Zoo… Ian is not the friendliest with those Ian actually is probably the funniest person on this trip so far when it comes to our experiences. Later, we went to the supermarket to get some groceries. After some bowls of cereal we just hung around the guys’ house and the church.
At dusk we went to check out the beach! Oh my word… these beaches are amazing, they aren’t huge but they are beautiful. The sand can go up to your shins and the waves just crash and wash over you, incredible. We hung out there, taking some pictures and messing around and then went back to the guys’ house to wait for Kirk and Pastor Jimmy for dinner… which by then was at about 830. We couldn’t have been happier, I couldn’t have been happier, after eating cliff bars and odwalla bars for the past 48 hours, I was more than happy to stick cheesy noodles into my mouth. Sooooo gooood. After dinner, Bethany and I cleaned up, cleaned our room.. she crashed and I’m writing this… now I’m going to crash too, I am exhausted. Tomorrow… spear fishing and recoop! Also, Marissa will be joining us and it’ll be awesome to hear about her trip over!
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