Tidbits

The last 3 weeks have been crazy, so I haven't had much time to write. I apologize. I have SOOO much that's happened, but I'll just touch on a few highlights. If you're interested in more, I'll tell you later. Here are some tidbits of my time in Jamaica since I wrote last.

WEEK 2: June 21-27

During week 2 of my adventures in Jamaica, I was not in Kingston, as the schedule says. The staff was supposed to include 2 female staff and 1 male. Because of how dangerous Kingston is, they switched me out with a guy who was scheduled to be in Falmouth, an old shipping port. So I worked in Falmouth with a team that consisted of participants from 4 different churches from California, Minnesota, Ohio, and Arizona.

Ex-Rasta Leroy

During VBS at one of 3 the churches in the William Nibbs circuit we were serving with, there were around 100 kids. Vacation Bible School is generally pretty casual in Jamaica. Kids continue to join throughout the afternoon, coming in and out and joining classes that are not their age group, much to the confusion of our American participants that are trying to be somewhat organized. Parents, church members, curious neighbors and random strangers come to help out or just observe these foreigners spend time with the children in the community.

One such stranger, Leroy, entered the church grounds while the chaos of happy children and maybe frazzled Americans surrounded. In spite of us running around, trying to do what we needed to do to run this VBS, Leroy managed to have a conversation, however short, with almost everyone from our group there. I was included.

With wild dreadlocks, scraggly teeth, and an unshowered smell, he introduced himself as Rasta Leroy. I was cautious, and tempted to write him off as a creep asking for drug money or taking advantage of an opportunity to talk to a girl. He asked me if I was a Christian. I said yes. He asked about my tattoo. He asked if he could go to my church. I thought he was ignorant and explained that I go to church far away and said that if he went to America, he'd be welcome. I encouraged him to go to the church we were standing in. Then he said that he didn't have nice shoes and asked if they would let him in without nice shoes. I said that they should. He asked about churches' expectations, the Bible, love, and how it all fit. He asked very pointed questions.

As the night went on, he continued to ask such questions to each of us, seeing how we all answered.

By the end of the night, one of these conversations evolved from involving 2 people asking questions to 10 people standing in a circle, holding hands, praying with Leroy to commit his life to Christ.

We gave him the phone number of Reverend Nugent, the pastor we were working with, and assured him that he wouldn't kick him out if he didn't have nice shoes for church. He was still skeptical, and said he didn't want a pastor "like this" as he furrowed his brow and firmly crossed his arms closed. One of the women there said "don't worry, he's more like this" as she pulled out her camera that happened to have a picture of the friendly reverend with arms spread open wide.

The next day, with scraggly teeth in a mouth not forming questions but a smile, dreadlocks not wild, but shorn, and still smelly but now clean, I was greeted by not Rasta Leroy, but Leroy.

God taught and reminded me of a few things through that experience, but one of them is that He is the one that's worthy. We planned for a VBS during that time. We planned to minister to kids. God had His own plans. A stranger wandered in and, praise the Lord, we ministered to him without fully knowing it at first. Nothing we planned for involved Leroy. We can't take any credit. God gets all the glory.

Listening

Every night during this week, we had a worship service at one of the churches in the circuit that we worked with all week. One of these nights, I was holding two squirrely 4-year-old girls on my lap. They were wiggly and chattering away. Because the worship music drowned them out, I wasn't too strict with them, but every once in a while I'd have to whisper in their ears to settle down.

During one of the lively songs, I noticed they had been chattering for a little too long, and though with the loud music, I may have been the only one who could hear them, I leaned down to tell them to be quiet. Something stopped me. I paused and looked.

I looked down through two little heads to see the girls showing off their bracelettes they had made at our VBS earlier that day. They were the classic beaded salvation bracelettes.

Then I listened.

The chattering little 4-year-old voices I heard went through each bead, explaining what each color meant; our dirty black sin separates us from God, but Jesus shed His red blood for us to make us clean and white, so that we could grow close to Him like green plants, and be in heaven with Him on the golden streets.


WEEK 3: June 28-July 4

This particular week we were on the other side of the Jamaican mountains in Savannah-La-Mar (pronounced: "Sovvlommar"). There were participants from Utah, Indianna, Missouri, and North Carolina. We happened to have 8 staff that week, when normally there are 3 or 4, so we thought the week would be a breeze. Satan had other things in mind. The entire week involved flights being delayed for half a day, lost luggage (including bedding) for two days, bus drivers refusing to drive, a group leader's wife being put in a mental hospital right before they came, running out of food, miscommunication on many levels, getting yelled at by group leaders, bus drivers not showing up at all to pick people up to take to the airport, group leaders demanding to talk to our president and CEO, unrealistic expectations of participants, and other little stuff.

However, we were in CONSTANT prayer and God is the strongest.

The groups who had unrealistic expectations and did not handle things in a good way apologized profusely, learned a lot, and thanked us for a great week.

One of the groups had a leader who was very compassionate and supportive. She prayed for us and with us and worked with others to try and help them deal with anything uncomfortable during the week. She was constantly encouraging and building up.

The group whose flight was delayed for half a day got off the bus without any luggage and said, "Let's make lemonade. God is in charge." They continued that trusting, positive attitude the entire week, even when their luggage didn't show up for two more days and they almost missed their flight home because the bus driver didn't show up. They expressed that they were honored to be there, laughed the entire week, and were thankful and rejoicing in every little thing.

At the end of the week, we said goodbye to tear-streaked faces. God had worked in them and they were impacted. God worked through them and Jamaican kids were discipled and saved and the churches in Savannah La Mar were encouraged.

Two Red Balloons go By

One day at VBS, the main lesson was about kindness. One of our participants tried desperately to try and get around 100 kids to listen to her as she gave the lesson. After every little attention-getting trick you could think of to get the kids to calm down and pay attention, she pushed through, yelling into the mic over the energetic, noisy kids, not knowing if anyone heard the lesson.

Later, after VBS, when kids were still running around playing and yelling and such before getting shooed home, I was standing with a group of little girls. We'd given all the kids balloons and the girls were showing each other what they'd gotten. An ornery boy ran by with a safety pin and popped one girl's balloon. The girl stood empty-handed, in shock and disappointed. We went on a mission to find another balloon for her.

I asked if there were extra balloons, and found out they'd all been used and given away.

Some kids had multiple balloons, so I asked some of them if they would give her one. They all refused and went on playing.

We finally found a wrinkly, half deflated red balloon that had been rejected to the ground. We started trying to see if the kids who had 2 or 3 balloons would trade just one for it. They all took one look at it, made a disgusted face, then ran on.

The little girl looked up at me helplessly.


Ishaani, my little 9-year old friend who'd been on this balloon mission with us, looked down at her sole, big, shiny, red balloon and then at the wrinkly one in my hand. She grabbed it from me and placed the beautiful red balloon in the hands of the formerly balloonless girl.

The girl smiled.

Ishaani smiled as well and proceeded to initiate a game of catch with me and the red, wrinkly, reject balloon that insisted on falling straight to the ground when we tried to bounce it to each other. We laughed and had fun anyway.

Ishaani heard about kindness and practiced it that day.

WEEK 4: July 5-11

This past week was pretty much too good to be true. There were 3 of us staff leading a youth group of 39 participants from Iowa. Logistically, relationally, and spiritually, it was a nice, easy week.
Anthony and Alicia

The kids in the youth group fell in love with a little boy, Anthony, and his younger sister, Alicia, the first night they were here. The two kids have a baby sister and another one on the way. Their mom is single and 23. They are too poor to be fed as much as they need and their mom doesn't have much time for them. They hang out at the church often, the caretakers feed them most of the food that they get pretty much every day, and the church buys clothes for them.

Many of us got kind of a negative impression of their mom. Then, one of the last nights we were there, she attended a Bible study at the church. One of the group leaders talked with her, and later informed us at our nightly meeting of a kidney condition that Alicia has that requires regular treatment. There is not sufficient healthcare for many here in Jamaica, and when their family is poor as it is, Alicia's treatment takes most of their funds. A surgery would fix everything, but their mother talked about it as though it were not even an option.

As the group took in this information, they got excited. They resolved to talk with the Reverend Jackson of Jamaica and the pastor at their own church to try to raise money for Alicia's surgery. It was a wonderful moment.

The kids left today with tears in their eyes, sad to leave behind the making of memories that impacted them so much. They also left with a resolve to continue the mission at home.

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Tomorrow and through next week, the mission here continues. I am excited to greet my sister Leigh at the airport! She is arriving with the youth group from Topeka Bible Church, where she is an intern. I am so excited to not only see her after a few months apart and to do ministry with her, but also to spend her birthday with her! She turns 21 on July 12.

Please pray hard for this week. We have diverse groups coming, all of which had bumps in the road during planning for this trip. We had our own bumps in the road as well, and they are still getting smoothed out. Please pray that our staff will get along well and work together well; it is my first week without Brittney as the team leader. Pray for selflessness, flexibility, needs to be met, blessings to be poured out, safety, positive attitudes, trust, for our eyes to be on Him, victory, love strength and energy. Thank you so much. I love you guys and miss you! keep in touch and let me know how to pray for you!