SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2011
Well, today starts the 2011Guyana Mission. Actually it started yesterday at several airports across the country and more with a whimper than with a bang. Our Arkansas group, (Melinda Wylie, Melissa Graham and Mariah Graham), found as they arrived at the airport that their flight had been changed and instead of getting into Miami in mid afternoon, they arrived in the evening after spending more that 4 hours in the Atlanta airport. Instead of being one of the first to arrive they became one of the last.
The Ohio group, Jim Ladson, Linda Blackwell, Dorothy Harold, Shirley Trusky and Sheri Kommel, didn’t have such big delays but spent 3 hours at the rental car area trying to find a suitable van after finding that the one we originally rented was about half the size needed to carry their group, plus our New Hampshire member; Tom Jones, plus all their luggage. Tom had arrived on time at 2:30PM and spent a wonderful afternoon at the Ft. Lauderdale airport watching luggage go around on the carousels. Any way, they all arrived at the hotel at about 11:00PM just in time for Jim to turn around and pick up the last group from Nashville.
Valerie Wilson, Gigi Provencher (who by the way has never really forgiven me of forgetting her name in the last team announcement at the assembly last Sunday), Janet Cannon, Jeanette Williams, Joe Baumgardner, and Ray Hunt arrived as planned about 2.5 hours late at the Ft. Lauderdale airport.
After finding that a luggage cart cost $4.00 and would only hold a third of our luggage, we found one abandoned on the outside sidewalk (we really didn’t take it from an older lady who was even slower than we are), we camped out at the door and waited for Jim to show up.
He got there a little before mid-night and off we went to the hotel in Miami. After finding the road he had originally traveled was closed for repairs, he took us on a tour of one of the nicer areas in Miami (in other words he got lost) but we were rescued by the GPS on my phone.
We found a Wendy’s across from the hotel to get a little food. We ate quickly in the van, unloaded at the hotel and checked in at the hotel. We got a really good night’s sleep of about 5 hours and then met for the first time as an entire team met for breakfast and a team meeting at 8:00 AM.
The planned 30 minute meeting lasted about one and a half hours and put us just a tad behind schedule. We all brought our baggage down to the lobby and started loading it into the van so we could start unloading early at the airport.
Our hotel was the Hilton Garden Inn. Sounds expensive but after searching the entire area around the airport it was the cheapest we could find. This hotel has the most helpful and friendly staff we have had in all the years we have been coming to Latin America for mission work. The waitress (Denisha I think) was extremely helpful and could have charged us for full breakfasts but instead, with the approval of her boss I expect, only charged us with continental breakfasts. The hotel manager helped us by providing a conference room for our team meeting and insisted on having it cleaned. We argued that it needed no cleaning (only a few glasses and crumbs on the table) and we finally compromised on cleaning it together. They were extremely interested in our mission and complimentary of the work we are planning; wonderful folks who were touched by our “huddle-up” and prayer before breakfast (thanks for teaching us that Keith, Marlin and Brian).
Probably the worse part of the mission is dealing with the baggage. Each person brings two checked suitcases (one for personal items and one for team supplies, medicine and glasses that you team members back home have graciously supplied) a carry on bag with more supplied and personal items and a personal bag or purse again most likely filled with personal items and some supplies.. This totals 60 pieces of luggage weighing a total of about 1,500 lbs. This was loaded and unloaded a total of 6 time in 85 degree weather and high humidity. There is good and bad with everything. The good part the of luggage is the loss in weight (at least for me) and the bad part is sore backs and muscles.
No problems at the airport today. When I inquired how the people at check-in wanted to handle our team, the guy put us at the first of the line and started checking our team in. I know that down deep, the people in the back of the line who wanted throw bottles at us forgave us and understood that our intrusion in the line wasn’t really our fault.
We learned a few things. Valerie learned that even if you have only 2 or 3 ounces of liquid in a container marked 11 ounces, the security folks will still confiscate it. Dorothy learned that you can bring cheese through security with no problem but it it melts it becomes a dangerous substance. Joe learned this last year with his fruit packed in liquid. I won’t mention the maple syrup I tried to sneak through the security area.
We are now at 30,000 ft. or so above the Caribbean with many of our folks either asleep or watching Martin What’s-His-Name parade around as Big Momma. We are all safe and healthy and blessed to be a part of something bigger than what we could do by ourselves. God has blessed us with wonderful congregations that have been greatly supportive in both resources and prayer. We prayed for you today just as you have been praying for us. Thank you for allowing us the honor of representing our God in Guyana by your help.
The Traveling Part of the Team
PS; Got through immigration and customs without losing anyone. Now at the hotel and after a late small dinner, everyone is in bed and OK. Good night and God bless you all.
SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 2011
Its now almost 9:00PM and we have had the most restful Sunday I have experienced since I have been participating in the mission. Perhaps that is God’s way of telling us to hold on to or hats because we go into warp drive tomorrow. We will see.
Our day started at about 7:30 AM. I am guessing everyone was up at that time since breakfast was at 8:00 AM and we were to leave for the Claybrick congregation no later than 9:00AM. Everyone was on time! We didn’t get to tease anyone for being tardy. We had a breakfast of eggs, hash brown potatoes, fruit, biscuits & sausage gravy, toast and jelly, & plenty of juice, coffee and tea. As we finished drinking some of our juice, Steve told us the juice tasted “kind of funny” and he was having them bring some other juice. Everyone was happy to learn this but would have appreciated it about a half glass earlier. No problems were encountered with this due, I suspect, because of fervent prayer.
We left for Claybrick on time as well. It wasn’t quite as crowded as usual but still pretty tight. We had an average of 21 people in two small Toyota vans; one of which had air conditioning. It took us about an hour to get to Claybrick and during the drive we ran in and out of torrential downpours. As we neared the congregation the rain let up to a sprinkle. We didn’t see a rainbow appear in the heavens and there were no doves (just a few chickens) but it was a great way to arrive and kept us from getting drenched on the way in to the building. 
As we drove up, Boyo, the preacher we are now supporting, came out with a small umbrella and escorted some of the ladies in to the building. This was truly a homecoming. This is the congregation we served last year and with which we had built such wonderful relationships. There were hugs, laughter, tears and general chaos as people met after a year of being apart. Our new members were taken in like the family they are and everyone blended together in a mass of loving expression. 
Janet continues to be a kid’s magnet. We were on the bus with Sunil and his family. Their little boy just clung to her and they became fast friends. I don’t think we have anything to worry about in the kids’ area this year. You can see how the kids of the congregation are attracted to her
.
The congregation has done a lot of work on the building and grounds. New paint and even an extension to the building made possible by a gift of $100,000 Guyanese Dollars ($~$500.00 US). The buildings have been cleaned top to bottom and are really ready for the mission. 
We had a lesson and then Boyo asked us to lead the assembly. We sang some songs, shared the Lord’s supper, had a time of greeting and then Joe Baumgardner preached a wonderful sermon to start our series on the family of God. He talked about the encouragement the family gives each other and the support we all need and supply. He talked about our common hope and the love we show each other and the world. He spoke of the war we have with Satan each day and how we help each other to gain God’s help in being victorious. Tom Jones led our communion and Jim Ladson did the offering. Both had exceptionally appropriate scriptures, comments and prayers.
Every year things happen that are just special. Next door to the church there is a young couple that has been very active with the congregation. Terry and Shelly have been special to us as we have gotten to meet them and their two children, Cindy and Cinchy, attended every day of last year’s mission. Over the last two years, Terry and Shelly have had their share of problems and they had drifted away from the church to the point that they were just not attending at all. We were able to talk to then a some length about their spiritual condition at the time. The great news is that Terry is now attending regularly and is becoming active once again. We were able to visit with Shelly and believe she is also ready to come back and says she will be attending in the evenings. Please pray for this special young family and their children.
When we got back, we had a wonderful lunch and by that time everyone was ready to eat. We had some sort of egg dish, fish fingers made of coated (I never ask with what) fresh fish and then deep fried, fried chicken, fried potatoes, little three layered sandwiches with a filling I again didn’t ask about. Add lots of ice and soda and you have a feast! Then just about everyone went to their rooms for a short nap (about 3 hours on average). Some went for a swim.
This is not normal. Normal is spending three to four hours packing pills for the next team. Alvin, one of Steve’s staff and an elder in the Plaisance congregation here in Georgetown., did all the pill packing for us. If you think about it, this one man did the job of 20 in getting all the pills put in containers and labeling them. Either he is unbelievably good at this or we are unbelievably bad. Probably somewhere in the middle. At any rate, we were singing Alvin’s praises this afternoon (just before we fell asleep.
This evening we had sautéed trout, barbecue ribs (really good), mashed potatoes (particularly appreciated by Valerie), cooked vegetables with cabbage, green beans, carrots and some other stuff I didn’t recognize (didn’t ask). We even had dinner music & we could almost hear the instructions during the meetings. After dinner we had our orientation with Steve and then broke up into teams to discuss how we would organize tomorrow and then started to go back to the rooms. 
A really great first day in Guyana with a really great team. Each person did such a great job blending with the Guyanese; particularly our “newbies”; Melissa, Mariah, Valerie, and Sheri. As I am writing this, Sheri is consolidating the prayer lists from Louisville and Hermitage. She just told me that Toya Brown and some lady named Nita Hunt (sounds exotic) are praying at this and the next hour. I suspect the prayers of each of these fine ladies are powerful and effective. We love all of you who are praying. I certainly appreciate that exotic lady and if she weren’t already my wife, I’d propose.
I was going to proof read this before sending but thought you might have fun finding all the mistakes. Just don’t send a graded paper.
God bless each of you and keep you safe, healthy and above all joyful in your faith.
The traveling portion of our team
Monday, June 20, 2011
Just before I get started I want to apologize for all the typos and mistakes in these reports. Tom Norvel posted yesterday’s report and I glanced through it. Though I did some proofreading, I saw enough mistakes to wonder why I took the time. I am not much of a typist and the tireder I get the mistakier I get so I will apologize in advance for the rest of the week.
As we started to get ready for today’s mission, I noticed that Scotty Lee, Stefany Stepco, Melissa Pearson, Justin Burleson, Jerry Arnold, Rachael Stanton, Marilyn Sadler, Denny Koehler, Margie Miller and Greg Kommel were praying for our team. I wish I could mention all those who have dedicated themselves to this prayer vigil but there is not so much time. I will mention some from time to time. Again, my apologies for any names I may get wrolng (I am getting poor eyesight to go along with my poor hearing; ths means I can make almost any kind of mistake and have an excused).
This was our first day at the mission and what a day it was. We started with a breakfast of French toast, eggs, regular toast, sausage and the best preserves they could find…they said Smucker’s on the package. Maybe they didn’t look too hard. Everyone was on time and had time to relax a bit with each other. Steve arrived at about 10:00 & we had the morning meeting. Afterwards, we trucked all the medicines you folks so generously donated and guys from Operation Guyana and the hotel loaded the truck.
We loaded on to the vans and took off to the mission site. We had quite a bit of rain during the night and hit more on the way to the mission. It was just enough to push the humidity just past the melting stage. I didn’t think you could have that much humidity without rain.
When we arrived at the mission, we started planning the set-up; we actually started the night before but fine tuned as we arrived. The cleaning of the building and the addition of the kitchen really helped. We set up our team break area in this new kitchen, the children’s area in the building outside and the clinic, pharmacy, bible study area, and glasses area in the main building. Not as crowed as last year and much quieter.
The glasses area is new to this team and it really showed. It took twice as long to set it up as the other areas and much time to run it afterwards. This had nothing to do with people running it; the did a super job. This was just a learning curve that we had to deal with. It will go much better tomorrow thanks to the efforts of Tom Jones, Valerie Wilson, Mariah Graham and a host of others who pitched in as time permitted. Luckily, the Guyanese are very patient for the most part and just waited until we had things together.
After an hour and half of grueling set-up time, we made a big circle with the Guyanese brethren and our team. Looked a little lop sided with people from our team on one side of the circle and people from the Claybrick congregation on the other side so we mixed it up before we had a short instructional time and devotional. We sang our normal song after Boyo led us in prayer and then got to work.
Today was the first day of the mission and we normally expect a pretty slow day. That was not the case today. Because we started la bit late, we had a large number of people standing out in the sun and crowding in to the canopied area where Gigi Provencher was registering the folks. Not a riot but pretty chaotic. This put us behind for the rest of the day. Because people were trying to pick through the glasses, they got disorganized and thus took twice as long to locate the proper prescription. Reminded me of the Thanksgiving sale at Best Buy.
Just about every area was really pushed. That made it difficult to keep up with how much water people were consuming. We ask that each person drink about a 16 ounce bottle of water per hour. It’s the tropics and you lose water and dehydrate before you realize it. Once that happens, people start to get sick and sometimes are laid up for a couple of days. Because of your prayers, we have not had that problem. It also helps that we appoint a water Nazi to monitor drinking habits and harass those who are not drinking enough. I would never put anyone on the spot but Gigi has to be watched all the time.
The bible study area was busy as well. Joe Baumgardner, Sheri Kommel, Jeanette Williams, Jim Ladson (the area coordinator) and Boyo did a great job in teaching. We did have one man who immersed into Christ.
We finished up most of the clinic at about 5:30PM and finally wound up at the glasses area at about 6:30PM. We didn’t have the normal time for relaxation and pretty much went right in to arranging the area for the crusade and then starting the assembly.
Tom Jones led our singing tonight. This was the first time he has done that and did a pretty good job for his first attempt. We had a sermon on what the family of God is. The family is the same as the church. We tend to look at the church as a building, or organization and forget that God intended it to be like a family; supporting, assisting, encouraging and helping each other in every situation….just like an earthly family. It was such a stirring sermon that only 50% of the audience fell asleep.
I mentioned yesterday about Shelly and Terry. They were both there tonight and indicated they would continue to come this week. Shelly says she will be at the mission tomorrow and would like to talk about what has been going on in her life that has kept her away for this long period. Please pray for them.
Our drivers got us back at the hotel for supper at about 9:00PM. We had chicken, roast beef, creamed sweet potatoes, salad, a fried chicken wing appetizer and jellow and ice cream for dessert. Some of the luckier ones had a BLT; one of the best around!
It’s late and time for bed. I just went to the prayer list and am so thankful to see Grant Thornberry, Betty Jordan, Paul Hurdy, Toya Brown, Lisa Brian and Janice Carruth. How can we go wrong with these people praying. I woke up in the middle of the night last night and thought of the prayers that were being said. It gave me a sense of peace to know that so many people in so many places are praying for this mission. I’ll admit I didn’t get dressed to find out exactly who but was able to get back to sleep easily. I wish the same for each of you tonight.
As for the numbers:
Total patients served: 144
Eye Glasses: 59
Medical: 85
Bible Studies: 99
Baptisms: 1
VBS: 44
Evening Assembly: ~50 (I estimated 75 but no one would support me)
The traveling part of the team
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
As we start today, we are dealing with two situations that need your prayers. I received a call early this morning from James Blackwell that his mother; Linda’s mother-in-law had passed away last evening. James was on his way back from St. Louis at the time. Please pray for James, Linda and that family.
Also, Melinda Wylie had a migraine headache last night and is still not feeling well. She will be staying back at the hotel today to get refreshed so she can be at the clinic for the really heavy part of the mission. We will keep in touch with her and Steve is close so he also can keep watch. Please lift up Melinda in your prayers today that she will get over this quickly and completely.
Breakfast today was again very good. We had eggs, bacon, toast, some more of that special Smucker’s jelly, fruit juice, fruit, and cereal and a pineapple given us by Terry and Shelly. We all met for our morning briefing and had a devotional by Tom Jones. The trip to the mission site was pretty normal except we stopped briefly to drop something of to Seil’s son, Micky.
Set up was pretty easy this morning. We left everything pretty well set up at the mission site last evening. We have a local man staying all night at the clinic to guard the equipment and medicine. We were ready to go before 12:30.
We had a real treat today. The local elementary school asked us to teach a bible class at one of their classes. Can you imagine? Sunil took Linda Blackwell and Janet Cannon to the school along with several young girls from the congregation. They took enough toys for about 40 kids and their puppets. We arrived and on the way in youngsters started to come up and greet us. The crowd grew as we started heading toward the class room and by the time we were almost there, we had a mob. All well behaved but excited.
Linda and Janet did just a great job of teaching the class with songs, verses and the puppets. The children were responsive and VERY polite and well behaved; no interruptions, no rowdiness, no running around…just very good kids. When we went in to the classroom, we found probably 100+ kids all over the place. There were two and three at some of he desks and kids in the doorways and peaking though windows. Needless to say, the toys would not have started to supply all those kids. The following is a collage of pictures of the visit.
Janet came by later after we returned to the mission site and said that we consider ourselves to be the land of the free but we are not free to practice our Christianity in schools and public places.
One of the improvements we made this year was some changes in the teaching material. Tom Norvel gave us some material he had run across and gave it to us to use. I discovered a typo on the last page of this material. I corrected it in the laminated version but had already sent the study material to the team. The typo was on the word “opportunities”. It was spelled “poopertunities”. If you find some of our team members encouraging you to take advantage of your “poopertunity”, you’ll know where it came from. We may submit this to the Webster’s staff for inclusion in the next publication.
We had a busy day and without Melinda it was even busier. The local congregation has bee helping us each day with crowd control, organization and anything else we need. They have pretty much taken over the registration responsibility and Gigi has been helping with the glasses area. She came up with an idea to better organize the glasses. This idea has really improved our service to the Guyanese. It allows us to organize and find glasses more easily and has really made the entire process much quicker.
SATISFIED CUSTOMER
We had a good number at the meeting tonight. Tom Jones led singing and is getting better and better. Joe Baumgardner preached on the extraordinary family of God. He stressed our special relationship with God and compared it to two examples of extraordinary earthly families concluding that the best us humans have to offer is nothing in comparison our Heavenly Father. He talked about being a family unit regardless of our nationality or location.
Terry and Shelly were again at the meeting. They say that they want come back to the church. Please pray for them.
The kids’ area during the day and at the VBS was really special. These kids are just drawn to Janet and Linda. They do such a great job and the kids just love everything they get to do.
Jeanette Williams started her ladies class this evening. Boyo says the ladies still talk about her class last year.
Melinda was back with us at supper this evening. She is feeling much better and should be 100% when we leave for the clinic tomorrow. We will be leaving a little later because the Demerarra River bridge will be open to sea traffic from 9:30 AM till 11:30AM.
The numbers for today are:
Total at the mission: 196
Medical: 124
Glasses: 69
Bible Studies: 133
Children’s area: 47
Ladies Class: 10
Evening Meeting: 55
VBS: 50
I made a mistake on yesterday’s totals. There were 100 bible studies.
What do a dental appointment, eye patch, NFL playing cards, cane, head lice and Steve DeLoach have in common? Well, you’ll have to come to Guyana with us next year to find out. Just this story will make it worth your time.
The traveling part of our team
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Before I get into the report, I want you to know that Melida Wylie is much better today. She had a day’s rest and she was back to her normal 110% and I don’t believe in anything over 100%; she just proves me wrong.
Boyo and Camille’s son Mark was taken to the emergency room from his work yesterday. We got a taxi to get Camille to the hospital while Boyo had already gone in public transportation. They called after a while and said that the doctor who looked after Mark was Cuban and they could not understand anything he said. The pharmacist that filled his prescription told them the problem. We prayed with the local congregation while they were going through all this. Mark at home and much better today.
Now, please pray for Jim Ladson. Jim had a bout of low blood pressure this morning accompanied by dizziness and a light headed feeling. Luckily we have three fine nurses here; Melinda, Melissa and Dorothy. According to our nurses, when you take blood pressure medicine in this climate with it’s heat and humidity, you have a tendency to run lower blood pressure because of water loss and less volume in the blood. We gave him some food and a Pepsi (first time I have heard anything good health-wise about a soft drink) and his blood pressure came back up. We sent him back to the hotel with Dorothy Harold and he spent the afternoon laying down and napping. His blood pressure came back up a little higher than normal but he is feeling much better and looks better as well. Again; please pray for Jim and the rest of the team. It seems we must be doing something right because Satan is really working on us right now.
I know I sound a lot like a travel food channel but their breakfasts here are really good. Today was Fruit (of course) ham, sausage, eggs, toast, some more Smuckers (it’s got to be good) and fried bread fruit. This treat came from Terry and Shelly. We brought it back to the hotel and they fixed it for us. Everyone loved it. Tasted a lot like chicken (really more like potatoes).
We had our normal briefing this morning. Steve does a great job in assuring we are prepare and informed. He also takes great pains to make sure we know how to stay safe and healthy. He amazingly compassionate and understanding when someone is a little late for our meetings or for the departure to go to the clinic (yeah….right!).
Another surprise was the appearance of a minister we have worked with many times. Brother Desmond dropped by as he had business to attend to in Georgetown. He was the minister at Neimes, he started the congregation at Canal 2, Claybrick (where we are now) and is now working with a congregation on the east coast. It was really great to see him; has had a great influence in the area we are working.
As mentioned yesterday, we left later than usual because the bridge was open to ocean going vessels. That got us in a little late to the mission. We made up most of the time because we have reduced the set-up time from over an hour to about 20 minutes. We really weren’t all that much later that the last two days. Tomorrow the bridge is opening a bit later. Instead of leaving late we will be leaving early. We will pull out at 9:30AM for the clinic. That means we will arrive early but we will also close a little early because we don’t want to wear out the team. This will give us a good time to relax, visit with the locals and enjoy their fellowship. It will be great just to have some quality time with them and not be hurried with trying to get everyone tended to.
We had one baptism today. A young lady studied with Jeanette Williams and Joe Baumgardner and decided to follow our Lord. She was immersed and was really happy. She said to Jeanette that this was easier than she expected.
Mariah Graham worked the pharmacy today. She wanted to have that experience and helped Shirley Trusky out. That was really good because Shirley has been working really hard mostly by herself in the pharmacy and this gave her some relief. You saw the pictures of the medicine we brought. We have gone through a lot of it already. We had run short on children’s vitamins. Steve looked locally but the best cost he could find was about $5.00 per 100 tablets. We did not have that much so we dicided to just go ahead as we had and as the Doctor directed. This morning Steve came in carrying two huge bags of children’s vitamins. Seems the last team had an over abundance and we were able to use them. What a blessing; thank you God; thanks to all who have been praying.
Mariah and her mom, Melissa
Speaking of the prayers, we are still looking daily at the prayer sheets. We started the 24 hour prayer vigil in our second trip to Nicaragua in 2003. Benjamin Kirven, an associate minister at 38th Street congregation in Canton (now the Northwest congregation) posted a list for members to sign to cover our mission that year with prayer. The list filled quickly and that year started the run of missions in which we have had no serious injuries or illnesses. For sure we have had instances where someone had to sit out a day for a minor injury or illness, but nothing so serious that it delayed or affected the mission to any great extent. Quite a coincidence don’t you think? I guess the older I get the less I believe in coincidences. Benjamin used to call them “Godincidences”. Your prayers are amazingly effective and we so dearly appreciate them.
The team has now come really come together. They watch after one another, encourage each other, help out anywhere they are asked and for the most part are drinking water as they have been instructed. We pray together and have really bonded. Melissa, Mariah, Sheri, and Valerie have been such a great help. They work as if they have been doing this for years and they are contributing as much to the team as anyone else. You can be proud of each of them; I don’t know what we would have done without them. The experienced members have taken them under their wings in the initial part of the mission and made sure they had what they needed. As a matter of face, Mariah and Valerie worked the glasses by themselves from the start. Gigi has done a really thorough job of teaching he locals the registration and now the locals run it by themselves so we can use Gigi in the glasses area. You may be surprised to know that Gigi can really do a great job of straightening glasses frames so they will fit.
Tonight at the meeting Tom Jones led singing again. Tom does a really great job in pitching the songs so they are not too low and is progressing with his leading nicely with the help of Boyo. Great to see these two men working together. We had a lesson on the purpose of the Family. As said earlier, the church is God’s family. We would be well served to call the church Gods family about 99% of the time and the church the other 1 %. Not because the church is a bad term but we have made “church” synonymous with some stilted organization, group or even a building. God intended us to be family with the same characteristics we see in good earthly families.
When we arrived this evening we had some room changes this evening because one of our team was experiencing some kind of stings or bites in her room. They could not find the source so we switched them with some who had not experienced any such problem. We’ll see how this works out.
We also celebrated Valerie Wilson’s birthday. She is 29 this year. We had a card and a cake and just were able to get away from the stress of the day in celebrating with her. She deserves a great birthday.
All for now. I hope nothing we have relayed detracts from your view of the mission. It has not affected our work or focus at all. We are determined that in this mission God will be glorified. If you haven’t figured out yesterday’s riddle, we do hope you will join us next year.
May God bless us all with many more opportunities to serve Him and glorify His name.
The traveling part of the team
PS; Dinner was great too with spaghetti and meatballs, fish, potatoes, steamed vegetables and especially the BLT.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
What a great day today. Melinda is still perking at about 110%, Jim is feeling better and as of this evening he is back to his normal self, we had a wonderful day at the clinic and a great assembly and reunion at this evening’s gospel meeting. More about these later but the numbers for the last two days are:
Got a note from Keith Pugh today indicating he has gained 4 pounds since reading about the meals here. Well, today for breakfast we had biscuits and sausage gravy, bacon, eggs, fruit, more fruit from Terry and Shelly (these a tiny bananas they cal figs), toast, Smucker’s (“It’s got to be good”) jelly, coffee, and tea. Guess they knew it would be a long day.
We had a long discussion about the challenges we have had this week. Unusual for the missions we have had but not insurmountable. We believe Satan has been very active with us and has really tried to discourage. Today we spent a lot of time in prayer for protection and perseverance in our work. When we arrived we had another devotional led by Joe Baumgardner. He sang a song he had written and everyone loved it. Sheri Kommel had selected a scripture. She had trouble reading it (emotional) and Janet Cannon read it for her. We talked about challenges, sang our song and got to work.
During the day 5 souls decided to put on Jesus in baptism. What a blessing. In the evening two more gave their lives to Jesus. One of these was an 83 year old man named Ahju (Spelling is probably not right). Ahju was at the congregation last year when we were there and was a really sweet spirit. He sang to Tiffany Cannon and several more; just opened his mouth and out came this lovely voice. Since last summer he has been spending more and more time with the congregation and tonight he gave his life to Jesus. His conversion is a real study in the power of family. The family at Claybrick has taken him in, loved him and accepted him and been patient with him in so many ways. Now he has come to Christ. He did much of the clean-up of the building and told us he prayed for strength to get it all done. Please meet your new bothers and sisters in Christ:
Valerie mentioned that we are quickly running out of the glasses you donated. It has been a challenge in the eye glasses area all week but here at the end we have it pretty well figured out. That area did a great job in keeping up today and also in training some of the locals folks how to run it. As the glasses started to run out the style selection became more limited. We now have some Sally Jesse Rafael look-a-likes in the community and perhaps a few John Travolta imitators. Anyway, at least for a while the 70’s are back in Guyana.
Sunil and his wife celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary today. Mariah Graham made a card by hand. She sketched and colored the Claybrick building even including the Medical Mission sign. She did such a great job; she is quite an artist. She got everyone on the team to sign the card and then she presented it to Sunil. He was really shocked and I saw him quietly reading all the well wishes from the team. He is a strong Christian at the Lamaha Gardens congregation and has been a driver for Operation Guyana just about the entire time I have been coming.
Sunil and his partner Seil always do a great job navigating Georgetown and we feel completely safe though Seil has the talent of leaving no pothole un touched. He asked be how many bumps he hit on the way back to the hotel. I told him I would have to count the bruises on my rear end.
The team is really blending with the local congregation. It’s just like the family should be. I noticed that Melinda Wylie was looking at a little girl who had a rash this evening just after we had the immersions. I guess you really never stop being a nurse. Below are some of the pictures of our folks with the local brethren.
This evening Tom led singing again and Joe Baumgardner had the lesson. He talked about the family’s job of bring others into the family and the influence we have around us. He talked about how we can help new Christians grow and enjoy the same things we enjoy in our Christian walk. He talked about the acceptance we must have for babes in Christ and that we must replace condemnation with love. After the sermon, Boyo had all those present who had put on Christ that day come to the front and included the lady who was restored. He then asked that everyone in the congregation come and welcome them into the family there. It was really touching to see everyone embrace and welcome the new Christians.
We had some visitors to the family tonight. Brother Desmond Zephyr and Whitfield Collin and his family were with us this evening. Desmond actually established the congregation at Claybrick some years ago and was the preacher at Neimes up until two years ago. Whitfield is the preacher at Plaisance. Plaisance is near the hotel where we stay. I have worked with both these gentlemen in years past and they are really hard workers for our Lord.
Supper tonight was beef tips, braised chicken (I think) potatoes, pumpkin soup, vegetables, rolls and especially a great BLT. Tomorrow will be a tough day. It will be our last and in the evening we will be saying goodbye to some great Christian friends. We will especially need your prayers tomorrow.
By the way; both the Hermitage Church in Hermitage, Tennessee and Northwest Church in Canton, Ohio have links to all the team reports. You can send these out as you see fit. The links are:
nwcantoncoc.org/
hccfamily.com/
The traveling part of the team
Friday, June 24, 2011
It is about 10:30PM here in Guyana, dinner has been served, the after-dinner talk is over and there are four of us left in the dining room doing various computer or organizational things. The mission for this year is now history and I think everyone is a little overwhelmed and I know everyone is washed out. I will start this but won’t finish it until tomorrow. This will be the last report for this year and it always takes the most time just because of having to think over the week and what developed as the overall theme of the mission. I guess I am only starting the report to show my heart was in the right place but my mind is about 30 miles away and across the river.
I suppose a good theme for this mission would be “Standing Together”. I thought I might add “Against Satan” but in reality it should simply be “Standing Together”. It’s not that we had so many or so severe issues come up but in the beginning of the week it certainly seemed that was. With a team of 15, there is not so much latitude to adjust to fill overly worked areas or for any absences that come up. But whenever these things happened , the local brethren stepped up and offered their help so we could fill the gaps. All the team members from the US were willing and able to be flexible in what they did and thus we had the resources God provided day by day through His care and your prayers. What we have wanted and prayed for is that God would provide our needs and make the mission what He wanted it to be. Whatever the issue, God has provided what we needed and has taken care of those who were ill including Boyo and Camille’s son, Mark who was taken to the hospital from his work on Tuesday (he is OK now). The congregation and our team have stood together as one to face all the illnesses, concerns and distractions. This is a testimony to the power of the prayers you have so faithfully offered each hour of each day.
This what the Family of God does. We stand together, even through differences we may have, to face whatever the world and Satan can throw against us. In this setting, with a singular task to show Jesus to a community that does not know Him, it is simpler than in a congregation that meets day in and day out dealing with so many issues. But should it be? Shouldn’t we instead, in our home congregations, grasp that singular, simple objective of showing Jesus to a world that doesn’t know Him and put our petty differences behind?
In our evening “crusade” (an old term but I still like it) we have been preaching about the Family of God. We have talked about what the family is, the extraordinary nature of the family, the purpose of the family, how the family interacts with the world and the attributes of the family. As I have studied in the weeks before the mission and in listening to Joe’s lessons, I have drawn the conclusion that we should use the term “Family” 99% of the time and “church” the other 1% of the time. The two are interchangeable but “Church” has come to be equated with a business-like organization or a closed society separated from the rest of the world, or even a building. God describes it as a family; calls us sons, heirs, co-heirs of Christ, His household, His family.
Now this is what you get for a report when I’ve had a little sleep. I suspect next year you will work with the members of the team to insist I get these out every day before I go to bed.
You’ll see the numbers a little later but there are now just a little less that two times as many Christians who will attend this congregation as there were a week ago. That means an exponentially larger load on Boyo and Camille as there was a week ago and they have just started heir full time work. The great thing is that God has supplied us with a man that is well respected by his peers here in Guyana, his congregation and the local community. Boyo and Camille will be really busy over the next months in keeping up with these new babies. We have been stressing the need for all the men of the congregation to help in the critical task of helping he young in Christ mature. What is it that Tom Norvel has been teaching? God is always doing something good. Well, He has certainly proven that to us this week.
Having introduced the congregation as being about 20 in number, most of these good Christians have helped out in the mission at one time or another and many have taken off work this week to help all during the mission.
The day started a little slowly. We didn’t have to leave early this morning but I believe there was a little malaise because of this being the last day of the work. I think that many of us were dreading the good byes that were coming later. Tom Norvel wrote a note telling us he would be praying for us especially remembering this. I shared his note with the team.
Keith, I really don’t remember what we had for breakfast but know it was really good. I don’t remember dinner either except that the BLT was wonderful.
I have enclosed a few pictures of our transportation. Actually, the vans now have air conditioning so the trip to and from the mission is a little more comfortable.
Everyone pitched in and got the mission going on time. We had our normal get together with the local congregation but for the last two days we made a change. We would normally have a short devotional at the hotel but since the local congregation is such an integral part of the team, we started having that devotional with them. Jim Ladson had the devotional on Friday and this was especially meaningful because everyone had missed him and had been praying for him the last two days. He is back to his old self helping others, straightening up after a particularly messy team, encouraging those around him with his unique spirit.
Another change we made was to take the prayer sheets out to the mission site. We explained the sheets to the local brethren and also to all the folks at the crusade on Friday night. We asked them to get to know all of you by looking at the list and praying for those folks that were on this list. I noticed many of the locals and some visitors looking at this list all during the day and evening. We left the lists with the congregation so they could remember the names of the people that had covered the mission in prayer.
By 1:00PM we had a line of people waiting to be baptized in the Christ. They had heard who Jesus was and how much God loved them. They made this decision and we celebrated with them. The team understands that we are not there to baptize but to share the Great News. But it is wonderful to us when someone gives their lives to Christ. One man who was immersed into Christ yesterday brought all his children to the mission to learn about Jesus and his two sons and two daughters all gave their lives to Christ. Some of the children and grand children of the congregation gave their lives to Christ. Many of those who came this week were Hindu’s. Almost all of those who came are from the neighborhood around the church and this will make it handy for Boyo, Camille and the others in the congregation to visit and help them mature. These are your new brothers and sisters in Christ:
One brother who gave himself to Christ this week came in to visit today. He was in a terrible accident not too long ago and was not expected to live. He is now permanently disabled but came to the cklinic and is glad he did. His name is Alexander and can use your prayers.
Janet and Linda have done just a great job in the children’s area. These kids will never forget Miss Janet and Miss Linda. The things they have learned during this mission will make the medical missions (or whatever they will be) and the personal work by the local congregation that take place in 10 to 15 years more productive in reaching he lost.
An area we have not talked about too much is the medical area. Dorothy Harold, Melinda Wylie and Melissa Graham have done a wonderful job in taking care of the Guyanese and our team. They have been steadily seeing patients and have handled all that came to the mission even when they were short handed.
After the mission we had to take down all the things we had set up at the beginning. This is pretty hot and tedious work. Afterwards we take it easy until we are ready for the crusade.
Tonight a local man led singing to give Tom a break. We had a lesson on the attributes of the family. The children came in and sang a few songs and then Linda, Janet, and some of the others who have worked with the team passed out glow sticks to everyone in the congregation and to all the children. We read a scripture about being the light of the world and related what Linda had said about last year; when the glow sticks were passed out to the children on the last evening, children from all over started coming to the mission-they saw the light. Boyo and Sunil turned out the lights and we were all amazed at the beauty of the sight. Then the children sang “This Little Light of Mine” with the whole congregation joining in. The building shook with the sound of all those voices and I know it made an impression for those within earshot (maybe out to Venezuela).
We were presented with a lovely basket from the congregation. This is from them to all the congregations. I was going to cut it into five pieces and send a piece to each congregation but thought that wouldn’t do much for the appearance so I will get a picture of it and get it out. If you want to see the basket in person, you will just have to visit the Hermitage congregation to see it in person. If you mention the team and visit within the next two months we will DOUBLE the offer and let you hold it as well (you have to wear gloves).
The last act of the evening last night was another immersion into Christ. A young lady wanted to give her life to Jesus. Under a sky filled with stars and under the Southern Cross, we celebrated her new life. I do not have a photo of this one but will have it in the final presentation.
The parting was more joyous than sad last night. For sure, there were tears but since we now have hope to return in the future, it was more like an “until next time” than a “good-bye”.
After we arrived at the hotel and had dinner last night, I was presented with a special gift:
I won’t go into details (just wanted to eased your mind) but it had to do with counting my bruises from the trip from the mission the night before. The only reason I am mentioning it was that I wanted to take the “poopertunity” to mention a product that I had never heard of; “Butt Aid”. The team challenged me to use these two terms in the same sentence.
As for the week’s numbers:
Again; thank you all so much for supporting this mission with your prayers and funds. You would be proud of the folks you sent here to do God’s work. They have truly let everyone see Jesus in what they have done.
May God bless us all with opportunities to serve and glorify Him; filling us all with His Holy Spirit to grant us the peace and joy that comes from giving our lives to Jesus.
Please pray for David. David works here at the hotel and told us today that he was baptized at the Plaisance congregation when we were here 6 or so years ago. His wife did not agree with his decision then and still does not agree. She has made his walk very difficult. She is a Seventh Day Adventist but not very faithful. Plese pray for him and his wife that they may become unified in their faith.
The traveling part of the team;