That pretty much sums up our last week. Sunday we had the congregation party at Todd & Barbara Hollenbecks house. We had delicious food and a lot of fun with all the friends. Some played basketball or cricket, others played musical chairs. Later in the evening some of us started dancing. The Guyanese are very shy when it comes to dancing to American music. But Barbara put some on and after a while they warmed up to the idea and a lot of the Sisters joined in. Before we left, a couple of the Brothers were taking care of some stuff inside so the four of us, Barbara, and Michelle all sat outside and practiced some of the new songs. Was a really nice night. Except for those nasty mosquitoes.
Yesterday we got to meeting and were very excited to see the new Yearbooks! The audio download is great...but it's nice seeing all the pictures too:) About 10 minutes into meeting the power went out. It never came back on. Meeting continued as if nothing had happened. Once it was too dark to see everyone pulled out their flashlights. We took turns shining light on who ever was interpreting. (For future reference, Faith should not have been allowed to do this) I think having meeting with no power makes you appreciate it a lot more.
When we got home the power was still out. We all followed Faith into the house, since she was holding the flashlight. As Abi shut the front door behind her a huge spider ran across her hand. The rest of us were already upstairs and stayed upstairs after the loud scream that followed. She came running up the stairs as fast as possible. Attempts were made at getting the spider to leave and we pondered over the idea of killing it but the thing was so big that it could have easily fought back. Unfortunately, before we actually came up with a good plan of attack, it disappeared. Our front door is downstairs in Abis room. Which means the spider is still in her room, hiding.
This morning we woke up for service and Abi wasn't feeling too great. To make matters worse, the bat came back. He's been flying around all over downstairs and has tried to come upstairs but thankfully hasn't yet. Once again, Abis room is downstairs. And he's taken a liking to the darkness under her bed. We've tried to scare him out but he just circles around weaving in and out of doors and windows, past our heads, and then swoops down and under the bed yet again. One would think that a man eating spider and a bat both within 24 hours would be enough, but no. Once we came back from service this afternoon Abi decided to take a shower. Silly girl. Everyone knows nothing good comes from showering. A couple minutes after we hear the water turn on, I hear "Um...GUYS!" So we go down and guess whats hanging out in the shower? I kinda thought it would be a good sized frog or another spider. Nope. Wrong. It was a snake. Not a huge anaconda, but when you're in the shower a snake is a snake no matter how big or small. Abi took the broom and subtly scared him back up and over the wall. Hopefully he doesn't get any bright ideas and make his way back in.
On a different note, all of our studies are doing really good. Natalie is coming to Sundays regularly now. And Jems crazy Granny is just getting crazier. Today she escaped while we were there. Oops. I guess we should have shut the fence better when we went inside.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Update
Hello everyone! Hope your all good. We've been pretty busy here. Yesterday Ramon and Kali Budden from the New Amsterdam ASL group joined us in service. They just returned from visiting family in the states for 2 months. It was a really nice day working with them. They have been here for about 2 1/2 years and love it. At lunch Ramon went over some notes he has taken at past Gilead graduations. Very encouraging information! They went on all our studies with us and stopped to visit a few they hadn't seen in a long time. They also helped us find a couple of deaf ones in the area that we didn't have directions for. So now we have a few more studies to look forward to.
Last Tuesday when we were in Blackbush doing search we found a deaf woman that has never been contacted before! We were very excited. Its going to take a lot of work since the only signs she knows are ones her and her family have made up themselves. But with Jehovahs help I'm sure she will pick it up pretty fast:)
Faith is determined to destroy my feet. I don't know what it is about them but she can't make it through one whole day without stepping on them at least twice. She thinks that I planned this next experience as pay back. I didn't. But it's still kinda funny. Yesterday we were getting on a bus to come home and there were two guys sitting by each other with room for one more person. I have had my share of drunk friendly men so I made Faith get in first. As she got in they cleared a spot in between them both. So she sat there with a very drunk man to her right. He was chatty and asked for a tract. Which she didn't have, so I passed one back to her. It was the one on having a happy family. He told her his was a happy family and asked if she would want to be part of it. After asking repeatedly, Faith refused to tell him her name. Kali tried to help, but he kept going. He asked for a bible, even after telling us that the girls that were here before had already given him one. He wanted one from Faith. In the end it was decided that if he comes to meeting tomorrow Faith will give him a bible with "From: Faith" written in it. I doubt he will even remember once he sobers up. But it would be a funny experience if he did and later became a Brother. Imagine that on an assembly part!
This last week has been a little...annoying. The mosquitoes have been awful. Everyone in our village has been having fires and doing all they can to keep them away. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes don't realize that bug spray and smoke are supposed to keep them away. Our net covered beds have become our best friends. We are all covered in lovely bites. The other night we took a picture of all the dead ones we had swept up from the floor. It was pretty nasty. Today out in service it was really hot and the combo of heat and mosquitoes was not fun. Everyone probably thought we were insane because the whole time we were walking we were smacking each other and ourselves. But all the people we visited were having problems with them too, so it was a little comforting to know it wasn't just us lol. Apparently this is the worst it has been in years.
OH!! Today I got to hold a monkey. Abi and I had just left my bible study's house and saw a monkey tied up at her neighbors. I asked the woman there if we could take a picture since Abi hadn't seen one since she arrived. She had us come over and said we could hold him. His name is Jack. This is the second one named Jack that I've met. I guess that's a popular monkey name here. Anyways, this Jack was really sweet and still pretty small. He climbed all over our arms and kept laying like a baby. I wish I could have taken him with me. We got some good pictures. And then took a shower the second we got home:)
Tomorrow Todd and Barbara Hollenbeck are having a congregation party at their house after meeting. Everyone's bringing food, which will be delightful:) We somewhat jokingly said we'd make mac n' cheese and the Brothers and Sisters that heard got very excited about that. So that's what we are making! And rice crispy treats. Looking forward to being able to visit with the friends more. We also were told to bring our song books because we will be practicing some of the new songs. We are all very excited about this since usually at meeting we are following along with the old song DVDs and haven't been able to use the new book much.
3 weeks from tomorrow I will be home. Getting really excited to see my family but at the same time I am going to miss all the friends and bible studies I have here. The next couple weeks we have made plans with different friends for dinner. It's going to be hard to say goodbye!
Last Tuesday when we were in Blackbush doing search we found a deaf woman that has never been contacted before! We were very excited. Its going to take a lot of work since the only signs she knows are ones her and her family have made up themselves. But with Jehovahs help I'm sure she will pick it up pretty fast:)
Faith is determined to destroy my feet. I don't know what it is about them but she can't make it through one whole day without stepping on them at least twice. She thinks that I planned this next experience as pay back. I didn't. But it's still kinda funny. Yesterday we were getting on a bus to come home and there were two guys sitting by each other with room for one more person. I have had my share of drunk friendly men so I made Faith get in first. As she got in they cleared a spot in between them both. So she sat there with a very drunk man to her right. He was chatty and asked for a tract. Which she didn't have, so I passed one back to her. It was the one on having a happy family. He told her his was a happy family and asked if she would want to be part of it. After asking repeatedly, Faith refused to tell him her name. Kali tried to help, but he kept going. He asked for a bible, even after telling us that the girls that were here before had already given him one. He wanted one from Faith. In the end it was decided that if he comes to meeting tomorrow Faith will give him a bible with "From: Faith" written in it. I doubt he will even remember once he sobers up. But it would be a funny experience if he did and later became a Brother. Imagine that on an assembly part!
This last week has been a little...annoying. The mosquitoes have been awful. Everyone in our village has been having fires and doing all they can to keep them away. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes don't realize that bug spray and smoke are supposed to keep them away. Our net covered beds have become our best friends. We are all covered in lovely bites. The other night we took a picture of all the dead ones we had swept up from the floor. It was pretty nasty. Today out in service it was really hot and the combo of heat and mosquitoes was not fun. Everyone probably thought we were insane because the whole time we were walking we were smacking each other and ourselves. But all the people we visited were having problems with them too, so it was a little comforting to know it wasn't just us lol. Apparently this is the worst it has been in years.
OH!! Today I got to hold a monkey. Abi and I had just left my bible study's house and saw a monkey tied up at her neighbors. I asked the woman there if we could take a picture since Abi hadn't seen one since she arrived. She had us come over and said we could hold him. His name is Jack. This is the second one named Jack that I've met. I guess that's a popular monkey name here. Anyways, this Jack was really sweet and still pretty small. He climbed all over our arms and kept laying like a baby. I wish I could have taken him with me. We got some good pictures. And then took a shower the second we got home:)
Tomorrow Todd and Barbara Hollenbeck are having a congregation party at their house after meeting. Everyone's bringing food, which will be delightful:) We somewhat jokingly said we'd make mac n' cheese and the Brothers and Sisters that heard got very excited about that. So that's what we are making! And rice crispy treats. Looking forward to being able to visit with the friends more. We also were told to bring our song books because we will be practicing some of the new songs. We are all very excited about this since usually at meeting we are following along with the old song DVDs and haven't been able to use the new book much.
3 weeks from tomorrow I will be home. Getting really excited to see my family but at the same time I am going to miss all the friends and bible studies I have here. The next couple weeks we have made plans with different friends for dinner. It's going to be hard to say goodbye!
Friday, February 5, 2010
Abi's Here!
Monday morning we took off with Tom for Georgetown. We made a stop in Hopetown to see some friends. Chris and Larissa from California, Sam from England, and Micaiah from Ohio. We had lunch with them and hung out for a while so Tom could copy some DVDs from Micaiah. Then we headed to the branch. It was amazing! That night we were able to sit in on the Family Study of the Watchtower. Now I want to apply for Bethel:) The whole family there is super sweet and welcoming. Had dinner and then went to the guest room that was fully equipped with warm and clean water and AC. We both took advantage of the situation and got up a little earlier the next morning to take a second shower before leaving. Have never felt cleaner. Unfortunately, we had to leave:( But it's ok because we were leaving to get Abi. Once we got to the airport we pulled up and there she was, Tom let us out at the curb and we scared everyone there with our running and screaming. We were so excited to see her!!! There had been another Brother on her flight who was coming to visit some friends. We were all hugging and laughing and he just sat there looking somewhat uncomfortable lol. Then we found out that stopping to let people out at the curb is not ok at the airport here. Tom was pulled over and almost got a ticket. The cop tried to get Tom to offer him a bribe but Tom explained that as Jehovah's Witnesses we couldn't do that. The man ended up not giving him the ticket and took the February magazines. That was a close one! I'm pretty sure Jehovah had something to do with that.
Once we had Abi we went back to the branch to take an official tour. Bro. Hind explained the MEPS system to us and showed us how they make changes to the KM for the Caribbean edition which has minor differences to make more sense to the people in this area. For example, articles dealing with increasing your service time in the various seasons are worded differently since they don't really have seasons here. He also took a picture of the three of us before we left. He said it was payback for the pictures we took of him. All the Brothers and Sisters there have a really good sense of humor. We learned a lot about the branch. They have a water purification system for the building that makes the water safe to drink. They also have fancy dancy generators for when the electricity goes out. There are two dogs that live on the property and they are very spoiled lol. Bro. Hazel showed us the CB radio they use to communicate with the brothers that live deep in the interior. They use it to pass along the congregations reports and any other information. There are three couples that live there and a single Brother and Sister. The Hinds, the Hazels, the Sings, a Brother named Kojo and Sister Cross (who gave us the tour). There are also Brothers and Sisters that come in through out the week to help with different things.
Once we finished our tour we headed home. Toms wife, Michelle, stopped by to meet Abi and pick up some things Abi had brought for them. Once she was all situated we made roti and curry for dinner. The next day she had her first experience riding the buses and going to the market. We are so excited shes here and can't wait to show her all around:)
Hope everyone is doing good. Love and miss you all!
Once we had Abi we went back to the branch to take an official tour. Bro. Hind explained the MEPS system to us and showed us how they make changes to the KM for the Caribbean edition which has minor differences to make more sense to the people in this area. For example, articles dealing with increasing your service time in the various seasons are worded differently since they don't really have seasons here. He also took a picture of the three of us before we left. He said it was payback for the pictures we took of him. All the Brothers and Sisters there have a really good sense of humor. We learned a lot about the branch. They have a water purification system for the building that makes the water safe to drink. They also have fancy dancy generators for when the electricity goes out. There are two dogs that live on the property and they are very spoiled lol. Bro. Hazel showed us the CB radio they use to communicate with the brothers that live deep in the interior. They use it to pass along the congregations reports and any other information. There are three couples that live there and a single Brother and Sister. The Hinds, the Hazels, the Sings, a Brother named Kojo and Sister Cross (who gave us the tour). There are also Brothers and Sisters that come in through out the week to help with different things.
Once we finished our tour we headed home. Toms wife, Michelle, stopped by to meet Abi and pick up some things Abi had brought for them. Once she was all situated we made roti and curry for dinner. The next day she had her first experience riding the buses and going to the market. We are so excited shes here and can't wait to show her all around:)
Hope everyone is doing good. Love and miss you all!
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