After Westgate Hills

It's been a challenging week in Montego Bay, Jamaica. This week I worked with the Westgate Hills Baptist Church and two different groups. One was a Presbyterian Church from Georgia and one was a non-denominational church from Connecticut. The two groups didn't unite during the week. One was young and eccentric, the other group was mature and reserved. Things just didn't come together the way I pictured they could. The week had a lot of potential and our teams just didn't seem to connect with eachother or the local community in the ways I expected them to. The host pastor, Reverend Dr. Heckford Sharpe, seemed offended by the fact that our teams didn't have money to contribute towards the construction work at the church. There seemed to be little effort from Reverend Sharpe to create genuine relationships in order to establish a long term partnership between his church and our groups. On the flip side, a number of good things came out of the week. One of our team members came to Christ during one of our three successful youth services in the evenings. We had a better turnout each evening during the youth services, and a number of young people continued to respond to the altar call and step up to the challenge of making a difference in their community. We got quite a bit of work done tearing up a stage in the old school house and preparing a few desks for the new school that will start this fall at the church. We also were able to get some work done flashing a wall and preparing more work for the church. Many of the young people on the team were stretched. Overall, even though the week fell short of my expectations, I learned from the mistakes I made, and i'm looking forward to my next trip. That trip will be with the Staceyville circuit: Rhodenhall, Staceyville, and Coley Baptist Churches. The circuit is overseen by Rita Ebanks, but I've been working with Deacon Ricardo Ross. Ricardo is fantastic, and he's a teacher at the highschool where we'll be staying. The team is from Little Rock, Arkansas, and they seem ready to serve. Mike Cavallo, their 25 year old youth pastor, is their leader, along with Kim, his assistant. They are scheduled to arrive at 1pm, about two hours from now. I currently sit at Toby's resort after another wonderful breakfast of french toast, bacon and orange juice. This will be one of my final days in MoBay this summer, as i'm preparing to go south to Kellits and then farther south to Old Harbor for my final week. I'm excited for what God has in store for these last couple weeks as things wind down for me in Jamaica. I'll post again after this week. Here's to another great week!