After Old Harbour (8/6/09)
The past six days have been very successful. From the standpoint of a Praying Pelican Mission trip, I’ve seen everything happen the way it should. Having three small groups come together, the teams bonded well and delivered effective ministry to the town of Old Harbour Bay. This week I worked with a group of 8 people from Lester Park UMC in Duluth, a group of 4 from Mercy Seat Church in Minneapolis and two college guys from Pellia, IA (“Sheep of His Pasture Church”).
During the week the team facilitated a VBS and we saw about 50 children come through the 4 day program. We also painted three homes in the community of Old Harbour Bay. We painted the home of Ms. Nuna, a church member of the Old Harbour Bay Baptist Church (our host and partner for the week), on Monday and finished Tuesday. Many of our team members connected with the elderly lady who has a fantastic attitude and is so grateful for everything God’s blessed her with. We also painted the home of “Weezy” and Lenford. Weezy is the sister of Antionette, the church secretary, and she is not a believer, neither is her boyfriend Lenford. Again, our team was able to connect with the both of them and provide them with a great example of service to God and others. Thirdly, we painted the home of another elderly church member, Ms. Brown. To show her appreciation, she gave our team a watermelon that we cut up and ate for breakfast this morning.
God sure has done a lot this summer. I’m sure I’ll take time soon to debrief my summer of ministry and leadership with PPM. This afternoon I sit at Rooms On The Beach in Ocho Rios. Brian Zeschke (my assistant trip leader this week) and I debriefed our week and we enjoyed hanging out with Grant and his staff. Our team has been enjoying the town and spending time buying souvenirs and shopping. This evening we’ll gather at the Hibiscus Lodge for our debriefing and final supper. Tomorrow the teams leave, except for Lester Park, who we’ll drop at a hotel cause they fly out on Saturday. I will drive to Montego Bay with Brian and wrap up last minute operations stuff, including a challenging meeting with one of our host pastors here in Jamaica who we’ve had issues with. I’m looking forward to returning home to Emily and having some time off. But I also can’t wait to begin more work on Jamaica stuff this fall and doing some work recruiting teams for trips. Until next time…
It seems that almost everyone in the group has "friended" on Facebook since arriving back in the states, and we are talking about next year! We miss you guys and all our new friends at Old Harbour Bay.
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