Travel home and my final thoughts

Today we are headed home. It was for sure a bitter sweet moment. Just as I had suspected (and made mention of in one of my earlier posts) when the time came to leave, it didn't feel like we had been there long at all. Sure, throughout the week when you are trying to get comfortable enough to sleep on your air mattress, while sweat beads up and rolls down your face, it's hard to not think to yourself, "I can't wait to get home to my bed and air conditioning". But as the time came to load the bus, although we we certainly ready to see our family and friends back home and enjoy our creature comforts, there was also a part that was going to miss being here.

All of us, State line and Liberty folks loaded the bus. We were all headed to the same initial place, Port Lucaya. For State Line we were just hanging out at the port until 12:30 so that people could do some souvanir shopping and browsing until it was time to get to the airport. For Liberty, they were also going to hang out for a while and then they were headed to do some snorkeling because they weren't leaving until tomorrow. 

When we arrived at Port Lucaya Jimmy addressed the group to inform everyone of the days plan.

Unfortunately, one of the announcements that Jimmy had to make was that the snorkeling trip for Liberty had been canceled due to rough seas. We had been dealing with a tropical depression off the coast of Florida that was sending some rain our way. Unfortunately it appeared that it was also causing the seas to be a bit to rough. Ill have to say that the folks from Liberty took it well. Their new plan was to hang out in Port Lucaya for the day. 

 The kids had a good time at the small shops 

 Myself, Adrienne and Noah went off on our own and checked out the marina and a few shops

 Once in a while we would cross paths with the other groups

 There were plenty of these guys running around

 I thought the color contrasts on some of the building and their decorations was cool

 

Hey, does anyone know where I can find a payphone?

(top) Adrienne was checking out some clothes at a local shop.....

(bottom) and Noah was thoroughly enjoying it. lol

 Noah spotted this funny shirt on the wall in one of the shops. 

 Maggie donning her new feather earings

 

Noah making an old school phone call

 Several of us stopped and had lunch at Zorba's.

 It was  Greek restaurant

 I had one of my favorite dishes when I was in Paru, Chicken and fries. Its great, when you look at the menu it's so simple, it says 1/4 chicken and fries or 1/2 chicken and fries lol. I went for the 1/2. In Peru you could get a whole chicken and fries as well, but that was not an option here. It only comes one way, fried. And it was delicious.

 Adrienne ate as if it was the last time she would see food, lol. She ordered coconut french toast, blueberry pancakes an bacon. I will say, she only asked for a single side order blueberry pancake, but they brought her a whole order. 

 Noah elected for the pizza which he said was awesome

Adrienne went to get a braid put in her hair. So while she did that I took some more pictures. They had some really pretty flowers.

 Adies braid

We loaded the bus and were on our way to the airport at 12:30.

 When we got to the airport it took a while to get all the tickets processed and then make our way through immigration and security. We were at our gate about thirty minutes before our boarding time, so we did good. Well, I should say Michelle and Adrienne did good because they dealt with the check in counter. 

 Not exactly the biggest airport I've ever been in. Not the smallest, but it certainly wasn't huge.

 Apparently it turned out that the girl to Brandon's left was terrified of flying. He said she started crying uncontrollably about thirty minutes into the flight lol.

 The A/C makes it look like the plane is on fire lol

So there its is. We are home now and already missing the kids for Sea Grape. 

On the way back I found myself thinking a lot about mission work. Thinks like who does it, why they do it and where they do it. I know that typically, or at least from what little I have done and seen, mission work seems to mostly be done in places that are what we would consider poor or desolate. Of course I understand this but this trip to Sea Grape made me question some things. The main thing was, Who missions to the wealthy? 

See, I understand and agree that missions need to happen in the poorest of places. Sometimes these people know OF God, but they don't know about God and what he has done for us. Some may have never even seen a Bible before. However, a lot of poor places DO know about Jesus. You see, they are poor and they don't have the resources of the wealthy so they have a tendency to RELY on God because they have no other option. I would say that these "poor" people are wealthier than they know. They may not have the materialistic things like so many others do, but in the end, those material things wont matter. 

This made me wonder about the wealthy. Who teaches them about God's grace and the love that he sent to us through His Son Jesus Christ? I have a feeling that there are plenty of wealthy people out there that have all the world has to offer because they have the financial resources to obtain it, but they may lack a relationship with Jesus. I'm concerned that many wealthy people rely more on their own ability to "fix" things or "deal" with things because they utilize there finances to solve problems. 

I'm sure that the wealthy are a harder group to reach than the poor with regards to mission. One reason is money. In order to get to the wealthy people you need t be around wealthy people which means you have to go where they are and in most cases that requires money. Heck it was difficult enough to get people to think of our mission trip to the Bahamas as a real mission trip. Why? well, when you mention the bahamas, most people think............

 

And I assure you, this couldn't be further from the Bahamas that we experienced.  But I am sure that there is a mission field in Beverly Hills just as big and in need of God as there is in Sea Grape Bahamas or Gaffney South Carolina. But who's going to reach those people? How much would you be laughed out of town if you were trying to raise money to go on a mission trip to Beverly Hills? I can't even imagine. But the thought still crosses my mind, then who will go? 

I don't know, these were just some of my own thoughts, and maybe it's already in place. Maybe there is someone reaching them and I just don's know about it. I sure hope so. 

To all of you who supported us, again I express a HUGE thank you from all of us. And for those that thanked me for this blog, I assure you it was my pleasure. I hope I get to write many more blogs much like this one. 

God Bless

And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.

Mark 16:15

JM

 

Day five Friday July 8th

Today is the last day for VBS. “It’s easy at this point for the group to get a little lazy” Jimmy and Howie mention. “So keep up the good energy and positive attitudes and lets make it a great last day” they said.

We start the day like a few of the others, by taking a quick walk through the neighborhood and remind the locals to come on out for the last day of VBS.

Along this walk this morning I decided to take some pictures of the neighborhood houses. I realized that I had only really been taking picture of the people as well as some of the “nicer” features of the town. I want you to get a bit of an understanding as to what the neighborhood of Sea Grape at Eight Mile Rock is really like. Here are pictures of the normal housing situations of the neighborhood.

 Some houses actually have small stores in them. 

As you can see, it would likely be referred to as a “ghetto” in most parts of the USA, and rightly so. The only thing missing here are government-assisted apartments. Also, pictures don’t do the reality of the situation justice.  The conditions are one thing, but then you add the relentless heat and humidity and the lack of air conditioning in most places (which adds to the odor) and you really start to come to grips with how good you have it at home. For those of us who would be considered “middle class” in the USA, we live like royalty in contrast to the people of Sea Grape.

In spite of that, much like I saw when I went to Peru, the children as well as the adults here, are so happy. I have not heard a single person complain about their situation the entire time I’ve been here. At home we get horribly upset if we can’t find our favorite pair of shoes for the day, or if we get a little held up in traffic on our way to our jobs that provide for the way we live. These people are lucky to even have a pair of shoes and a lot of them don’t even have jobs due to lay offs and such. It really puts a check on things. Or at least it should.

So the kids arrive at the church and the last day of VBS is under way.

We start with our songs that the kids have come to love. In fact, I have heard the kids playing in the park and in the streets singing these songs later in the day. It makes me smile when I hear it because it tells me they really are listening.

Pictures from opening ceremonies

Once we split into our groups it was off to the activities.

Bible school went great once again. The teachers, both young and adult, have been doing a great job adapting to each group. The groups ranged in age form 2 years old to probably 20 years old. Each lesson had to be adapted in the way it was communicated and the teachers did a wonderful job of doing just that.

Pictures from Bible school 

During arts and crafts they made pictures with colored shapes and glue and they played BINGO for prizes. The boys would get matchbox cars and the girls would get a doll.

Pictures from arts and crafts

In games all the groups played some serious kickball. Only this time you had to run the bases in reverse order, 1^st base was now 3^rd base. It was hysterical watching the kids get all confused, and I’m not just talking about the Bohemian kids.

Pictures from Games

AT the end of VBS we had our songs and dance and handed out the kids arts and crafts. Then it was out front for snacks and hang out.

Pictures from the end of VBS and snacks

Lunch today was hot dogs and chips. A light lunch was a welcome thing because it was too hot to deal with eating a big hot meal in the middle of the day. But God bless the ladies in the kitchen because they were already busy in the kitchen over the hot stove and oven preparing our dinner.

After lunch we had a little free time before we started to put the finishing touches on our projects. Also, several members of our group got together and prepared things for the block party tonight at the park.

Howie and Collin finished up tiling the men’s bathroom, which allowed Seth and I a chance to walk with the group to the bay. Also, Will and Marcus stayed back and put the grout in the women’s bathroom while Ray and Mark put new faucets in both bathrooms. Dylan had some final touches to make on the sign he was painting on the side of the fellowship hall.

 Adrienne and Noah cleaned up the sanctuary

Finished bathrooms

The group had a great time hanging at the bay. It was great to be near the water (which was VERY warm) and just have some fun. But even here at the water it wasn’t a very nice area. The place was littered with trash and old tires. However, we were so used to seeing the area as a dirty place, it didn’t even phase us.

 Sara found a lobster skeleton

When we got back, the restrooms were just about finished (Seth had to tidy up a couple things), and dinner was just about ready, and WE WERE HUNGRY!

Dinner tonight was wonderful. BBQ chicken, Konk fritters, BBQ meatballs, BBQ ribs and konk salad. I personally wasn’t a big fan of the konk fritters or salad, but the rest of the food was delicious.

After diner clean up we had a short amount of time to hang out before we headed to the park to set up for the block party. 

 Some of the kids tried to catch a quick nap.

 And so did some of the adults :-) 

 Will was amazed at some cool card tricks. 

 We're not 100% sure why this happened. It's all gone now because he shaved it all off eventually.

The block party was FANTASTIC! We got to the park with our supplies around 6:30pm and started our set up.

We had a variety of carnival style games for the kids to play as well as basketball games, face painting and of course the playground equipment.

Kids and parents started to arrive around 6:45pm and we were officially under way at 7pm. In addition to the games and such, we had a live DJ and a hot dog and refreshment stand, free of charge as long as supplies lasted.

The event got crowded fast, and it was a good!

 After the games and activities were over, we had a few interpretive movements performed by the youth from State Line as well as one by Liberty. Ken delivered a great message at the park through his testimony. 

After Ken's message, we had several people ask to receive Jesus at their personal savior. Many of our youth and adults were their to help them through the process.

 It's an emotional time when a mother gets to watch her son lead another person to accept Christ.

Just before it was time to shut down, the DJ played a couple more Christian songs and everyone had a great time being silly.

 All in all what an amazing week. The last I heard, we had 9 people dedicate their life to Jesus Christ and that was before the block party.

What an incredibly thing to see so many young kids so invested in helping other people. These kids (and the adults) spent a week sleeping on air mattresses on the floor of a large room with none of the comforts of home that they were used to. No phones, No TV, no radio, no Ipod, no pools, no hot water and limited air condition. And on top of being WITHOUT all of that, they still taught classes for the kids, led games and arts and crafts, witnessed to strangers on the street while walking six miles in extreme heat and humidity, helped clean after all meals and activities and so much more. And ya know what? not a single complaint! These kids ad adults were here for the right reasons. Their hearts were in it and they were there to do whatever they could to help the people of Sea Grape and see if they could help anyone that would listen, come to know Jesus as their savior. 

We travel back in the morning. Im sure Ill have a final post with some  pictures from our travel day, but as for the mission trip itself, this is the end. By the time I have the chance to post this we will already be home. 

I hope for any of you that were reading this blog along the journey, that you felt somewhat connected to what was happening in Sea Grape. Thank you once again to all of you who supported our team in whatever way you did. Your investment was well spent and you can be proud of the team you invested in. In the near future I will be putting together a couple of picture and video compilation DVD's, if you're interested in getting a copy, just send me an email at idriveincorp@gmail.com and I will put you on the list and make sure you get a copy once they are complete. 

God bless,

JM