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