We are now back on the air again. And hopefully will be able to keep everyone regularly updated on whats happening here in Matthews Ridge. Two weeks ago we were happy to welcome Gary and Marion Fischer from Canada. Being their first time doing something like this the first week was a little bit of a challenge for them, but now really seem to be enjoying themselves here and are starting to see why we love it so much here. Guyana seemed to mourn the Newton's departure by throwing us into the rainy season. Starting last Saturday it rained almost non stop until Sunday evening. When the rain falls so much here there is a swarm of new flies that come to life. The locals call it the rain flies, and look similar to flying ants. When you swat at them they loose all 4 wings and crawl around like nothing happened. Their intensity depends on the amount of rain, but somehow no matter how many or few there are, you will still find hundreds of wings randomly dropped around the house. Within a couple hours of the rain stopping the flies are gone, and just the wings are left. Sometimes its hard to see how good a study really is, when you compare it to so many other really good studies. But last week one of my studies made it clear that she was a good study. Claudia lives on Station Street, not far from the Kingdom Hall. Her sister and mother come regularly to the meetings, and she has not been able to make it very much. She keeps on saying it was because she has several grandchildren that she has to take care of. I understood that it could be a valid reason, but had my doubts. In the last months that I have been studying with her, she has hardly missed a study, and has improved greatly in her reading to the point of being able to pre-study. Last week she mentioned how her husband drinks a lot. And for the last 20 years or so she would always fight, yell, and scream at and with him. But she mentioned that recently she has stopped completely, and now he even tries to provoke her into fighting, but she tells him “you will not tempt me to fight with you, I am studying about Jehovah now, and he does not want me to fight anymore!” When sober her husband is very supportive of her studying, so she focuses on that..even though thats a very small percentage of the time. For over a year monday has been my day to go to a place called Paro. I imagine Jim has mentioned it before on the blog, as its where Spanish Man lives. I recently started studying with his wife. She had been coming to meetings for a while, and although she had a hard time understanding how I talk, I knew in time she would be able to understand. Today before the study she was telling me that she was always afraid to study because she couldn't read. She thought that we would only study with people who could read, and her being old (no doubt in her 60's) she wasn't too confident in her ability to learn how to read. Then she got to understand that we are glad to study even with those who cannot read. She was so happy to hear that, and at the same time decided she would try to learn how to read. Her sister, who is just barely learning how to read, is showing her a little at a time. And since Carib is her first language, her sister tries to explain as much as she can understand from the meetings, in Carib. When I ask her before or after the study if she has any questions, she always says she just wants to learn MORE about Jehovah and the bible. Its really encouraging to see how eager she is to learn about Jehovah, and how hard she works at just remembering how to say the numbers 83:18 when I tell her about the scripture in Psalms. It reminds me not to take for granted to ability to read and comprehend. In the last week our ministry has been very fruitful. No really, fruitful! A local fruit called sugar apple is in season, and overflowing the trees! It is excellent by itself, but when mixed with a little milk and sugar it is fantastic! Today we got a big one from a study, and when we got to the house we saw a publisher had dropped by and given us 7. Last night we ate 8 of them, and did the same a couple nights before that. Pineapple is also in season, and at a local shop we can buy pineapple for 50cents for one, but we are getting several of those in service also so there isn't really a need to buy any. One type of Pineapple is called “Sugarpine,” and it is so sweet you could swear it had been dipped in sugar. Theres even little sugar crystals inside.
