This was a week of comings and goings. Stephan finally made it back from Lethem. He says he’s happy to be back but I fear he is getting ‘itchy feet’. While he was away, he attended a Circuit Assembly in Brazil, which is just across the river from Lethem. He met a brother who had spent a number of years on a witness boat on the Amazon River. I think that planted a seed that may be hard to resist. Only time will tell.
This week Jonathan Brewster left to return to the states. He had originally planned on staying for one month because that was all he could afford, but by the time he got ready to leave the states, ‘somehow’ things worked out to where he had additional funds. Once he got here and saw what things were like, he changed his ticket and stayed almost three months.
We have a new student on the Ministry School, Eno David. When he first started coming to the meetings he was super shy. It took him a long time to get up the courage to comment at a meeting. For a time, he would have an answer prepared, but he couldn’t bring himself to raise his hand. Now he is even commenting on auxiliary questions. It’s a good thing we have the microphone because he still speaks very soft. Another obstacle was having suitable clothes for being on the school. Andrew somehow was able to come up with some that would fit him. It was timely for him to be joining the school since there will be a set of meetings while Stephan, Terri, and I are at the International Convention in Trinidad that may have Andrew here by himself. We are hoping a young brother from Mabaruma, Alex, will come to help.
The internet café continues to be closed. I was told today that the young man who had been running it is coming back from ‘town Monday coming. I had earlier been told he was coming Monday past, and had seen no sign of activity there. So we are having to drive out to where we get cell signal.
I think we are going to be getting a ceiling in the Kingdom Hall soon. It will keep it much cooler during the meeting since it will block the heat radiating from the sun on the metal roof. I had put one up in our living quarters shortly after we got here and it made a real noticeable difference. It will also help to lessen the sound of the rain on the roof which can be almost deafening.
A man who has recently started coming to the meetings approached me after the meeting Sunday and offered to buy some ceiling fans to help with the heat. I mentioned I would be concerned that it would just be blowing more heat down, which he agreed. I told him we were hoping to get plywood for the ceiling, and were saving for it. He said he would be willing to make up any short-fall we might have. He told Terri today that he was going to stop by to pick up the funds as he was going to Kaituma Friday to see about the plywood.
We recently received a shipment of literature including new songbooks. Unfortunately they greatly reduced our order. We had ordered 15 small songbooks and 30 large ones. We received the 15 small ones, but the 30 was reduced to 3. Probably they were able to check the number of publishers and see it was 13 and felt we had very much over-ordered. I think they have no way of knowing that our Sunday meeting attendance is between 70 and 80. We may have to scramble now to have enough songbooks for the first of the year.
For this week’s pictures I have one of Eno with his new clothes and I also have one of me at a house in the ministry. I can’t imagine how hot it must get inside. Years ago there were many company buildings with metal roofs and sides. When the companies left, the metal sheets were ‘appropriated’ by the locals. There is one property here that has a fence around it constructed entirely of metal sheets. But as you can see, there are no windows in the house. I suppose it would be great for sleeping in except once the sun comes up, you would bake.
