We are back in Guyana

I apologize but there will be not picture with this post. We arrived back in Georgetown this morning (Sept. 15). We were able to make it through immigrations without too much trouble. The woman asked to see our tickets for departure and I explained that our departure arrangements were being arranged for us from here in 'town (we will be departing in December for two weeks to go to the Internastional Convention in Trinidad.) She told me she wasn't to issue visas without seeing departure tickets. I just looked at her and shrugged and she hesitated for a moment, but then gave us three month visas which will last until we go out for the convention. When we return we will be with a large group of witnesses, so hopefully it will go smoothly. But that will be another story.

We will be travelling to the Ridge on Friday. I understand the Fishers will be leaving the following Wednesday, so we will get to spend some time together, but not so much that the apartment would begin to feel crowded.

Stephan was travelling to the Ridge today. He had been back to the states (and Mexico) for a short visit and had returned to Guyana on the 2nd. He has another brother from the states with him for a short visit. On returning to Guyana, he had gone to Mabaruma for a couple of weeks since one elder there (brother Gomes) was in 'town getting married to Rasheeda and the other brother (brother Anthony) was in 'town for Pioneer School. Brother Gomes and his wife returned this last weekend, so Stephan went back to the Ridge.

I know this was short, but I wanted to post something up ASAP so everyone would know we reached back safely. I will try to do another post before we travel to the Ridge on Friday.

Hope everyone is well and thanks for your interest and support.

Getting ready to return

We have gone ahead and made our reservations for returning to Guyana. We leave Buffalo about 6 PM on September 14th. We will spend about five hours at JFK and then fly on to Georgetown, arriving about 7 AM on the 15th. Rather than try to cut things too close, we will plan on flying into the Ridge on the 18th. We would appreciate all the prayers for our admittance back into the country.

I had recently gotten an email from Gary Fischer. I thought I share some of that as well.

“We cannot believe the convention is over already! I know we say this every year, but, this was the best ever. The convention experience has been ever so encouraging to us. There was a peak attendance of 5,262 with 64 baptized including 3 or 4 from the deaf group. One announcement that is exciting for us in the interior is that the translation into Carib of the God's Friend brochure and the tract You Can Know the Truth has been completed. We will have some more questions to ask about that when we visit the branch tomorrow (such as, can we get some today?). We enjoyed meeting other need greaters as well as many of the locals here. The response we got when they learned where we were serving was quite amusing. "Wow!"; "Really!"; "Oh my goodness!" It was very encouraging to hear the locals at the convention express many heartfelt thanks for coming to Guyana to help. We really needed that!”

Just to put things in perspective, there are only two District Conventions in Guyana. The other one had a peak attendance of about 2000. So a total attendance of over 7000 isn’t bad in a country with about 2000 witnesses.

Gary also sent along a few pictures. One is of Marion in the ministry, another is of a service group including the newest publisher, Sheneza, she’s fourth from left. Then there a couple from the school with newest students Danika and Sheneza (note microphone being used!)

From Stephan 8/2

Thursday we went to Black Banana. We left about 5am from here with our bikes, then got to Black Banana Junction around 6. There we parked our bikes and walked about 3 hours to Black Banana. I had walked through Black Banana before on the way to Baramita, and it hardly gets preached to so i thought it would be a good place to take Gary, the new brother here, the one from Canada that’s here with his wife. She didn’t come with us, but he really wanted to go.

We preached to a couple of hours and met some super nice people. most of them are there from other parts of Guyana, several from Brazil and several from Venezuela. I think for the first time since i was in Guyana I heard a worldly person thanking us for leaving our families and friends and homes to come and preach to them. Although I’m sure many others feel that way, it was nice to actually hear it. I went to one house and there was a couple people there that i had met in Kaituma and in Ridge, and they set up buckets and benches to sit on and I gave a little talk and they were super good listeners and were asking great questions.

When I was done, Roland (another brother here) and Gary were sitting beside me since it was the last house to preach at. We were about to get up to go and the guys told us "just now, just now." and motioned for us to stay seated. About 10 minutes later we were invited into the other room where there were 3 plates of steaming rice and a big bowl of Labba Curry. Labba is a really good tasting animal. It’s basically a big rodent, but really good. We could barely finish the food cause there was so much, but we all cleaned our plates. We had only planned on eating the bread we had brought, but the rice and curry was a nice surprise. We walked back to our bikes with a full stomachs, and good memories from Black Banana. We got back home around 2:30 and took naps, it was a good day.

From Gary Fischer

JUNE 25, 2009

Dear Friends, We are on our fourth week in Guyana now and are continuing to adjust to the surroundings. So many blessings and annoyances too. But, I have to say the blessings outweigh the annoyances by far. Service is such a joy, with most of it being bible study work. Some of the students are beginning to express their faith with others. For example, Rea, one of Marion's studies was asked if she thought the Pentecostal pastor who recently died was going to heaven or to hell. She confidently answered, "he is going to hell". This gave her opportunity to explain the condition of the dead and the resurrection hope for "the rightous and the unrightous". Jillian,another Bible study was visited by a friend who saw her Bible Teach book and curiously began to look through it. Jillian took the opportunity to explain the Bible study arrangement to her friend. It is encouraging to see this because when students start expressing their faith to others, it indicates that they are on their way to becoming Witnesses of Jehovah.

On Wednesdays we have a service arrangement at 9:00 am which is usually well supported and another at 4:30 pm that was set up for the three young publishers who are in school. All of them supported the arrangement yesterday as ususual. I went with Stephan to the far end so we could finish the territoty map and Danika who is 11 years old went with us while the other four started at the close end. Stephen said it would be pretty far and somewhat muddy. I am finding that he isn't one to exaggerate. We trudged through several miles of muck until we started going through a trail that looked like it was regularly traveled by very short people as we we had to duck down to get through much of it. Where it ends up, we still don't know, we just found a couple of huts on the way It was getting toward dark so we had to turn back. We ended up walking out of the jungle in the dark. So, you may wonder how Danika fared in our adventure. Well, to deal with the mud, she just took her sandals off and walked barefoot and happily chattered away throughout the entire adventure of mud and dark jungle. It shows what the locals here are made of.

Today is Thursday which we have set aside as our day off. Last week a bunch of us took a hike to "the falls". Today, we will take a trip to one of the internet cafes which is about a half hour ride from here since there is no signal in Matthew's Ridge. (If we bring our own coffee we could perhaps call it a real cafe.) First, we will take care of our shopping which is an annoyance because one has to visit numeous shops to find even the basics. Often we have to wait until another day even for those. We had really acquired a taste for fine coffe before coming to Guyana. A good quality dark roast with a bit of 18% cream is oh-so-good. After trying various form of ground coffe here in the Ridge, we finally settled on Nescafe instant. As far as 18% coffe cream goes, forget that notion. That seems odd since there are cows everywhere. In fact, you can't even walk to the store without cows getting in the way, and yet, the only dairy product availible is powdered milk. One thing about powdered milk, though, is that it will froth up pretty well. Marion has come up with a way to make a mean frothy Nescafe latte. (Perhaps a new idea for Starbucks?)

We really appreciate hearing from back home. In case you are wondering, we recieve your e-mails at no cost since the contract is already paid for. I am including a pic of us standing in front of a large tree, (Guyana's rain forests are still largely unspoiled); Land crabs that Grace caught for dinner and Bobnesta, a young Bible study with his study brochure.

JULY 6, 2009

I believe that our last e-mail did not go through so I included it as well and am keeping this one short. It is another rainy day here and we had to forgo our studies down the jungle in Parow. The rain gives us a slight reprieve from the heat but it sure is muddy.Walking through Matthews ridge means going through a maze of deep puddles and trying to find places to step without sinking to your ankles in mud. Last Friday, I decided to venture out despite the black sky to go on a study and stop at the post office as well. This Bible student was away last week and I didn,t want to miss another study with him. I wore my long rubber boots and took my umbrella to be prepared for the worst, but, to little avail. Soon after I started it began to rain, and when it rains here, it doesn't mess around. It was raining so hard that it the raindrops splashed mud from the road clear up to my shirt. I also discovered that my umbrella was not that waterproof. When I got to the post office, the postmaster who isn't known for his sunny disposition in the first place, was dealing with a problem with the post office building and wasn't about to give me any service. So I headed up the hill to my study's house and was met there by a girl in a middle school uniform who said," Mee-sah Lloyd, he no com back yet." Oh well, I'm sure Jehovah appreciated my efforts despite what they say about those who don't know enough to come in out of the rain.

There is always plenty to do here in Jehovah's service here with so much interest and so few workers. Between us Marion and myself have 13 and 8 Bible studies respectively and probably 2 more lined up. Next week we hope to go to a place called Black Banana to spend the day preaching there. Stephan indicates it will be a good Guyana experience for beginners. Other trips include boat excursions and can mean camping out for several nights. The apostle Paul wrote, "I have become all things to people of all sorts, that I might by all means save some". One "sort" that is often found in the interior of Guyana includes those who never went to school. Not only can they not read, but, they have never learned to learn intellectual things. Among these, are beautiful, humble people who long to be taught the truth.

One of Marion's studies is a lady named Yvonne, handed to her when she got here. Yvonne is very shy and she cannot read. At first, she wanted to wait until sister Newton came back from the states to continue her study but decided to try a study with Marion. It did not go so well because she could not understand Marion's strange Canadian dialect and it ended with both feeling quite frustrated. The following week Yvonne stayed hidden in another room while we studied with one of her daughters. The week after that we went back for a study with two of her daughters and Yvonnne decided that she missed her studies and wanted to give it another try. By then, Marion had some experience with others who were illiterate to know that it is necessary to go over things slowly and explain each point, in some cases several times. Yvonne was just thrilled that she could now continue her studies. Needless to say, Marion was quite happy to have overcome this obstacle with Jehovah's help.

Even though such one are limited in their ability to study, we are confident that Jehovah's spirit will rise to the task of helping them become fiathful servants of His. Well, so much keeping it short. We keep you in our prayers that Jehovah will help to remain steadfast in the faith. Please keep the words spoken by Jesus in Matthew 9:37,38 in mind when you pray because there is such a need here, as in many other areas. We eager look foreward to hearing from you,

Love, Gary and Marion.

From Stephan

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.

Final post (for now)

I apologize for being a little slow in posting up another entry. Maybe subconsciously I’m just weaning myself, and you, from the weekly postings. I have been hoping I would get some news from Matthew’s Ridge that I could pass along, but I have yet to receive any correspondence from the people there. It may well be that rainy season has returned and is interfering with connection to the internet. I did receive word from Stephan’s mom that the Fischers had arrived as scheduled at Matthew’s Ridge.

When I got home, I emailed the brothers at the branch regarding our episode with the immigration official when we were leaving Guyana. The branch coordinator, Bro. Hinds is currently in the states and he emailed me and asked me to give him a call. We had a nice conversation, and he mentioned that everyone who was in his party when they were leaving Guyana, were leaving with expired visas, and nothing was said to anyone. He asked if they had stamped anything different in our passports, and I told him that the stamp looked the same as all the others. He was pleased to hear that, and he said I should not worry myself about not being able to get back into the country. But he mentioned that he would have the brothers at the branch look into the matter further.

Before we had left Guyana, we had made a list of things that we would like to get to bring back with us when we returned, and I have started gathering things together and checking them off the list. That helps me to keep my focus. It’s been almost three weeks since I have had any meetings parts. A brother asked me to take his part on next week’s service meeting, because he is going to be away.

I recently had an opportunity to talk to a brother from Texas whose daughter is making plans to come and serve in Guyana. He had expressed concern about personal safety in Guyana. I mentioned to him that I had never heard about anyone walking into a museum with a rifle and starting shooting, but that happens in this country. So I said that I thought Guyana was safer than the Holocaust Museum. Ironically, his daughter has a trip to the Holocaust Museum planned later this summer. We had a nice conversation about Guyana, and I think we will be seeing his daughter at Matthew’s Ridge shortly after we return. I mentioned to him what I mention to anyone interested in Guyana. The good news is that if you come, you will get to experience the ministry in a way that is hard to imagine. The bad news is that once you’ve experienced it, it makes preaching back here in the states that much harder.

Since this had been primarily to keep our friends up to date with us while we are away, I will not be posting up too often while we are back. If I hear of some outstanding events from Matthew’s Ridge, I will put that up, since I know there are many who read this more for the news from there, than for hearing about me. So you might want to check the blog every few weeks.

I can’t do a closing post without including a picture of a bug. Not just any old bug, but a very large bug. This was the largest one I saw while there. I am also including a couple of sets of before and after pictures from our apartment. It’s a credit to Terri that she didn’t just turn around a leave when she saw what we were coming into.

We're gone

We are currently sitting in the airport outside Georgetown waiting for our flight. We got into ‘town Friday. The flight in went fine other than a bit of delay due to heavy morning fog. Once we arrived, Gary met us and took us to take care of a few things in and around Georgetown. I went by the Jailing dealer and got a few parts for the bike. I bought a new chain to give to Gary Fischer to install when he got to the Ridge.

I also went to try to see about getting my phone looked at. The trackball that lets you navigate around on it has gotten so it only works in two directions, which makes using some of the programs/features impossible, although it still works as a phone and internet modem. I figured that I would try and see about getting it fixed here, since I knew back in the states they would tell me it’s cheaper just to replace it. But here in Guyana, they fix anything. When I told the technician the problem, he said he could install a new trackball for about $25 US. I was happy to hear that, and he said he could do it while I waited. After a bit, he came back and informed me that it wasn’t the trackball, but rather the main board. He said the phone is very sensitive to moisture, and at this point it would be cheaper to replace the phone than try to repair it. But at least it still works for what we need.

We stayed with a new family this time, the Sugdeos. The wife had actually left before we got there for a family wedding, the rest of the family went Saturday afternoon, so then we had the house to ourselves. Saturday evening, we walked through the neighborhood. We had heard there was a deaf couple that lived somewhere nearby. As we were almost back to the house, we saw a couple of white people, and it was the couple. It was a little strange, because the wife is hearing, and the husband had gone deaf after he had learned to talk, so it’s easy to forget he’s deaf, because he talks so well, you find yourself just answering back. We visited a bit and were invited back to dinner Sunday evening.

The brother asked me if I per chance I had a GPS receiver. I told him I did, and he was kind of excited because he had been working with a website that was building a public domain street map. He had been working with it in the Georgetown area, but said he would like to try to add the areas that I had been mapping in the Northwest. I gave him all my GPS files, and he started uploading them into the server. So now Matthew’s Ridge is entered into the files.

Sunday we went to the meetings at the Eccles Kingdom Hall. When I walked in, a few different brothers approached me to ask if I was giving the talk that morning. I told them not that I knew of. I mentioned to one of the brothers that if a speaker didn’t show up, I would be willing to give the talk. But about five minutes before the meeting started, I was informed that the speaker had arrived, so I could relax. So I got to sit through an entire meeting. And what’s more I got to do so in an air conditioned hall. It actually got a little chilly by the end of the meeting.

Monday we moved out things to the branch for our last day. I wouldn’t have bothered, but since our flight wasn’t leaving until the afternoon, we would be able to join the Bethel family for morning worship, and that is a special treat. About 10:30 AM, Gary stopped by with the new couple, the Fischers. We chatted a bit, but they were pretty toasted after flying through the night, so not having slept in about 28 hours. Gary took them to where they were staying so they could get a little sleep, but we agreed to get together later in the day. Early afternoon I called to where they were staying and spoke to their hosts. I mentioned that it would be important for Gary Fischer to bring his laptop with him when he came to the branch. The sister where they were staying asked why they were coming to the branch instead of us coming there. She said that way we could all have dinner together. That was agreed on.

About 2 PM, Terri and I went to their house. I sat with Gary, and Terri sat with Marion. We handed over a number of our studies to them, as well as tried to share what we thought would be helpful. I wanted to install the software on Gary’s computer that would allow him to connect to the internet through my phone. I followed the instructions as best I could, but couldn’t get the phone to work with the laptop. Fortunately, the son of the family they were staying with is quite computer literate, and he jumped in and was able to figure the problem, so before we left, he was able to get online with his computer. I left everything with him so hopefully they can set up Stephan’s computer as well.

So Tuesday was our departure from Guyana. It started off nice enough. We were able to attend morning worship and have breakfast with the ‘family’. I then took care of some last minute business like putting together a literature order and placing a deposit on our International Convention trip. Then about 11:30 Gary picked us up to take us to the airport. That is were things became more typical for Guyana. When we were going through immigrations, the agent pointed out that out visa was way expired. We explained that we had applied for an extension soon after we arrived, and still had gotten no response. His response was that if your visa expires, you have to leave the country. He then said that we had overstayed our visas on a number of visits. We mentioned that every time we had requested extensions, and pointed out that last year we had been granted one and obtained it. He was not satisfied with that and said that since we had showed no respect for the visa arrangement, he was going to put a block on our passports to prevent us from returning and overstaying again. We looked at our passports when we got them back and there was nothing to indicate that on the stamp we received, but I don’t know if he was able to enter something into their computer system. It is something that will need to be addressed as I have no desire to buy a ticket to Guyana, only to be denied entry upon arrival.

I started working on this entry at the airport there, but my battery was getting low. I found a place I could plug in my charger, but just as I was getting ready to do that, the power went out throughout the terminal, and my computer hibernated. As I mentioned, all in all it was a fitting departure from the country. So I have ended up finishing this back at JFK. But that is just as well since we have about six hours to kill before our final leg of the journey is completed. It was nice to get here and be able to arrange insurance for my car for licensing it tomorrow, as well as add time to our cell phone, all without any major hassles. I guess living in a technologically advanced society does have its advantages.

I am putting a couple of pictures up. I had actually meant to get a picture of us with the Fischers, but I got so caught up with trying to think of every thing else I wanted to go over with him, that I forgot the picture. So instead I am posting a picture of just them (obviously not taken in Guyana). I am also including a pictures of the new brothers, Andrew Roybal and Roland Rendon, Andrew is on the left. Just for good measure, I have included a picture of Terri trying to catch a little sleep while waiting for our next flight.

I will post up at least one more entry within the week, when we have had a chance to decompress a bit. Thanks again for your interest, support, and prayers. And oh yeah, you can go back to using our msn address for emailing.