We're here

We are getting settled in in Mabaruma, We flew in Friday morning without much incident, other than having to leave one of our suitcases behind in Georgetown due to too much weight on the flight. But the night before, in anticipation of such an event, we had repacked our bags according to importance, so we knew just which bag to leave. Gary took it with him and then brought it back the next morning when he brought Mitch and Kallai for their flight.
Hopefully I’ll be able to post up a couple of pictures. One is the service group heading to the territory Saturday morning. The other is our digs this time. I figured it only appropriate that it include Terri assuming the position in the hammock. This was Will’s house. It sits about 500 feet behind the big house/hall. It’s about 12’ X 18’
Mitch and Kallai left this morning for Port Kaituma. They will be spending a few days there before travelling on to Matthews Ridge. Mitch is heading up a project to build a building there to serve as housing for ‘Need Greaters’ as well as a Kingdom Hall. There was a congregation there back in the 70’s but it was disbanded. We spent some time there the year we were at Port Kaituma. At several houses we called on, the people asked, " When are you going to build a Kingdom Hall here? We need a Kingdom Hall." There has been a Memorial held there for the last several years. A few brothers travel over from Barimita. They usually have around 200 attend, not bad for a place with no publishers or Kingdom Hall. We are planning on travelling up to help a bit as well as see.
I am having a bit of trouble making the transition from the ministry in the states to here. I think I am talking too much. It’s just that when you get someone who seems to be listening, it hard not to go on. But here it can be the person is just being polite and listening, something that doesn’t happen much in the states.
This is the rainy season here, and they had been getting a lot of rain recently, but we haven’t seen that much rain since we arrived. The weather has been great, not too hot and a regular breeze.
Terri had a day today that covered the full range of emotions. She got to see Joyann Smith deliver a baby girl at the hospital. Then she went to study with a woman she had studied with when last here who has since been diagnosed with uterine cancer. She has been told she needs $400,000 ($2,000 US) for treatment, which is totally out of her reach, so Terri will continue to study with her and watch her die. She then went to Barabina (her favorite place to walk to (not)) for a study with a man who is also learning to read, and shows such appreciation for the help he is getting.
I think I earned some points today. I knew Terri was having to go to Barabina for the study and would be getting in late and tired, so I went to the store and bought a few things and threw them in a pot and started cooking dinner. She was appropriately surprised and grateful. As I have said, life is good when the little things can make you so happy.
Hope all are doing well as we are.

We're baaack (well sort of)

We are currently in Georgetown. Our trip here went fairly smoothly. We left Buffalo around 2:10 Tuesday afternoon and arrived at JFK about 3:20. Diana Roth (no relation to the singer) came and spent some time with us at the airport, as we had about 10 hours to spend before our flight to Georgetown.

We waited near the Jetblue ticket counter, since the Frieses and the Lanes were passing through on their way back to Buffalo from Mabaruma. I had just about convinced myself that we had somehow missed them when I finally spotted them. It turned out their flight had been delayed for a couple of hours. So we were able to spend about twenty minutes visiting with them before they had to leave to catch their flight to Buffalo. It was kind of like the changing of the guard, as we were able to be informed of various things that had happened recently in Mabaruma as well as some details regarding where we will be living in Mabaruma.

We then proceeded to the next terminal where we would be catching our departing flight, and Diana left us to return home. But not before waiting while we arranged to weigh our check-in bags at an outside baggage drop. We had weighed and reweighed them at home, but that was on a bathroom scales, and if we were overweight, we figured worst case, we could give something to Diana to take with her. All four bags were within half a pound of the max, so we were happy for that. We gave a cheer each time the weight appeared in the display. Life is good when the little things can make you so happy.

We had to wait a few hours for the ticket counter to open and allow us to check in our luggage, and then a few more before we loaded for departure. The plane was completely full and we waited for almost an hour on the plane before departing. We were told it was due to all the baggage that was being shoe-horned into everywhere. We were able to catch a little sleep on the flight as we had been up for over twenty hours, and only had a few hours of sleep the night before.

As always, it was such a pleasure and relief to see Gary waiting for us when we emerged from customs (where I didn’t see a single bag being opened). He then took us to Sister Scott’s where we will be staying while in ‘town. After dropping our things, we went briefly to the branch, and then on to exchange some money and pick up a few things, mostly for our brief stay here in ‘town.

Today is a holiday here (Boxing Day), so most businesses and all government agencies were closed. Even the internet café just down the street is closed, so I am composing this now anticipating being able to post it up tomorrow. Also, we will have to run errands again tomorrow, like getting temporary drivers licenses. Mitch Muick is arriving late this evening. He will be staying here with us, and so we will probably run around together with Gary tomorrow.

It is kind of nice to finally meet and stay with Sister Scott. Many who have traveled through 'town, on their way to visit us have stayed with her. When I mentioned to Brother Hinds that we were staying with her, he smiled and said, “Ah yes, the branch away from the branch.” She has a fairly large house, which she currently living in alone. The whole second floor is set us as an apartment. Terri had asked her if she considered renting it out, but she said never, as she enjoyed so much the opportunity meet and assist so many on their way through ‘town. We will be getting two days of Georgetown this time, since we arrived on Wednesday and there are no flights into Mabaruma on Thursdays. That means two days of blasting music and barking/fighting dogs. Since it’s so warm (it was 80 when we landed at 8:30 this morning) closing windows is out of the question.

But know we are well and looking forward to continuing on to Mabaruma. I'll keep you posted.

SAD

As you can see, being where the internet connects faster is helpful when it comes to adding pictures. The first is of preparations for the SAd that were done on Friday. We hung a big tarp off the back of the house to give a place for people to get out of the sun or rain depending on what the weather chose to do.

Next is a picture of the baptism, followed by a picture of most of the group that came down from Port Kaituma. Then we have Will doing an interview of some of the youths, and finally a picture of everyone hanging out under the tarp during the lunch break.

Friday was our last trip to Kobarimo and our string of staying dry came to an end. One of the women we visit was in ‘town, so we went a little later so as not to throw all the other calls off. We took the same boat we had been taking, but Terri had to bail most of the way since it is getting to leak more and more. When we got ready to leave the creek was the lowest we had ever encountered. In fact it was so low that we kept bottoming out and one of us (either Terri or I) had to climb out and push the boat through the mud. The mud was over two feet deep at times and it made for a very nasty and wet experience. Once we got about 1/3 of the way back, we were able to all be in a paddle the rest of the way.

When we got back to the house, the rest of the visitors for the SAD had arrived, and they had decided that the hole in the ground wasn’t acceptable for the baptism, so Compton donated a bunch more wood and a large box was constructed and lined with a tarp. I was a little concerned since it was going to take more than 1/3 of our water supply to fill it. But I told myself that I was going to be leaving Monday, so I didn’t need to worry about the water. But we got some rain overnight, and rainy season is only about 2 weeks away.

Saturday was the SAD and 16 people came in a boat from Port Kaituma, including four from Matthew’s Ridge. We had a peak attendance of 107. I had told Bro. Rainey on Friday that we were going to have 110, so he told me were three short. But I said that with all the children milling around, we did in fact have 110, they just didn’t get the count right. I reminded him that we now had three toilets, so if they were occupied during the count, that too would explain it.

Certainly a high point was Ellis’ baptism. It was so nice to be able to do it right there at the Kingdom Hall before all onlookers. And the ‘pool’ was big enough that both the dipper and the dippee were able to be in it together. I had expected that Will would do the actual baptism, but Saturday morning, Bro. Rainey informed me that Will had volunteered me, so that was a nice privilege, to be able to baptize one I had studied with when I was there three years ago. At that time Ellis had informed me he was like a turtle, because if you try to push a turtle, it just pulls back into it’s shell. So afterwards I said to Ellis, “I guess the turtle made it.” and he just smiled.

Sunday was a special service day since there was no meeting as a result of Saturday’s SAD program. We had 36 out in the ministry. It was nice to see Ellis make the effort to come out Sunday morning. Sunday evening we had a going away party at Compton’s and I was a little disappointed that I didn’t see Ellis. Compton said he had mentioned he was pretty tired from Saturday’s and Sunday’s activities, so I said I would rather he missed the party than the morning field service.

Then Monday morning it was time to finish packing things away and walk one more time to the airstrip. We rode back to town with the Hazel’s and another brother who had come out for the SAD. Several others had to wait for a flight the next day. I had mentioned that if everyone couldn’t make it on Monday’s flight, we weren’t going to be the ones waiting, as we had to catch the flight out of Guyana Tuesday morning. We were able to stay at the branch again Monday night, and that was nice because we got to see Bro. and Sis. Hinds. They had been in the states when we had come in. We were quite surprised when we landed at Ogle because since we had been there in January, they had build a whole new terminal for arriving passengers, complete with a nice looking control tower.

Our departing flight was scheduled for 10:00 AM and Gary informed us that they wanted passengers there three hours before the flight, so we left the branch at 6 AM. Traffic was very light and we arrived at about 6:45. We checked in with no problem, and breezed through customs and security, and then sat for about 2 hours forty five minutes waiting for the flight. When we arrived in New York, we were able to reach our next ticket counter in time to catch an earlier flight. When we arrived in Buffalo we were greeted by not only Steve and Michelle Swanson as expected, but Jessica and the boys were there as well, holding up a big banner that said, “Welcome back”. Even with catching an earlier flight we still arrived home about midnight.

Sorry no photo

I just spent about forty minutes trying to upload a couple of pictures only to receive an error message, and it's too late to start again, so I guess this will be like the early days. Sorry-o

Well, time has definitely shifted into hyper-drive. It started Monday. We had planned on taking care of some last minute details at the house before the CO and his wife arrived. So I went to Kumaka early to get some paint, and try to arrange the lumber for the toilet. I went to every lumberyard, and no one had material. The best was one that said in three days. But in Guyana, even when they say, “Tomorrow”, it’s questionable as to when you will see it, so three days is meaningless. Then I went to get paint, and had to go to several shops before I found any.

Then while I was in a shop in Kumaka, along comes Compton with the Raineys. They had arrived the day before we were expecting them. So I rode back to the house with them, and saw a couple of people sitting on the porch with Terri. You may have remembered I had mentioned meeting a young girl who told me she was a Jehovah’s Witness, and it turned out she had studied in Barimita. It turned out the reason she was here was because her ‘man’ had been told to leave Barimita, because he beat the girl, (why she went with him is another question). Wendy had started studying with her, and then Terri took it when she left.

As usually happens, the man has continued beating her and their 2 year old son. Terri had mentioned to her that she needs to get out of that situation. So her mother-in-law had decided, after a weekend of beating, that the girl needed to get away, so she had brought her to the house, to ask us to help, as they had no money to get anywhere. So now I had the CO and his wife, and this young girl with a two year old, and a five month old baby at our house. It was decided that the best course would be to send them to Port Kaituma, where they could get a ride to Matthews Ridge, and from there make their way to Barimita. I called to Compton’s to have him check if the boat that had brought the Raineys was still at Kumaka, and if they were going back to Port Kaituma. But it was getting late morning, and we were concerned whether they would be able to make it to Matthew’s Ridge before dark. Compton called back and said the boat was going to wait until the morning.

So they ended up staying with us at the house, and then early Tuesday morning Terri and I got up early and went with them to Kumaka. As soon as we got out of the bus, a boatman came up asking if anyone was going to Kaituma. I said we had some to go, but we would wait to see which boat was ready to leave first, and that would be the boat they would go on. So now we are waiting, and watching and worrying that the young man was going to show up and we have a scene there in Kumaka. But finally a boat was ready to leave, and we sent them off. There was a woman that we knew going up in the same boat, so we asked her to help Cynthia get a bus to the Ridge.

I have spent the last two days building the toilet for the SAD. Compton ended up scrounging up some pieces of wood and making the lumber we needed. I also took Bro. Rainey’s suggestion and dug a shallow grave which we will line with a tarp and fill with water for the baptism. Tomorrow we are having a congregation cleaning and prep day for Saturday. Terri and I will go in to Kobarimo one more time before we leave. Early in the morning Elroy is coming by and we will hang the second door on the toilet so he can then finish painting it.

I am not sure if I will post one more entry before we leave, or wait until we get back and have a nicer internet connection so we can post up a number of pictures.

I stand corrected

Terri took this picture at one of our calls in Kobarimo. This is a granddaughter of a woman we call on. She was out skipping rope with this vine.

I wanted to post something up so I could correct something in the last post. I had mentioned an email we had received regarding a question supposedly asked on Jeopardy. Well, as with many emails, it turned out to be untrue. The actually question posed was, “What bible translation do Jehovah’s Witnesses use?” So if you passed along an untrue rumor, you will have to correct it as I have done.

That being said, time is really starting to fly by with many things left to accomplish with a very limited time to do so. Getting lumber for the toilet continues to be a problem, so Monday I will go to some of the other mills in the area and see if I can get it from them.

On a bright note, Thursday evening Bro. Baxter handed in his auxiliary pioneer application for May. It will be the fifth consecutive month he has aux. pioneered. It has been such a joy to have him out in the ministry with us so much of the time, and he has really developed his preaching skills.

Our last two trips to Kobarimo have been fairly routine. Two weeks ago we had quite a shower go through while we were there, but we were under shelter, so we stayed dry. The calls we went to after that were quite surprised to see us since it had rained so much. Unfortunately, the rain delayed us long enough that our last call figured we weren’t coming so she went out to help carry wood up from the landing, so we missed the study with her, but she was waiting for us this week.

We used the same boat we had used the two weeks before, but either it is just deteriorating due to age, or someone crashed it into something quite hard because the front has a big crack in it which leaks in quite a bit of water, so two paddle and one bails. I told Terri I wondered if it would even be there in another week, and she said that she didn’t know as she would want to take it if it was. But hey, it got us there this week. Next week will be out last trip to Kobarimo, and I’d like to keep our string of staying dry in tact.

Tomorrow starts our string of ‘last meetings’ as we won’t be having a meeting next Sunday because of the SAD program. It’s hard to believe we have been here four months already, but I also know how quick once we get home it will feel like we never had been gone. It’s almost like living in parallel realities.

One more time

Just a note by way of explaination on the pictures. The first one was from our river trip today. The second one I took a couple of days ago. The thermometer normally hangs on a wall on the back porch and usually shows about 95 in the middle of the day, but that's in the shade, and we are usually out walking about in the sun. So I decided to place the thermometer in the sun, just to see what it would record. I'm not sure if you can read it on this page, but it is reading about 109, so it does get quite warm here during the day

I'm afraid I somehow lost the second picture, and I'm not going to spend another hour trying to insert it, so you will just have to take my word until you see our pictures when we get back.

Today we went on the river one more time before we leave. Terri, Jennifer, and I went. The weather was excellent, we only got lightly showered on once. As we well getting ready to leave Kumaka,a woman was out on the wharf with a small boy. She asked if we were going to Kaituma, as the boy needed a ride. Terri told her we were only going part way up the Kaituma. The woman then asked if we would take the boy as far as we were going. I told Terri to say no, as I didn’t want to have to worry about what would happen if we just left him somewhere along the river.

Today was a typical river day. We had some really nice calls where they asked us when we were coming back, and you feel bad because you can’t give them an answer. And then you have some calls where it’s like talking to a brick wall. At one house, Jenn was talking to an older woman, and asked her about the other ones there with her. One was a granddaughter and an older one was her daughter. Jenn was having a hard time reasoning with her on the scriptures, so to just try and make conversation, she asked the woman her daughters name. The woman just looked at her, (like she had been doing with most her other questions) and then leaned back into the house and asked the daughter her name. It’s very hard with ones like that.

At another door she was reasoning on how Jehovah and Jesus are two separate individuals, showing her where Jesus said the father was greater than he was. So she asked, “so are they the same?” The woman replied, “Yes, sister.” So the Jenn tried a different approach and pointed to a small boy there and asked if he had a father, to which she replied. “Yes sister.” So Jenn asked are the boy and his father the same one? “Yes sister.” It can be very trying at times, but other times so rewarding. Truly, the harvest is great, and the workers are few.

I finished digging the pit for the toilet, now we only need the lumber. I picked up the zinc for the roof Tuesday, so we have that.

Ellis has gone over the first two sets of questions for baptism, so that is on track. Now all I need to do is figure out how to make a baptism pool to have here at the hall, so all can see the baptism. We had noticed someone nearby has one of those inflatable small pools in there yard now. Will suggested we might speak to them about renting it for the day, Again, Jehovah will provide.

Someone had emailed the girls recently that a question had been asked on Jeopardy “What is the most accurate bible translation?” And when nobody got the answer Alex read the answer as, “The New World Translation, by Jehovah’s Witnesses.” I don’t know if anyone out there can confirm that or not. But if true, I’m sure that may have created a stir with some.

Getting short

As you can see, work is continuing on the new toilets, I think on more session of digging may have that part completed. I am doing this so I don't get out of shape for digging to uncover the top of septic tanks once I return to the states. The other picture is of a couple of young girls that Chelsea had had sleep over one night. As you can see, they have been trained well as to how to start their day.

Monday Compton and I took a bike and went out past Wauna to Black Watta. I had been there shortly after we arrived and had not finished the territory, so I wanted to finish the territory before we left. We met a woman out there who has a sister that’s a sister. She has gone to a few District Conventions with her in ‘town. While we were out there, a major downpour went through. But we were at the best call of the day sitting under a man’s house sharing scriptures. We were having a nice discussion, plus it was pouring so we didn’t want to go out, so we ate our lunches while we talked to him. It turned out he was a son of the woman who has the sister who is a sister. He told us before we left that we had spoken clearer to him than anyone one else he had ever talked with.

We finished the territory and then walked back out to where we had left the bike. Since it had rained so much, the ‘road’ which is all dirt was quite slippery. Driving back reminder me a lot of skiing, the way you are always trying to pick the best line to follow through all the bumps.

Andrew returned this week from Port Kaituma. He had stayed an extra week to help Richard there until the ones who had been in Matthews Ridge were able to close this down there and return to Kaituma. Paul & Sinead flew out of ‘town on Tuesday. Hopefully they will return in the end of September as planned.

I am a little concerned about the toilet we need to build before the Special Assembly Day program. Compton mentioned that the Forestry Service has placed a hold on all timber cutting because apparently there was so much illegal cutting going on. He said he had heard that they should be getting some lumber in ‘just now’. I just need to remind myself that this is for Jehovah, and he can certainly supple lumber. One week from Tuesday the Circuit Overseer and his wife arrive, as we are the host congregation for the SAD.

I told Terri that I had a hard time getting too motivated in the field ministry yesterday, since I know we are leaving soon, so there is no point in trying to start any studies, as we will have a hard enough time getting ones to take over the studies we have, since they all have their own studies to be taking care of.

I guess this was a little short, but then again that’s how I’m starting to feel as well.