Final Few Days

We had a few problems gaining access to the web so here's a brief update of the last few days.

As part of our out reach we visited a residiential home, Burrows Home for the Aged. Opportunity to show pastoral concern for some of the people there.

After all the hard work, Friday afternoon was planned as beach time. However nobody planned the weather. There was a huge down pour whilst we were at the beach. That didn't stop the hardy Brits. We went swimming anyway. It was fab watching the rain bounce off the waves of the sea. Tom particularly liked the waves. It was warmer staying in the water than standing on the beach so most of us just stayed swimming. It cleared up just in time to get a bite to eat before heading for our homestays.

Friday evening was an opportunity to meet the young people of the churches here in Grand Bahama were we had fun and games in the dark as there was a power cut!

Saturday started early at 6:00am with a four hour prayer and fasting meeting. This was an opportunity to pray for the beginning of the church year.

After a rest, we went to see the dolphins and we were lucky that the trainers came out to give us an informal show. A highlight for many of the group. The evening was spent at Taino Beach resort both on the beach and in the pool.

Sunday morning was church. I assisted at both the 7am and the 10am service whilst some of the youths read prayers and readings just at the 10am service. Mandy gave her powerful testimony. After a rest in the afternoon we led a circuit youth service focused on 'New beginnings' as many here are going back to school this week.

Yesterday was our last full day here on the islands. We had a tour of the Rand nature reserve in which we saw some turtles. Sister Winter treated the group to lunch at a nice restaurant called Ruby Swiss. We had an hour or so doing our final shopping before going to the ice cream palour. Our final evening was spent at the bowling alley. I got the high score (104).

And finally we are just waiting to go to the airport. We've been monitoring tropical storm Hanna. Hanna has slowed down and we are told that we should be able to leave the Bahamas before the storm strikes.

There are mixed feelings in the group. Looking forward to going home but also saddend that we are leaving; leaving some lovely people who have become our friends.

Please pray for our safe return back to the UK. See you soon.

God bless

Al

Back to school!

Wednesday and Thursday we have been working at St Paul's Methodist College, picking litter, clearing broken concrete slabs (hurricane damage) and relaying slabs. We also swept, hosed and painted the main pathway into the school. The team suffered in the heat. Unlike our similar work in Andros, we were in direct sunshine and working longer hours. We all struggled with the heat and are pleased that we are onto different work tomorrow. We have to say though that we did a good job. "What a difference it makes' we heard as people admired our work. Great I thought, we had come wanting to make a difference and here we were hearing people comment on it. It was very encouraging.

Wed night we attended different prayer meetings, depending on the church that our home stay hosts attend.

Tonight (Thurs night) we are sewing in a craft session, making things _ I realised I might be ruinging surprises if I say any more at this stage! Our thanks tpo Sister Dorothy Goldsmith and Sister Martha, for their patience, teaching and encouragement. The lesson was meant to finish at 7.30pm and here we still are at just after 9pm still sewing!

Our very great excitement tonight is that tomorrow afternoon we are going to watch the dolphins. Swimming with the dolphins is not possible for insurance reasons, however, our kind hosts have managed to organise a visit for us. The wild dolphins are trained to come into the area where we will be standing and viewing. Everyone is very excited. Hopefully we can get online tomorrow night and tell you all about it.

Future plans include conducting and sharing the sunday services, helping with Urban renewal in their surveys of abandoned cars, visiting an Old Folks Home, Prayer and Fasting on Saturday morning and time with the young people here in a social event. So much more to do. The Lord continues to bless us richly.

Sarah

Time to spare - Bahamas Air

It was an early start today! We had to check in at 6:30 for the next stage of our trip to Grand Bahama. We had to get the internal flight to Nassau then wait again for the next flight to Free Port. The first plane was so small (19 total passengers) we say some of the bags being left behind, we prayed they weren't ours! Thankfull when we got to Nassau our prayers were answered.

We were welcomed again so warmly with some lunch ready and met Renae. She had organised a tour of Freeport for us by the ministry of Tourism. It is interesting that Free Port has only really been established for 50 years, a Bahamian New Town. Total different to the new town I was brought up in.

We met our homestays and everyone seems really comtent.

We were so tired that nobody felt up to the evening prayer meeting and hence we all rested in preparation for another, hot and busy day.

Please pray for a blessed time here in Grand Bahama.

Al

last day on Andros!

We had a tour of North Andros by cars. It included Red Bay where the local fishermen go sponge fishing. It was beautiful! We also saw a blue hole which is a deep deep sea water filled hole in the land. The bottom is not reached. No-one knows the depth of them, but if you kept going down they would lead you to the sea. We discovered the dark colour was not related to the murkiness of the water, on the contrary, when we threw a stone in you could watch a stone descend for several seconds to quite a depth.
We also visited Morgans Cave- a pirate cave, but Al was disappointed that there was no treasure, just a few crabs! There are a huge variety of land crabs and soldier crabs and the ground was moving beneath our feet with soldier crabs in a variety of borrowed shells!
We visited Lowe Sound and bought some lovely local basketware.
In the afternoon we visited Sister Verne and family to say our good-byes and to see the final finish in the house. It looked lovely and we were thrilled to have been a part of such a good outreach project.
In the evening we enjoyed a final farewell meal with Revs Stacia and Mark Christmas at Sister Angie's Poop deck. The food was delicious and the company was marvelous. It seems sad to leave Andros. The time here has really flown by. Onto new adventures tomorrow.

Sarah & Al

Junkanoo fun - church style!

What a day for church services! In the morning the team divided into 2 groups and attended the other churches they hadn't attended last week. Alistair preached at Stafford Creek and Stanyard creek. The other group went to Nicholl's Town and enjoyed Rev Stacia preach.
After a relaxing lunchtime and early afternoon where some of us took the opportunity to sleep, we spent a couple of hours preparing for our contributions to the evening circuit youth service.
At 7pm Junkanoo fun -church style started. We shared our cultures with each other. Revs mark & Stacia spoke about the culture of St Kitts and Nevis, our team spoke of the culture of Liverpool and the UK, and the Bahamian young people gave us a crab dance about crabbing with a live crab. It was fantastic! Both teams spoke of their exchange experiences, and then we taught each other something from our cultures. Rev Stacia taught us 'Stark in me lan'' meaning 'Goat in my land', Alistair & Caitlin led the singing of 'In my Liverpool Home' and the Bahamian young people led Junkanoo fun! There were 3 drummers and cow bells and dancing. It was amazing. Afterwards the Liverpool team were invited to have a go. Chris picked up the biggest drum and was taught the rhythm, which he quickly picked up. Rae & Tom also had drums and Al picked up the cow bells and went full out with the dance as well. 'Go Rev, go!' was the shout from Mary and friends. We had a marvellous time.
We rounded the evening off with card games at the Manse. Tomorrow we get a lie in. We meet at 11am. Sweet dreamzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Sarah

Sat(down) day

Well this was going to be our day off but as we are so dedicated and there was still work to finish off at the house we headed out and got out the paintbrushes again, we also had some rollers one of which was slightly deformed and whoever used it ended up with a shower of paint! to the point the lady of the house asked did we have any on the walls :p it was all good though and washed off fairly easy. The kids also lost their shyness in the last few days and have been coming out their shells brilliantly, to the point they are so eager to get involved they were squabbling over paint brushes. Think they got more painty than us but i assure you its only coz they worked hard. The whole team did nothing but work and were all deadly serious (can't leep staught face :p)........well mostly! The rooms looked fab by the end of it and you could really see a difference both inside and out, got some pictures so they will be included in the talks when we get back. We then headed back to manse and again had some sarnies and then got ready for beach. We then headed to different beach than usual, it was less salty than the other one, same clear water, still good for goggling although not as many fish, slightly more rubbish in the water but by a port so not suprising, good fun and had shower 'facilities' for rinsing off that sand that gets everywhere.
We also watched some films at manse throughout the day, finshed Pocahontas and then watched Miss Congeniality later that night. Good fun although we were very tired! Everyone was gald to get to bed.
Hopefully someone else fill you in on today, change of person always good :P
Mandy

FRYday :P ooh we are struggling for witty titles :P

well lets update you on friday. We returned to do outreach work at the house. We started painting today :) the paint made the rooms look so much brighter and gave it a warm feeling inside although with teh weather outside no warm feeling was needed!! Weather was roasting again today (hence title :p) Everyone got stuck in though inside and outside, someone came to lay the lino aswell which looked fab. We then postponed a tour of the Island had some sarnies for lunch and grabbed the beach stuff!! We got there and again proceeded to launch ourselves in the water, only staying long enough on beach to put suncream on! Had a fab time in the water and Tom who came as non swimmer is starting to swim like a fish its great to see and is growing in confidence in the water, he even went goggling (like snorkelling but without snorkel) to look at some fish!! We saw a multitude of fish again, purple and yellow ones, what we think is snapper, silver angel/butterfly fish, tiny electric blue ones, silvery ones (diff from angel fish). Saw loads of different coral and weed stuff too which was cool, there is a bright green 'rock' which is brain coral and has the convolutions like the surface of the brain (hence name). After couple of hours at beach we headed back to manse cleaned up and then headed to nearby church for a craft evening. The lads were given the choice of what they wanted to learn to make a bag or a doll :p they chose the bag suprisingly (hehe) so we seperated into 2 groups and learnt a local craft, after craft we had hamburgers/veggieburgers for tea and headed back to manse where some of the gang put pocahontos (cant spell) on whilst others of us headed home for a well needed rest.
Saturday came soon enough for all of us though, fill you in above

Mandy