Row, Row, Row Your Boat...

Hi Everyone,

Here's a few more details about my upcoming trip: Leaving tomorrow (Tuesday the 21st)

You can follow a little on the map to your right but it doesn't show all the rivers.

Tomorrow morning I'll be crossing the Essequibo via boat, then taking an hour bus ride to Charity where I will meet pastor Orpha and her friend.

Early Wednesday morning, we plan to take a small boat down the Pameroon River to the Atlantic. In another boat we'll travel about 11 km in the ocean.

Then it's up more rivers, visiting villages and sleeping who knows where along the way.

Eventually we'll spend a couple days in Mabaruma.

We hope to cross over to Venezuela to visit another village that Pastor Orpha wants to help out before heading back the way we came.

The purpose of our journey is to visit the communities and their churches, to encourage them and see their needs. These are all Amerindian villages (different tribes native to the area).

I'm so thankful I get to do this even though the giant tarantulas make me uneasy. Aparently they can be dinner-plate sized there. Might as well be as big as a hippo.

Please pray for safe travels and that I will be an expression of Jesus to my traveling partners and people we meet.

I should be back in Parika on Wednesday the 28th with stories and pictures.

Thanks so much.

eM

Neighbours, Sand, and Rivers

Hi Everyone!

Thanks for your continued prayer. Exciting news this week is that we finished filling in the foundation for our new building - hooray!!! And it has rained enough to irrigate it which saves us a lot of work with buckets!

We've also had new opportunities to reach out to our neighbours, some have been going through difficult times and they've appreciated our care and concern.

We are excited about the vision God is giving us for this place -especially to build a community recreation centre at the front of our property. More on this later...

I have an opportunity to visit some communities in the Northwest interior region with a Guyanese pastor and a small group. I'm slightly nervous about the trip 'cause I've heard it can be crazy but I am way looking forward to the adventure and making connections for future ministry opportunities. We leave this Wednesday (traveling in a series of small boats up the Essequibo and its tributaries) and are due to return on the 28th. Please pray for a safe journey and no malaria!

Please also pray for Jamaica, in the path of Hurricane Dean.

God bless you,
eM

"...'and all you people of the land take courage', declares the Lord, 'and work; for I am with you,' declares the Lord of hosts." -Haggai 2:4b

Out of Egypt

Sometimes, when my foreign-ness smacks me in the face I think I'll never escape this perpetual pendulum of wanting to fit in and not wanting to to fit in because, so what?

Every once in a while I battle these thoughts that in some way or another, I'm just not cutting it. Yet the voice of God is not condemning. Every once in a while and sometimes more often than not, I get anxious about stuff that I'm supposed to enjoy and His Word says to be anxious for nothing, just let Him know what's on my mind and He'll lead me to peace.

I was swimming in all this especially after my journey to Hungary last spring and back to Jamaica in May. I wrote this then and it has become one of my reminders that Jesus is my deliverer and He is my friend. Today, I am remembering.

Out of Egypt
I've been a little apprehensive to cast my net from this boat
I've been stumbling in a pressing crowd
Afraid to reach out and touch your cloak.

But I'll keep missing every sunrise
If I don't face the dark before sweet dawn
And I cannot walk on water
When I'm busy building bricks out of straw.

Lead my mind out of Egypt
Pour your thoughts into my heart
Your hand stretched out, take it or leave it
Patience, walk me back from start.

No corners on the road to freedom
Shackles strewn along the side
In a thousand shapes and sizes
Mark milestones passed in time.

You cautiously unearth deep roots, lifting rocks with movements kind
Revealing underneath a soil that's tender
In these trapped pieces of my mind.

You're the warrior who clears the path before me
Pointing out that I carry too much
Wise to let me choose my footing
You're the gentle one who picks me up

And leads my mind out of Egypt
Pours truth into my heart
You liberate tied up emotions
Giving life and love fresh start.

Action & Suds

The action continues in Hyde Park while Kim leaps around the room trying to get rid of the persistent bat that's circling above my head...oh, she's got it. I guess that's the second reason we have a broom and dustpan upstairs... I spent last week at another youth camp about a half-hour from Hyde Park. This one was much smaller than the last, with 35 youth and just a couple churches attending. My responsibilities included counselor, nurse and lifeguard (we bathed in a trench and canal). The smallness of it made for an extra awkwardness initially with everyone knowing each other and bantering with their inside jokes in Creolese.

Guyanese Creole has about as many similarities to Jamaican Patois as differences but I'm getting used to the accent. This camp was a good immersion in Creolese. I even played a part in a skit one night and people laughed when they were supposed to. And by the end of the week I felt very much a part of this church/camp family. They drenched me with water and painted my face to show their acceptance.

This was the trench we bathed in until we sent the boys upstream and got to use the canal across the road, wich was deep enough to swim in. The water comes from tributaries of the Essequibo River so it was clean, depending on your definition of clean. They call it black water because it's the colour of rootbeer, due to minerals. It might've also had something to do with the floating suds and occasional wrapper, bottle, and film of oil. I tried to look on the positive side and convince myself that the oil was making up for my lack of conditioner. Once the girls complied with my no-pretending-you're-dead rule, I enjoyed dancing around in the water with them and jumping in the canal to rinse the shampoo out of our hair.

It was truly a blessing to be with these bright, fun young people and I even connected with some of the other counselors. I was encouraged by the passion I saw in the pastors who ran the camp and those who came to speak at the sessions. They have a tremendous desire to build into the lives of the youth here and since it's a relatively small community, they take the opportunity to know their congregation.

This week I'm looking forward to focusing more on DTS prep and spending some quality time in prayer and seeking God.

"Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world." 1 John 4:4b

Bless you,
eM