Two Awesome Days

Where do I begin? I have been here around eleven days, sometimes it feels like a month and sometimes it feels like we have just arrived! I have not had a chance to share with you yet so I will try to keep it short and not get too carried away!

First off I miss you all. Samantha, Ali, Randy, Mom, Dad, etc. Uncle Kieth I think about you often and your pledge to pray for everyone by name every day until we get safely back home. Thank you it is working. All of your prayers have made this trip a huge success. We could all leave today and our new Antiguan friends would be very happy with what we have accomplished.

Yesterday we were able to worship at our 3rd and 4th different church. We were at Swetes (pronounced Sweets) Wesleyan Holiness Church in the morning. We went to Sunday School where six classes were taking place at the same time in the sanctuary! Needless to say it was a little distracting. We heard a great message there. That night we went to Parham Wesleyan Holiness Church. We were late because our van ride did not show up on time, not uncommon here! We get there when we get there! The pastor commented that he arrived just ahead of us. We heard another great message by Pastor Paul Edwards who is also the District Superintendent in this district.

Today we left the duplex at our usual 7:30 a.m. ( we had our own transportation)! We were able to hire a local trucker to haul away a truck loads of brush,broken glass, chunks of cement, lizards, spiders, and any other critter that had made the churches back yard its home. Our young men of Team II were remarkable. Ray cracked the whip on Tony, Andrew, and Austin. They worked really hard, cutting down trees with Brother Mac's machete! The truck driver had no idea what he was in for. We cleaned that yard down to the grass, what there was under all that garbage. We ended up with three truck loads taken out of there.

When Team I left I thought there was no way that Team II could do as good as a job as the first gang. Well guess what, they have! We are all working great together, all pulling in the same direction to minister to the people of Gray's Farm community. These people are living in desperate situations and there are so many people that need the Lord, probably a lot like it would be inter city Flint or Detroit!

One more story then I will sign off. By the way we are having some technological difficulties uploading photos. We are hoping that we can get the photos to Pastor Peter (we miss you) and he can upload them from home.

I met a young single mom the first Sunday we were here at Church. She has a little boy, Genesis, who is as cute as they come. We immediately became friends and she has been sharing with me about her life here in Antigua. While she was in London, England having her baby her neighbors tapped into her electrical service and ran up a bill to the tune of $470.00 EC, so she has no electricity, no running water, no inside toilet, no panes of glass in her windows, and obviously no refrigerator! It is a very rough neighborhood so she has to board up her windows up at night for safety. Just two weeks ago she was awaken in the night by her neighbor screaming that a masked man was raping her! She can not come to night church unless a friend brings her because it would be dark when she got off the public bus on the way and it would not be safe for her to walk to her house from the bus stop. Greg, Gert, Debbie D., and I were in her home today because were are going to give her the money to get her electric hooked back up and Greg is going to install a yard light for her. She never complains, we prayed together before we left and she was thanking the Lord for all her blessings! She has the sweetest spirit about her. She and her son are always very neat and clean, her little house was very clean. The people here take pride in what they have, at least the Christian community does. The little children in the morning are at their bu stops in the morning with their clean uniforms on with their clean and pressed white shirts on!

Pray for us we can not get every body's electricity turned back on but we can share with, wave to, visit with anybody that comes by the Church while we are working on it. It is heart breaking to see the conditions that these people are living in.

In closing, keep praying because the devil rears his ugly head every so often. This lets us know we are doing what God wants us to do. Keep our missionary hosts, Janice and Ron, in your prayers. They are wonderful people and are great hosts.

Learning to Serve,
Julie

(PS The beaches are beautiful! )