Abandonned animals and people :-(

After church this morning we gave a lift home to a lady who lives near us who is the widow of a Methodist Minister.  We were commenting on the state of the dogs around the place – some of them covered in sores, missing most of their fur and this morning we saw one with a mangled leg!  I think that when one of them gets killed by a passing mini bus it must be a blessed relief for them! 

This lady told us that a lot of the dogs are strays which have been abandoned – she told us that she often sees people stopping outside her house and putting out a dog, a cat or most shockingly, a mentally disabled person.  We thought it was sad enough to hear that dogs and cats are left on the road side let alone people.  She said people drive over this way from the Berbice area, come through our village on the back road, put the person out of the car and drive off.  They then just wander around not knowing where they are or where to go and a lot of them just die as there is no-one to pick them up and take care of them.  How shocking and upsetting.  It made us wonder how desperate a family must get to be driven to do that kind of thing.  L

The conversation tree

This afternoon we went down to the market place where Mark preached under a tree to the people wandering around.  We were told the tree is called “The conversation tree” – aptly named!  A little group from some of our churches came to support him and after he preached we offered prayer for people who wanted it and prayed for a few people in the street.  Mark was in his element and had great fun!  

Christmas day TV

This week we received some DVDs from my Mum and Dad and finally got to watch some Christmas TV!  Downton Abbey, Room on the broom and Christmas edition of Strictly!  It was wonderful to watch something half decent and even the UK adverts seem amazing to us now – so entertaining and professional!! 

 

A real treat!

We have just returned from a night at the hotel we discovered and it feels like we have been on a holiday even though we’ve been gone less than 24 hours!  We got to use the gym, swim in the pool, have a HOT and powerful shower and a lovely meal in an air con restaurant, plus skyped all our family!  It was wonderful.  The only downside was that there was at least one mozzie in our room so we have been eaten alive in the night!  Note to self…next time take insect spray!   We’re going to try to do this about once every 5 weeks or so that we have a treat to look forward to.  Hooray!

 Helena Primary

 On Wednesday I went into Helena Primary and led two phonics lessons – one with a group of grade 4 children and another with grade 6, all of whom are struggling with their reading.  I was somewhat shocked that some of them couldn’t write their own names and couldn’t discriminate sounds at all.  So it looks like I have a lot of work to do there!  I am hoping to get a laminating machine so I can make resources to use with them and then leave there when we go.  It was a real privilege to be able to help them and I look forward to the coming weeks’ lessons.   Mark joined me for the lunchtime Bible club – we were told we’d have 75 children but about 115 turned up!  We were well prepared and have taken in extra children’s Bibles just in case that happened!!  Again, they loved the singing and colouring – wondering if we’ll have even more kids next week or if the novelty will die off! 

Planning more adventures!

On Thursday I had a meeting with my boss to discuss what I have done so far and what is planned.  Mark kindly drove me there as I am still not brave enough to drive alone in the city yet!  It was a positive meeting and I came away excited at the prospect of all that is planned for me to do.  I am going to be writing some devotional material for women, leading the annual district women’s retreat and chairing a committee to look at issues around family life.

I am also going to be leading some training days for people working with children and young people – firstly in the Mahaica circuit, (where we live) then another day in Berbice which is a drive to the East of here (Mark will be my driver and AV techie man!) and then the biggest adventure – I have to do a training day in the Essequibo circuit which means a trip across the Mazaruni/Essequibo rivers on either a steam ferry (which takes 3 hours) or a speed boat (which takes half an hour).  Apparently the boats sometimes collide or capsize (and the river has crocodiles and piranha!) so on that day I will be asking for lots of prayer!   That will be our first trip into the ‘bush’ and we’ll have to stay overnight with someone as the journey takes so long!  I can’t believe I am excited about this!  Who am I and what have they done with Carolyn!! 

Please keep praying for us to get a landline and internet – ongoing problem!  Also please pray for Mark as he preaches in the open air in the market place tomorrow and we offer to pray for people for healing.  We are planning to do this once a month. 

 

 

 

More random photos!

To show you the hair colour from my first home dye!  Back view always the best these days!

I'm proud of this shot taken in our garden - my brother has found out it's a yellow bellied kiskadee - that's the sound it makes!  They are easily the most common bird here - we get dozens in the garden.

Can you see the little lizard climbing up the drawers?

Here is the little lizard close up! 

View of the Demerara River as we drove over the bridge

Driving onto the Demerara Harbour Bridge - the second longest floating bridge in the world (no idea where the longest one is!)

A bit rickety and needs some repairs but saves a long ferry crossing!

Giving out children's colouring bibles at Gibson Primary

Lots of children came to the lunchtime Bible club - about 250 in all though we gave out 324 bibles!

 

 

Children enjoying colouring in their bibles with pencils provided from our lovely friends in the UK

Action songs go down well here too!

Colouring at Helena Primary school

Some of the children at the lunch club - we only had 115 this day!

The beginning of the schools work :-)

29.1.13

Today we went into Gibson Primary school for the first of our lunchtime Bible clubs.  I had got the children’s ‘make your own Bibles’ from the Bible society ready to give out and yesterday called the head teacher to ask how many children to expect at the club out of the 321 children in the school.  She told me it could be anything up to 300!  So we went out and bought lots of coloured pencils and arrived with 324 Bibles in the car just in case!

When we arrived some very small but exceedingly strong children helped Mark carry the boxes of Bibles upstairs, I set up my CD player and we were ready to begin.  We started with only about 100 children (ha ha…only 100!!) in the room all squashed onto benches and I told them a Bible story and taught them the song ‘Great Big God’ which they loved!  Gradually more and more children arrived, drawn by the sound of the music and by the end of our half hour session we had about 250 children crammed into the room!  It was chaos but great fun!  We gave out the Bibles and they all coloured the first page of it and have promised to look after them and keep them safely for next week! 

A good time was had by all!  Even one of the teachers exclaimed ‘This is fun!’ and said she looks forward to us coming back next week.  As we tidied away at the end of the session many of the children, some looking like little street urchins and some without shoes gathered round for a hug and a kiss.  It was so moving and I just LOVED it!  I can’t wait to go back next week.  (Mark took some photos which will follow once I get to some wifi!)

On our way home we found the Mahaica children’s home and went in to introduce ourselves to the manager.  We asked if we could come in once a month to take a little service and sing some songs and she was delighted.  There are 60 children who live there and we are going in next Tuesday afternoon.  I can’t wait to meet them all.  The home is close to Gibson Primary so we may meet some of the children we saw at lunchtime. 

THIS is what we came to do and I am so happy to finally start getting out there into the schools and meeting the children.

Missionary girl Barbie!

We were laughing the other night at some of the things that we are beginning to take in our stride that would have once freaked us out!  Here are some examples…

• When I went to the loo in the night, I spotted a frog in the bathroom sink and just thought, ‘Oh there’s a frog’ and went back to bed! 
• When the lizards run around the house we just ignore them now!  (I noticed they change colour according to the background they are on!)
• When the power goes off, as it does frequently, we just get our torches and carry on with whatever we were doing. 
• When some foods are not available I just make something else with whatever we happen to have.
• I just wipe up the ants off the kitchen surfaces now as a matter of course and every food item is inside a plastic ‘zip lock’ bag to protect it!
• We just shoo the cows out of the garden in the evenings when we need to lock the gate.
• When the shower attachment is just a dribble we still manage to get clean.  It’s amazing how little water you actually do need to stay clean!

Some of the things that would have got us stressed or irritated, or just surprised us in the UK are now just a part of everyday life!  I think that means we are settling in!   

 

 

 

We have got our visas!

We went to the ‘Passport and Immigration Office’ 2pm today expecting a long wait.  We were ushered in ahead of the long queue of people trying to leave Guyana to an office for people wanting to come into Guyana – the queue for that only consisted of us two!  Make of that what you will!  So we handed them the letter of authorisation from the Ministry of Home Affairs and they told us to come back at 4pm.  We went to amuse ourselves for a couple of hours…had a drink at Pizza Hut (which looks like it was last renovated in about 1970!  Salad bar not refrigerated and all open to the flies! Pizzas looked decent though!) then went to our regular supermarket ‘Nigel’s’ to get our week’s shop before heading back to the office to wait.  When we arrived at 3.30 they had our passports stamped and ready to go! 

The funny thing was that we were told we could only have a visa for two years up to January 2015 and would then need to reapply for the last 6 months.  However, when the Ministry of Home Affairs typed up our authorisation letter they made a typing error and put 2016 so now our visas are good until 12^th Jan 2016 so we don’t have to go back again!  Hooray!  A real answer to prayer and great that the disorganisation worked in our favour this time!  So now we can legally stay here and settle – we can now flatten the freight boxes and store them and start to buy some furniture and things for our home. 

So now we have a car and visas…next thing to pray for…driving permits and the ongoing saga of waiting for a landline and internet connection!  

Conference Rally

On the Sunday following conference they hold what is called the ‘Conference Rally’ at a theatre in Georgetown.  This is a service for everyone in the district – churches hire mini buses to get all their members to the service and dress up for the occasion.  Even I wore a dress and heels for the event!

The service was about four hours long – we must be getting used to it now as at last year’s rally it really got to me but now we are just learning to take it in our stride and I didn’t even need to go to the toilet!  I was asked to lead a ‘children’s moment’ so tried to do something interesting and have a lively song!  They didn’t look as terrified of me as they did last year so we’re making progress!

After a lunch break the people re-assembled for an inter-circuit Bible memorisation quiz, which we found painful.   Children in each circuit had had to learn 20 Bible verses by heart then had to have elimination contests so that each circuit had one child to represent them.  Thankfully for our circuit no child wanted to do it – a blessed relief for them no doubt!  So the circuit representatives were tested on the bible verses – I found it excruciating to watch the poor little mites being publicly humiliated like that – it was ok if they got it right but when they got it wrong there were groans from the audience and the ‘quiz master’ just said, ‘No that’s wrong’ – not even ‘Well tried sweetie!’  I do hope I get to have a say in this event next year! 

A long week!

26.1.13

Visas

On Tuesday morning we went to the ministry of home affairs to try to sort out our visas.  After a very long wait and after making payments of about £90 each, we were told that we would be able to have a visa to stay for 2 years (up to Jan 2015).  We were then given a letter of authorisation – we thought that was done and dusted but found we have to now take that letter to the passport and immigration office to have our passports stamped which we will endeavour to do on Monday.  We’ll worry about the extra 6 months nearer the time! 

Conference

Each January the Methodist church holds a four-day district conference with representatives from each circuit present.  This year the conference was held in the West Demerara circuit, which is about 2 hours away from our home.  To cut the journey time down we stayed at the home of our boss in Georgetown.  It has been a long and tiring week!  We were in conference from about 9 in the morning until about 8 at night – the sessions are drawn out and there is a lot of discussion about small points of order so we found it very frustrating at times. 

I compared it to a game of snakes and ladders – we keep thinking we are moving on through the notes but then we suddenly go back to a previous point and discuss it again.  Then we move on and think we are getting somewhere and then go back again, maybe to a completely different part that we discussed days ago!  We have found it really difficult and would love to have a go at chairing it and move things along for everyone’s sake! 

Yesterday the conference was meant to end at 3pm and overran until 4.30pm which was a pleasant surprise as last year when we were here visiting it overran until 9 in the evening on the final day!  We had a meal and speeches of thanks were given and we finally got home last night about 8pm exhausted!  A day off today and we are going to the hotel for a quiet lunch – hooray!

 
New avenues to explore

We have been told that in Mahaica there is a children’s home for ‘displaced’ children.  Some of these are orphans but others have been put there while their parents go abroad to work.  I felt really sad to hear about it and am keen to go and make myself known there to see if I can help out in any way. 

Apparently there is also a home for disabled children in our village which I am keen to visit – none of these children go to school but stay at the home all the time – we were told that there is a mixture of physical and mental disabilities so I am very interested to see what provision is made for these children educationally. 

We were also told there is a secondary school in Mahaica that I have not yet found – it is apparently a school where children go who are not clever enough to go to a good secondary school so again I am keen to get in there and find out what sort of education is being offered.  Oh my goodness there is so much to do!  All of this excites me as I really want to use my time here wisely and fruitfully and make a difference if I can to as many children as possible with God’s help.  The frustration is that there is SO much to be done and I am only one person with limited resources so I have to find out what God wants me to do and what is the most important and can have the most impact. 

Some photos at last!



We are staying at the home of our boss in Georgetown while the Methodist conference is on and she has wifi (yay!) so finally I am putting up some random photos for those of you who haven't seen them yet!  Sorry about the random order - this blog seems to have a mind of its own! 

Piles of rubbish in the streets here everywhere you look.  Very sad.

Practically every street corner has it's own little dump complete with dogs rummaging in the rubbish and sometimes beggars.

Flowers in our garden - the cows love eating these given half a chance to get in!

The garden just after the 'boy' had cut the grass!

The hotel where we can have a nice relaxing lunch and use the pool if we stay the night.

We didn't go in the pool but even sitting near it made us feel relaxed!

Sitting in the hotel bar listening to some tasteful jazz and feeling human!

The hotel lobby and courtyard

Taken from the sea wall when the tide was in - very muddy! 

More piles of rubbish by the side of the road.

Rubbish fills every river - we were told that all the drainage is blocked by 'polystyrene and dead dogs'!  Hence the flooding is bad in the rainy season!

A little tottering house - someone lives here!  Amazing!

 

Me trying to make shortbread without proper equipment or ingredients and no temperature guage on oven!!
 

Mark chilling on our balcony with a coke!  All the houses here have balconies as they are raised from the ground - it makes a cool outdoor sitting area!

A nice cup of tea on the balcony - got bitten about 3 times while having the tea!!

An interesting hawk like bird in our garden.  The birds here are amazing!  Just wish I knew what they were all called!

Outside one of the schools - at this one I am going to be running a lunctime bible club and also doing 1-1 work with children from difficult backgrounds.

At this school I am going to be doing a bible club and also some reading/phonics lessons with children from years 4 and 6 who still can't read.

This is our nearest school - there is already a club and feeding programme here so looks like I won't be needed at this one!

 

The sky taken from our house - when you look up it's really pretty!