A difficult weekend

18.2.13

On Thursday evening we had a text from Emily saying she had been involved in a car accident on the Isle of Wight.  Thankfully she was unhurt, just shaken by it – apparently a drunk driver had hit a car which then went into her car.  Although I tried to call her mobile from my mobile I couldn’t get a connection, which I found very upsetting.  It made me realise just how far away from everyone we are and how helpless we are in any emergency.  All I wanted to do was get on a plane and go to her but I knew I couldn’t and all we could do was pray for her and try to contact her via text and email.  We managed to Skype her briefly on Friday from the hotel with wifi and it was sad not to be able to give her a hug. L She was moving into her new flat on Saturday which was tricky without her car but we are so thankful that Mark’s cousin and her husband, along with her boyfriend’s parents all helped her move in – they were her surrogate parents for the day!  I hadn’t realised how hard it would be not to do the usual ‘mummy’ things and guess that is another part of the sacrifice of being here really.  Today we had an email saying she is really happy in her new flat and can at last settle down so we are really thankful for that news.  Her car has sadly been written off so we pray that someone's insurance will pay out so she can get a new one!

 The longest funeral in the world!

Then on Saturday we were instructed to attend a funeral of someone who had been quite high up in the church here – it started in Georgetown at 9.30am so we got there in good time.  I assumed it might last about 2 hours or so as he was quite a well known man but could never have anticipated the length of it!  We were given an order of service as we walked in and yet it wasn’t until we had been there for three and a half hours that the service actually began!  The first part was one person after another giving a long wordy tribute to the man and after a while they all merged into one long drone!  There must have been about 40 people giving a tribute!  I was beginning to lose the will to live especially as we’d been sitting on hard benches and not able to stand that whole time!  Finally the service started and we finally left the church at 3.10pm – 5 hours and 40 minutes after we had arrived!  It is the first time I have been to a funeral and begun to wish it was my own!!  Ha! 

By the time we left we were ravenous and parched and dashed to get pizza and Pepsi! 

A sad accident

 On Sunday we heard that a young man from one of Mark’s chapels had been in an accident in which a 13 year old boy had been killed.  We went to visit the family and pray with them as they were obviously all in shock.  We also called in to see the young man in hospital – we are not sure what will happen to him once he is out of hospital but please pray for him and the parents of the young boy who was killed.  It was a sad situation but we felt privileged to be able to share with the family. 

A happy afternoon!

After the sadness of the above situation we had a happier end to the day…we had received a play parachute from friends in Lincoln (by Fedex and SO easy to collect!) and took it out to play with the Sunday school children in the yard out the front of the manse and they absolutely LOVED it!  They were SO excited!  The youth all came and joined in the fun and although we were very hot we had great fun too!  Also, some of the youth trimmed the trees for us that are apparently in the way of the phone line so now we wait to see what the next excuse is for not putting in a phone!!  Watch this space!! 

This week in pictures!

Here are a few more pictures - I would love to put them in the relevant blogs but lack of internet means I have to just upload them whenever I am somewhere with wifi!  Hope you still enjoy looking at them though! 

Some girls helping 'Teacher Carolyn' with an illustration

Nettie's overseas debut appearance!

Children arriving for the Ash Wednesday service

Selina and Christina

At one of our lunchtime Bible clubs

Lisa, Sewanna and Celina

Another nice birdie - can anyone find out what it is called?

At the Ash Wednesday service

Waiting for the service to start

Slightly bemused by Nettie!

Mark preaching in the market

At our lunch club

A random toilet!

A sign in a village near us

Hospitality and socialising

Wed 13th Feb

 

We have been intrigued by the different view of hospitality in this culture to what we are used to.  I think I may have mentioned before that when people call on us or come for a meeting, we have tried offering them a drink and they always give us a look as though we have offered them a venomous snake!  We have thought about it and think it’s because no-one eats or drinks between meals here and it must seem as though we are saying they must be weak if they need a drink when it is not a meal time! 

So now we have stopped offering people drinks and they seem much happier!   It is the same the other way though as when we are visiting people no-one offers us any food or drink either so we have to be prepared and have water in the car!   We are finding that we are becoming more hardy and can now go hours on end with nothing to eat or drink without getting headaches or feeling faint, which would have been unheard of a few months ago!  We actually realise we ate and drank far too much in the UK which is probably now helping our decreasing waistlines!! 

As far as eating together is concerned, it seems that no-one invites anyone else into their homes to eat.  Occasionally there is food at church events but there doesn’t seem to be any socialising just for fun.  We have noticed that when people eat together at church events they don’t actually make conversation with each other but just keep their heads down and eat the food quietly.  Often there is very loud music playing so you can’t hear someone even if they do speak to you!  We also heard that one of the churches here hosts an annual barbeque and invite local people to come along – I suggested that we could do some children’s activities but the people told me the children don’t come as the parents leave them at home while they come along, collect their food and take it home again!  

So it seems this is not going to be the culture where I host a lot of dinner parties! 

Ups and downs of children’s work

Yesterday I took my reading classes with my 39 year 4s and 28 year 6s (the groups seem to get bigger each week!).  I am not sure how much good I am doing as I am having to go right back to the very basics of reading – just currently learning letter sounds and even that is too hard for some of them.  If you are a teacher in England reading this – HELP!  I did have a laugh though as we were looking at the letters ‘a’ and ‘s’ and I tried to get them to sound out the word ‘as’.  I asked them if they could think of a sentence with the word ‘as’ in it and had some hilarious responses – one child said ‘I as a new dress’ and another said ‘I as the teacher a question’.  The difference in accent and dialect is another hurdle to cross!!   I have agreed to take some training sessions for the staff to teach them to teach reading – again…HELP! 

After this we took the lunchtime Bible club at Gibson and came away feeling very discouraged – there were well over 100 children there which is great, BUT there is so much noise going on and the children are often chatting to each other so it is extremely hard to make ourselves heard and it felt that we had wasted our time as no-one heard what we had said.  Then today we had a really encouraging morning to make up for it! 

We took an Ash Wednesday service in Mahaicony and had invited children from the local primary and secondary school – we had about 100 children and teachers there (they gave all the children the option of coming if they wanted to).  They all listened well and joined in enthusiastically with all the action songs!  Nettie made her Guyana debut and a lot of the children looked very bemused by her!!  We’ll persevere with that one! 

After that we took the bible club at Helena and the children listened well and had a great time doing the action songs which are becoming more familiar to them now!  While they were colouring we had chance to go round and chat to them and I had a try at saying silly things to make them laugh!   Most of them just stared at me as though I was crazy but a few had a giggle – probably at me rather than with me but at least they were smiling!  

Update on phone

Zilch, zip, zero!  STILL waiting for someone to do something! 

 

Feeding the children

More schools visited

Today we went to visit some more schools and all of them welcomed us warmly.  Hooray!  We have been in to a couple of secondary schools and another primary and now have dates in our diaries to do some ‘devotions’ as well as appointments for me to help with more reading/phonics classes – it seems there is a desperate need here for help with reading and I have said I will try to help the teachers with some phonics training too.  Any help from my UK teacher friends gratefully received, as I am by no means an expert!! 

 

We have also been asked to reinstate a feeding programme at one school where some of the children don’t have any food all day because their families are too poor to feed them.  Apparently it used to run but sadly the church had to stop it because of lack of funding.  The people in the church are really poor as well and it is hard for them to afford these extras so we pray we can get it started again as it met a real need in that village. 

At one school the head told us that there is a burial ground next door to the school and whenever there is a burial the children seem to become really unsettled and start arguing and fighting and people have seen strange things around the place.  So we have offered to gather the church leaders to go in and pray around the school to send whatever is causing the mischief packing! 

Stalemate on the landline

We are still no nearer getting a landline and therefore internet.  Mark called in to the phone company yesterday and explained that the landline was paid for on 7^th January and yet nothing has been yet been done.  They are now saying it is our responsibility to cut the trees down at the front of the house but we have no idea which ones they want trimming so now we are waiting for an engineer to come and tell us which ones to pollard.  AGGH!  We seem to move in ever decreasing circles!  I do pray we get a phone and internet connection before we leave!!

Driving permit

Driving permit

Yesterday we went to Georgetown to apply for a driving permit for the duration of our time here to replace our temporary passes.  We had to fill in a form and leave our UK driving licenses in what looks like a completely disorganised and chaotic office so we are just praying we get them back safely!  We have been told to collect them next Monday so hopefully they won’t get lost and we can get our Guyana permits without any further hassle! 

Children’s home knock back

Today we went to Gibson school to do another lunch club – thankfully we didn’t have quite so many children today – only about a hundred – more manageable but still chaotic!  We had booked to go the Mahaica children’s home at 4pm to take a short service but when we arrived we were told we would need to write to the child care and protection agency to obtain permission as they are a Government organisation.  We were really disappointed not to present what we had prepared but have written the letter and hope to be able to get in there very soon!  

Tomorrow I have to do the Helena lunch club on my own as Mark has a ministers’ meeting in Georgetown – eek!  I also have to walk carrying all my stuff so am not looking forward to that part! 

Dead crocodile

On our way out yesterday we spotted a dead crocodile (or alligator – can’t tell the difference!) on the road near our house.  It looked like a young one as it wasn’t huge but we were amazed to see it!  The road kill here is certainly interesting!!  And it reinforces the warning we have received not to go walking in the countryside!  Wouldn't want to meet a live one! 

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.