Memories from Mashabo

These past nine days that I have spent in Mashabo are by far some of the best days I have had since arriving to Guyana nearly two months ago. I have learned many things, enjoyed myself immensely, drawn closer to God, seen first-hand the deep thirst for God in people’s hearts, and grown to love the beautiful children of that village.

Something that I am learning more and more, is the difference between necessities and extras. This week we were without electricity except for 2 hours during the meetings when we ran the generator, we had a deliciously aromatic outhouse, we bathed and washed our clothes in the creek, and we had fun making creative meals with our limited food over an open fire outside. Our most interesting meal of the week was a lunch of plantains, oranges and tortillas. Yet when the week was over none of us wanted to leave. Somehow when we have less, the truly important things bring more happiness.

This week I organized children's meetings, preached, did visitations during the day, did health talks, led out in the song service every night, cooked lunch for the kids at the school one day when the cook didn’t show up, made many of our meals, and learned so many new things. Not to mention being abundantly blessed myself. When it came time for us to leave Mashabo and head back to the school, all of us, without exception, were loathed to leave.

One of the later nights in the series when it we were starting to run out of benches for all the people

Taking blood pressures before the meetings

The kids program in our little building on stilts. Toward the end of the meetings we were totally full in this room, and kids were outside on the stairs. Sometimes when we sang active songs and the building started to sway a little, I wondered if we would come tumbling down=)

Home, sweet home. We stayed in the upper right corner of this building. The underneath part was the health center, and right behind it was the primary school and the field where we held the meetings. I slept in a hammock on the porch at the top of the stairs. The guys slept in the tent in front of the building
Willow cooking some plantains for lunch in our "kitchen" which was a fireplace outside. The school children loved to come and watch everything that we would do. They would crowd around watching us cook, clean, and even would come down and watch me bathe and wash my clothes. I really started to love those kids by the time we were finished.

My night to preach. Any idea what I talked about? Yep, the sanctuary, what else? It went really well...only problem was I didn't have enough time to cover all that I wanted to cover. I tried to tell the people that Paul preached until midnight so it was Biblical, but they didn't buy it=)

Our shower and washing machine. It was a nice little creek, and was close to where we were staying so that was nice. I decided that washing clothes in the creek is easier than a washtub, since its easier to rinse the clothes, and you don't have to fill it up with water.

Some of the cute school kids that were our shadow. They were grating coconuts the day that we made them lunch when the cook didn't show up

Our splendedly aromatic bathroom facilities. We had a couple resident tarantualas inside, they were fun to play with.

Getting some sleep Sabbath afternoon before the evening meeting

Enjoying some coconut milk, and some meat from a dry coconut in my other hand. Yum!

Anca and I with some of my kids that last night of the meetings. Man am I going to miss all of them!