Participant Blogs

Well its been quite some time since i wrote, but only because it is so difficult to put my experience into words.. Over the past 5 months we have been traveling in brazil, guyana, suriname, jamaica, cuba, panama and now colombia. It has been an incredible journey so far with many, many, many challenges. God has really gotten to the bottom of our hearts challenging our way of thinking, of doing, how we make our decisions and coming to that place where you have nothing else to depend on than Him( which is the most scariest area i have journeyed...

Jamaica   While in Jamaica, our team had two ministry points to reach. This became our second country to split in half. The green team stayed in Kingston with Pastor Neville as the yellow team made there way to St. Ann's Bay.   Yellow team:  The ministry point in St. Ann's Bay was with Pastor Jerry at Faith City Outreach Ministries. Located right on the coast of Jamaica, the yellow team really got the full perspective of the tropical, chilled lifestyle of the locals. While the focus of our ministry point was speaking at schools for children of all ages,...

Flight. Midnight. Arrive. Panama. Airport. Sleep. Morning. Adventure. Taxi. Gamboa. Church. Pastor. Carmelita. Canal. Boats. Coffee. Breakfast. Explore. Shower. Outside. Mangoes. Jungle. Tourists. Boat. Canal. Island. Monkeys. Bananas. Locals. Indians. Village. Native. Dance. Sing. Pray. Chief. Heat. Pray. Coke. Armadillos. Conversations. Worship. Prison. Confinement. Solitary. General. Testimony. Pray. Causeway. Pray. Pictures. Search. Treasures. Pray. Pizza. Malls. Busses. Confusion. Running. YWAM. Move. Hotel. Start. New. Change. Season. Food. Cookies. Bed. Mattress. Debrief. Heart. Relaxed. Bus. Airport. Coffee. Shopping. Goodbyes.

In the 500 year old multicoloured town of Santiago we found ourselves lost in time back in the 1950's with vintage cars, Cuban men smoking cigars and playing dominoes on the street, and Latino salsa music filling the warm night air in the plazas. Cuba has ridiculously cheap and delicious street food. So we took full advantage of the 1 peso (60c) ice creams, espressos and butter cookies every day! In this communist country everyday life for a Cuban is quite hard. Small sizes of food rations are handed out to each household monthly; street sweepers' and doctors' salaries are...

In Jamaica I discovered why the word "challenge" is at the centre of ''Global Challenge Expeditions''. How ironic that the pastor's wife gave a sermon on the very first Sunday in which she repeated the phrase: ''Challenges, troubles, trials'' almost 50 times in a time frame of an hour. On the day we arrived in Kingston, half of our team was sick. Most had Chick-V fever, which is caused by some musquito (not very hard to believe since we lived in a musquito nest in Guyana). I on the other hand, had a VERY random pins-and-needles irritation on my arms...

This is one of the most intense, unpredictable, mind blowing, captivating, speechless processes I have been through in my life. Some days I just sit and stare because I don't even know where to begin processing or debriefing or evaluating the experience. Like a blank space just fills my head. I get up, take a shower, get on a truck with 14 other people, and go help clean a yard. And then it happens. That unpredictable thing. The pastor tells you that it is a gift from God that the team came today because it's almost their two year birthday...

Usually I have to repeat my name a few times before the locals can kind of pronounce it, but in Jamaica I could just introduce myself as "Marli, like Bob Marley". The rasta man would laugh and say "ya mon" and conversation would easily flow from there. On this layed back Caribbean island we were introduced to many local dishes like Ackee and salt fish (Jamaica's national dish), jerk chicken (uniquely prepared to give a smoky, spicy taste to it), breadfruit, festivals, spicy buns, Devon House ice cream and Blue Mountain coffee (among the world's most famous coffee). While half...

Nutten. Whatever. No mon. These are the words that you'll hear when you set foot on this island, the birthplace of reggae. The landscape is as diverse as the experiences we had. Golden age home, children's home, homeless shelter, city council meeting, laying cement floors, looking for wifi, eating all the different types of mangoes, going to a cinema to watch the new Avengers movie, having patties at Tastees, ice cream at Devon House, hosting church services and prayer meetings, playing games in Emancipation park, visiting a chicken farm, going to the beach, eating ackee and salt fish with dumplings,...

...where Africa, meets India meets Amerindian culture, where anacondas and jaguars lure in the thick jungle and cashews, papayas and sugar cane grow in abundance. It's here in the small town of Timehri where we got to feast on traditional food like coconut rice, plantain chips and chicken curry roti and hear radical and inspiring testimonies of Hindu's converting to Christianity after God spoke to them audibly or through vivid dreams. Pastor Deo is a multitalented and wise pastor who took us on all our adventures through Guyana in his old school bus. On one of our excursions we visited...

Guyana: land of many waters (especially in rainy season), many many musquitos (also known as the national bird of Guyana), ALOT of jungle and ALOT of sand... Overall Guyana was one of my favorite countries so far. Guyana is like a little India in Africa but situated in South America. The beauty of the jungle is something you only dream about or see in movies. The people: le-gen-da-ry. Just to give some insight into this statement. One day our faithful mode of transportation, an old school bus, failed to start and we needed to be at the pastor's village in...