One way to describe Guyana is Amazon jungle with a hint of India. The food is very spicy and ricy. Lots of colors. The caribbean accent is very prominent. Oh and sand. Lots and lots of sand. A peculiar thing if you think about it. Sand belongs on a beach, not in a jungle. Or that's my western mindset. Georgetown is the capital and is about 5m below sea level. The coast is mostly mangroves and dykes to keep the ocean at bay. While we were here it was election time and a new political party won. The people have high hopes for the new government. We helped out at Joshua generation little lights kids club, did dramas for Mother's Day, chilled with the locals, explored rivers, dug holes, and swept the house 7 times a day to get all the sand out. This is a country rich in diversity in every aspect of life. Fauna, flora, and people. We stayed at Light of Life ministry with Pastor Deo as our host. The people are inviting while lazing around in hammocks. We were invited for lunch and dinner a few times and had cooking lessons from locals. Guyana is very welcoming and an undiscovered gem. It is a place of peace, redemption, new beginnings, hope, and family. We swam in a coca cola creek while Morris and Danny cooked us traditional Guyanese food and it's at this creek that our conversations started to unfold. We all have questions. These questions can only be answered by year's of experience and exposure to different types of people and hardships. It is answers that come with a deep understanding of how things work in the world because you have experienced it firsthand. When you listen to people answer questions you become aware of your own inexperience...naivety which is beautiful because it is loaded with adventure. It excites the heart because you realize there is so much more to experience which will make you love people more as you grow and will also draw you closer to God because you realize you will never know it all. It makes life a winding road of excitement. A road of discovery of differences that God has worked into His creation. We all express and experience God in different ways and this what we should value. We should not try to force doctrine of culture unto another just because someone worships different than what we do. If we make a fuss about it we are the ones that are going to be uncomfortable, not the people busy worshipping God. We should discern between culture and wrong theology. This can cause a lot of discomfort if we mistake cultural differences for bad theology and try to change people. We should rather ask questions first to discover and learn and become aware. God has this massive worldwide interconnected family and I am discovering it more with each passing country we visit. You have the awkward aunts who kiss you, the uncle with the chuckle, the sometimes annoying little brother, the sister who bakes cookies, the moms and dads who just love you and grandparents who give gifts. This is the bride, the universal church, and God is teaching me that we all should love each other because of our differences. Because it's beautiful when a family celebrates life together. My heart is being revived...healed. Jesus is beautiful.
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