We arrived all happy in Barbados since a place to stay has been provided and someone to pick us up at the airport, but then Barbados immigration did not want to let us in the country since we did not have an address where we were staying. In the end Maxine had to go with the main man to arrivals so they could speak to the Sybil that was picking us up so we could prove that we have a place to stay. After that eventful start we got to the place were we would be staying and it was so cool.
We had a slow start with regards to ministry since even thought we had established contacts in the last few days in Guyana the contacts still had to put some things together. Due to some legal and other reasons ministry in Barbados were limited to Fridays and Sundays and it meant that we did have a lot of free time while there. Ministry included some youth meetings, Sunday schools, door do door ministry and a day visit at the YWAM base. All of these happened across the island and in different churches so we did get a good exposure of the Island. Most of this was possible due to the work put in from Allan and his Made For Missions organisation. Barbados is a very religious place with about 365 Christian churches on an island with a 270000 population. We had some interesting and some good church services, but I found the youth quite hard to work with and closed to what was going on. The older people on the Island were really the people with the life in the churches.
We used our free time to explore and go out and meet local people and as a team we had some interesting meetings with people on the island. These free time was a very important time for the team, we got to know each other better and had time to spend some quality time together to a point where we had some fun digging out some sand parasites that grew in our feet from Guyana. It also turned into a time that the team was soaking in the Bible, almost the whole team got to prepare a sermon and deliver it to the team. It was a time that everyone in the team spent a lot of time in the Word and it was so good for us as an team.
Fun Highlight
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The amazing beaches and clear blue sea, even I got into the ocean and saw a blue and yellow fishy like Dory from Finding Nemo (third time this year in the ocean, I am heading for an record).
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Some of the team getting to swim with sea turtles
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The last day there Allan and Julie took us on a round the Island tour that was so cool, the east coast of Barbados is so beautiful.
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Ice Cream
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The most amazing Sunday lunches
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Team family nights, playing Mafia and watching Gladiator
Personal Journey
Lots of time to spend in the word and prayer let to some revelations and a good journey in Barbados. It started with the Journey in Revelations that started in Guyana and took full force in Barbados. Through it God just came and revealed how BIG he is and where we are in relation to Him and how wonderful it is that God wants to be in relationship with us. Then God took me on a roller-coaster ride, He started taking me on a journey of spiritual warfare, sin and disobedience and the consistences of sin and disobedience (related to spiritual warfare). I was also challenged by what the writer of Hebrews saw as the basics of Christianity in Heb 6:1-3. And there were a few loose odds and ends that had to be tied up. And in this period of about a week I was sleeping about 4 hours a night since it was the only way that I had enough time to work through and write down all that was happening, but it was so good.