Jamaica Mon

Having a blog covering 4 jam packed weeks turned into a very long writing session and even longer blog so I broke down the blog into a few sections:

• Bucket list and funny moments

• May Pen

• St Ann's Bay

• Montego Bay

• Kingston

• Jamaica culture observation

• My time there

Bucket list and funny moments. (more details below)

• Playing street cricket in the back streets of Kingston with random people and getting a LBW while bowling

• Watching Cool Runnings in Jamaica

• Being the only white person in a church for a 4.5 hour service

• Going to Dunn's river falls

• Walking past a pre-primary school and them breaking out in a chant of “white people! white people!” that lasted till they could not see us any more

• Being in a church where the pastors greeting was “I want to give a warm welcome to all the believers here tonight and to all the sinner and backsliders you are welcome too”

May Pen

Jamaica was one of the countries that we had a few contacts due to the team that was there last year, but 3 days before we left for Jamaica we still have not heard back from the place we were suppose to be going first in Jamaica. The last Sunday before the Wednesday when we were flying to Jamaica we met pastor Donovan who is from Jamaica that knew a pastor Neville in Kingston and he gave him a call, but the pastor Neville had no idea that we were coming, so for the first 8-9 days we had no place to go. But pastor Donovan call a contact of his on the Monday and organized that he will take us in for that period. So that is how we ended up with uncle Fabian and Merciful Shepherd's Ministries International. We were picked up at the airport in one of the coolest bus ever and went to the town of May Pen were we went strait into ministry, after dropping our things we picked up a few local young people uncle Fabian works with and we went to visit a hospital and after that we went out to do some street evangelism. The next 2 days we had packed days where we visited 3 schools, 4 pre-primary schools, spend the Friday afternoon with high school kids at the local hang-outs and the evening doing door to door evangelism in the community followed by a street service. The school visits were very good. It was also a time that we could spend with the local people working with us, sharing stories, teaching, learning different ways of doing things. I had a very good time with Patrick, just talking that turned into teaching without me realising it, but more than that just seeing how by a nudge here and there God was teaching him some big things in that 2 days, taking him deeper and deeper into His word and understanding. The next 2 days, the Saturday and Sunday, were helped out at a Youth for Christ crusade in the town, this included walking round inviting kids to the kids program, helping with the kids program and the 2 evening crusade events. At those we got the opportunity to share a few testimonies, songs ect. (white people in Jamaica draws attention). The Sunday morning we also had the opportunity to go to church, I went with Patrick to his church while the rest of the team went to church with uncle Fabian. Church with Patrick was an experience, it was a small, but passionate church. Church was 4.5h long and I was the only white person there, but it was so cool and one of my top experiences of the journey so far. They also had a 10 year old playing the drums that were rocking it. We then moved from uncles Fabian's place to Ted and Letsie's due to the fact that uncle Fabian had a team from America coming. After that our program got a bit slower since uncle Fabian had the other team to also look after. The next week we did some church visits and helped with the construction work on the Oasis of Love project of uncle Fabian. Ted and Letsie used the time to take us to a few place, we went to their farm, the salt springs and another town that name I forgot. On the way they gave us some local food, we had our first Jerk chicken, fried breadfruit and acia and salt fish. Jaco, Jansie and me also had the chance to visit a local get together of old people with Ted's mom Mrs Cooper. It was epic, a lot of old peeps with so much life and experience getting together, we got to share a bit of our stories and sing them songs in Afrikaans, and then they sang us some local songs and danced, we also ate way to much, but so gooooood.

St Ann's Bay

On the same day we had to go to St Ann's bay uncle Fabian was taking the American team to Dunn's River falls that was very close to where we were going so we all squashed into the bus and off we went. After a interesting day of travelling we arrived at Faith City and met pastor Jerry. Faith City is a church on the top level above a hardware store in what the paper man referred to as the slums/ghetto of St Ann's Bay, there is a rum bar next door and a strip club across the street, and the street was apply named Jail street. That evening we had time to host the youth meeting where a few youth came. The next morning we had the opportunity to run the Sunday school before church and I think all of us went into a bit of a shock when we found out that there is no difference in attendance from the Sunday school to the church service the whole church membership was actually just the pastors family and the kids from the area. Later when we had some time with pastor Jerry we found out that Faith City serves the people in need and has 2 legs, the child ministry and then a homeless ministry and feeding program. It is amazing when you think that this church runs with less than a handful of adults and still has the finances to function and is growing stronger all based on faith and holding on to the promise that this is what they are there for. Pastor Jerry herself is an inspiring woman with a real heart for the kids and homeless, she has a real soft heart in comparison to the Jamaican culture and our experiences in the other churches in the Caribbean. She also works a full time job besides the lone pastoring of the church and that takes a lot. Our time at Faith City was focused on the community we went to visit a few schools, but our main ministry was spending time and playing with the kids in the area, getting them to come to listen and not to try and hurt each other. I have to say it in bold, but these kids have a hard life, conditions there is the poor of the poor, and broken lives is the norm. There was not one person on the team that was not affected by it. But we had good times and some quality time to speak truth and hope in their lives even if sometimes it felt a bit hopeless. Then we got treated and pastor Jerry took us to Dunn's river falls, but man it is expensive for foreigners to in there (R200 pp), but a blessing from pastor Jerry and some arm twisting for discount made it possible for us to go in and it was so beautiful.

Montego Bay

And then we ended up at the Youth With A Mission (YWAM) base in Mo-Bay. It is solidly the most beautiful missions base, church or institute we have seen this year. We could not afford to pay the full price for staying there, but they allowed us to camp in our tents there for a reduced fee so for the first time this year we had the opportunity to use our tents!! (except for the 3 guys that pitched our tents inside the church in St Ann's Bay for the mosquitoes) Our time was spend at the base helping out with some of the ground and construction work going on at the base, so I got to paint some ceilings and walls. The first day there we did get the opportunity to go to Robin's Nest a children Home a bit outside Mo-Bay, and O Boy were we in for a surprise. The further we went on the road there the more scenic it became, the views were stunning and when we got to the place there waited a castle on the outside, and it just got better when we went into the home. This is by far the happiest, warmest, prettiest children home I have ever been to in my life. We spend the largest part of the day carrying concrete rocks in buckets to the place where they are mixing and building since it could not be reached by wheelbarrow, while some of the girls could play with the kids. It was so good there I want to go live there, since I am also an orphan, but they said I am to old, it is so unfair. Our half way mark of the overseas leg of our journey was in this week and the day coincided with a day of fasting of YWAM and we joined in the fast and it was a good time of looking back and looking ahead. While at the base we also got invited to dinner with a few of the YWAM staff and that was so good to spend some quality time with them. It is at one of theses that we got to spent some time with George, a 70 year old man from the USA that does some extreme stuff for the gospel, since he was also staying at the base for a few days. The last night there we had the bucket list moment of watching Cool Runnings in Jamaica, some of our team for the first time (that made me feel so old, they were 2 when it came out !!).

Kingston

So after Mo-Bay we still had 5 days left that we had to spend somewhere and at the start it was open, but when we got to St Ann's pastor Jerry told us that pastor Neville has been in contact with her asking where we were, after a few minutes of confusion were we told her that we spoke to him 2 weeks ago and he did not know anything we found out that the pastor Neville in Kingston we spoke to while in Barbados was not the right pastor Neville and we got in contact with the right pastor Neville and we could go there for the last 5 days. Our time there was spend in some really needy places. The church itself is in the poorer and more dangerous parts of Kingston with a lot of gang violence, in fact pastor Neville shared that their biggest way of reaching people in the neighbour hood is by doing the funerals of the people killed in the gang violence. The first day was spent at Poor Relief, a government run feeding and social care program, it was really a time of being faced with the poorest and neediest. We helped with handing out food, spending time talking with the people, making some repairs to the concrete on the outside and fixing some showers, it was there where some of us slipped out the door and played 10 minutes of street cricket between the poor relieve and the jail, so the real back streets. The next day we went to the biggest children’s home in Jamaica, wow what a depressed place. Unfortunately there were not a lot of children there since it was holiday time, but we got a good time of sharing a word and talking, that afternoon we slotted in their time of playing basketball and netball and computer time. It was a difficult crowed, but we found out that they are the “good” ones since the more difficult ones were locked away and not allowed outside. That evening we had a prayer service at the church that was good. The next day we went to a big care home, basically an old age home, but also catering for other people that needs to be looked after. It was good and interesting spending the day there chatting to some old people and getting some really funny and disturbing moments while there. That evening we had some good time with pastor Neville and got the best outlay of what Rastafarium is, since he was around when it started. The day after we went to Trench Town high school to help with the building project and got to cart away some rubble and break out and clean an old science lab, destruction with a purpose is always fun. That evening we held the youth service and the next day it was catch a plane to Cayman time.

Jamaica culture observation

The Jamaican people is a very proud people, the Jamaican flag is everywhere and on everything. The people for the most part is very straight forward, almost harsh in temperament and it ran through to the way they do church some of the churches were quite funny in how they do things. They do have good food, jerk chicken, acia and salt fish, curry goat, breadfruit, Jamaican patties, maize porridge made with condense milk and a few other things really good, mangos everywhere, cheap ice-cream

my time there

Jamaica was a difficult time for me. The spiritual atmosphere was very heavy and that had some influence on me and for the first few days felt so tired. I also experienced a feeling of being cut off from God for the first 2 weeks while there. It was hard since suddenly it felt as if I was just drifting along with nothing driving me for the first time in about a year. The last 12 ish months has been some intense time of revelation, healing and teaching and suddenly it was gone. So beside there being some things that was revealed that I need to let go of, it was a time where God was telling me to just rest in Him. It was amazing that even though I felt cut off God was still there and still worked where I was, so humbling and proving that He does not need us, but that He chooses to use us. It was a time of some new experiences and me doing things without realising it that lead to a few moments where some of the team went “is that Fred??” and the great thing is it was God proving a point to me. Example just a natural interaction with the locals and playing with kids in the schools (yes that is me in the picture, if you look hard you can see my white arm sticking out). It was also a time where each of us 3 small team leaders got a time to coordinate a place and by being in a position where I had to lead again for 8 days did me good and revealed some more things. I was also challenged on some of the attitudes and how I view things through my expectations. The day of fasting was also really good to just spending focus time and hearing what God is saying and what expectations He want to plant in me for the next 4 months of the journey. By the time we got to Kingston there were so many small loose bit and pieces of revelations, but I needed a gentle kick up the but to get me out of the lazy mindset that I went into instead of resting in God. I was also challenged to finish the things that was started so God can start a new chapter in my life. At the moment it is all starting to come together, but you need to wait for the Cayman blog to see more of that ….

F