As it goes with all pioneering journeys...we travel without a plan and purely by Faith. A lot of people don’t really grasp how this works or why anyone would want to do something like that. They also don’t really understand why we would go to a country or place without any pre-arranged accommodation etc. Boy, did the authorities in the Cayman Islands NOT understand this concept!! And thus began our adventure on the island of Grand Cayman...
nFirst of all, there are a couple of things you need to know about the Cayman Islands. They are part of the British West Indies and are still under the authority of Great Britain with the queen as their sovereign ruler. The islands are considered duty-free and you don’t pay tax on almost everything, especially banking and investing. This caused thousands of foreign investors to put their money away safely (tax free) in one of Grand Cayman’s 600 banks. But banking is not the only business on the island, hundreds of cruise ships visit the island every year, the island is ranked in the top 10 when it comes to diving and the famous Seven Mile Beach is one of the world’s top 10 beaches. All of this means one thing...the Caymans are SUPER EXPENSIVE!!!
After crossing our first hurdle, which was the passport control at the airport, we faced tons of difficulties once we reached the capital city of Georgetown. First we found out that our team budget for our time in the Caymans amounted to round about R0 because of miscalculations in Cuba, and then we learned that the cheapest accommodation on the island would cost us US$250 per night. Furthermore, the authorities informed us that camping on the island was illegal and if they found us on the street they would have to arrest us. We were basically facing a dilemma in which our faith would be put to the test.
After spending time in prayer and following up on words of knowledge from the Holy Spirit, our rooms got paid for in full by a South African man who happened to be seated at the bar close to us. The next day he connected us to a South African real estate agent, who in turn connected us with a lady who lives on the island called Ms. Erna. She turned out to be a true and wonderful lady of peace, who took us into her home and looked after us for the 2 weeks.
To sum up our 2 weeks in the Caymans in a nutshell, we had the opportunity of sharing in devotions at 2 different schools; we attended various church services and even presented an entire Easter Sunday service complete with dance, dramas, testimonies and a sermon. Linel and I were also blessed with the opportunity of sharing about our journey and Global Challenge on the national radio.
After times of catching chickens and even iguanas for dinner, we were blessed with more food than we could eat in the time we were there by our neighbors as well as the church and friends we made on the island. Our team also got blessed with various financial donations from local Caymanians as well as the church.
At the end of the 2 weeks, the only money we spent was for the taxi from and to the airport as everything else was given to us for free. Don’t we serve an awesome God?