Mission Accomplished

My apologies for not posting more blogs. I have not had easy access to the internet on my computer, so I am borrowing the host's computer.

Today we finished forming and pouring another 20' column for the church building. The church is called Spanish Town Tabernacle. They are a young church, only about 6 years old. Their worship service on Sunday was surprisingly similar to worship at Crossroads. They had some great singing, captured on video by Danny. They did a baby dedication, had prayer requests and prayed for mission work in Sri Lanka.

On Sunday night we all went into a ghetto, called Irish Pen, handing out tracts and inviting people to come to church. I was surprised how eager the people were to read the tracts. They were mostly very receptive to our invitations. I spoke one young man named Dwight who had recently been laid off and needs a job. I prayed with him about his need for work and encouraged him to seek all that God has for him. I shared the gospel with him and he seemed very receptive. I'm still praying for him to find work.

Although jobs are difficult to find in Jamaica, there are many businesses in the ghetto. I saw general stores, several bars, even grocery stores. Spanish Town Tabernacle is actually sponsoring a young entrepreneur in his chicken business in Irish Pen.

Goats are everywhere in Kingston and Spanish town. Although they are free range, they reportedly all have owners. "When you calls you goat, then he come," a lady told us today.

Tomorrow we will take a fun day and visit Dunns River Falls on the northern part of the island. Then on Wednesday we will fly home.

Check out Danny Sides' Facebook account for more info and some photos, including a picture of the "magic laundry basket" at our host home. More later...

Adventure Points

We did make it to Jamaica on Monday night. We actually arrived at the missionary's home at about 1 a.m. local time, which is 2 a.m. eastern time.

We got here, but our luggage did not. On Wednesday we worked fabricating rebar structures to construct concrete columns. We did this work at the home of the Kays, our missionary hosts. Although our luggage had still not arrived, we cleaned up as much as we could -- without a change of clothes -- and went to conduct a street evangelistic meeting on Wed. night.

This was held in a ghetto, just behind the church building on which we are working. The Kays live in Kingston, and the church they are planting is in Spanish Town, about 45 min away. Anyway, this street meeting was a great experience. We set up some sound equipment at a corner and began the meeting. Some of the church members sang, Bud Kay introduced us, and then several on our team shared about what Jesus has done in our lives.

Afterward we had conversations with lots of people. I enjoyed taling with them. I met one 8-year-old girl named Whitney. She introduced me to her friend Tonya. It is very hard for us to understand the Jamaican accents. They are speaking English, but I can understand only very little of it. The irony is that they understand us perfectly, because all the media uses standard English. They laugh at us because we seem so dense.

Finally, when we got back home at 11 p.m. on Wednesday, we had our luggage -- all but Daniel. His finally arrived today.

We are making good progress with our project. I will have to post some photos when I figure out how to do that.

The Kays have been fabulous hosts for us, cooking for us and even washing our clothes. By the way, when we finally got our luggage, our clothes inside were wet. Apparently our bags had sat out in the rain somewhere along their journey. Lynda Kay graciously offered to dry our clothes.

The Kays have two children: J.D., who is about 11, and Dana, who is about 9. They are both home schooled.

I need to thank Bud for allowing me to use his computer to post this blog.

There is much more to see, and much more to do here. All is well, and we even racked up some "adventure points." Lynda says that when things get a little crazy on a trip like this, we really rack up adventure points. As long as we are safe, and getting kingdom work done, the adventure points (at least so far) make the trip exciting.

Thank you for all your prayers.

On Mission

We have made it to Ft. Lauderdale, and there is a (free) Wi Fi connection here. I had expected to have a connection in Jamaica, too, but now I’m not sure we will have one.

We have had a couple of delays due to weather. We arrived safely, but late, in Ft. Lauderdale. We are now flying standby for a 9 p.m. flight to Montego Bay, where we will catch another flight to Kingston.

If we can’t catch the plane tonight, we will spend the night in Ft. Lauderdale and get an early flight to Jamaica tomorrow.

Dan has always told us that we need to be flexible. OK. It is actually a great trip. Dan is handling all the logistics, so the rest of us just know that he will figure things out.

We got upgraded to first class on our flight from Atlanta to Ft. Laud. Pretty sweet deal, especially since we had to wait for about an hour on the ground, in the plane. Not bad when you have plenty of room.

On the Way. Had weather delays. Now on standby for fly