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We arrived in Montego Bay on June 13th to be picked up by a rackety bus that would drive us for almost 4 hours on tiny roads riddled with potholes on back mountains. It was a treacherous ride to say the very least.
When we arrived at our church camp we were pleasantly surprised. It was a gorgeous plot of land high in the mountains with very adequate facilities. The rooms were tiny but it was just fine. There were over 100 teens attending this trip from various churches throughout the US.
Below is the basketball court which was a favorite gathering place for everyone!
We settled in the first night and braced ourselves for the week ahead! Our group was broken up between 10 different work groups all with different jobs. My job was a pastor's house at a church (Wales New Testament Church). We were building the house so that the church would no longer have to pay rent for their pastor to live. The house was high on a hill overlooking the church and the valley. We carried 5 gallon buckets of cement and cinder blocks all week long. It was very hard work but it wasn't complicated. It just took some mental stamina to keep up.
This is the manse we were working on:
The church had a preschool for children 3-5 and so we were serenaded all day with their songs: Jesus Loves me and He's Got the Whole World.When the children saw us they would come running with shouts "White People!!!" as many of them had seen very few white people. They wanted to touch our hair and hold our hands. It was very very sweet!!
The picture below is the room we created this week. It is a water tank. It will go underneath a bathroom and allow water that is collected to be pumped up. We kept calling it a pit and were corrected because a pit is where you go #2 outside. Wonderful!
Julie, Turner and I on the worksite. Notice all of the bars hanging out of the house. Almost every home in Jamaica had these bars because almost none of the homes are finished! The re-bar helps them to line up the next room they will work on. Homes are built one room at a time and could take 10 years to finish. Families do not have mortgages, but instead work on their homes as they can afford supplies. We were told that the work that we did will equal to four years labor for the families we helped.
On Saturday we had a 3 hour trip on the same buses to the coast. We spent the morning climbing the falls at Dunn's River which was awesome! This is a stock photo because it was too hard to take a camera with you!
The falls cascaded like this for about 1/4 mile and you start at the bottom and hike up.
Many of the kids did them over and over. I found my spot on the beach by the blue carribbean sea!!!
After we left the falls we took a bus into the city of Ochos Rios and visited a local market. We had a nice leisurely lunch by the beach and got to barter for our goods.
Sunday morning we got up and headed to the local church. Church began at 11AM and we were home by 3 (and it was a 5 minute walk!). It was a similar style of worship but slower and more impromptu singing. Everyone was exhausted from the week and so church was rough!
Here is our group shot before church:
Each night while we were there we had awesome worship and preaching. We were visited by local preachers, we had adults share messages, college kids share testimonies, lots of great music... it was very meaningful. The Son Servants organization has a practice of doing foot washing on the last night as a way of humbling yourself to be a true servant. It was wonderful...
The trip was really meaningful for me in many ways. I loved being a part of another culture for a little bit. I loved seeing so many kids grow in their faith and make new commitments to Jesus Christ. I was able to really spend time in devotion and prayer.
Some other random observations
I didn't eat for most of the trip. We had a lot of soggy meat and cheese bread for breakfast which I passed on. One day we had anchovies mixed with eggs. Lunch was always PB and J. Dinner was white rice and some sort of mystery bony meat. I ate white bread and white rice all week.
The soil was red. My legs were so stained that no matter how hard I scrubbed it didn't come off.
Water really does run out. On day 2 we ran out of water in the camp. That meant no toilets, sinks or showers. They managed to get it running again but we had depleted almost all of their resources with our overconsumption.
Our worst possessions were the Jamaicans dreams. We donated our nasty work clothes and 4th string shoes on the last day. No matter how gross or how many holes the items had they were snatched up as if they were designer clothes. The head mason on my worksite had shoes with no toes or heels because they had worn away. Poverty was a way of life.
We visited an infirmary which is the bottom run of the social ladder. This is where people go to die. We each had to take a day and visit with the residents, sing with them, read them the Bible and pray with them. This was very challenging for many of us as most of the residents were straight out of a World Vision commercial. But what we all learned was that each person has a sweet spirit and needs love and care. A blind lady named Linda hugged me for an hour and told me she loved me. A sweet man named Herbert sat blind in both eyes with his bags packed waiting for someone to pick him up. But, if even for a tiny bit of time, we fulfilled the commandment to care for the sick and the outcast. One of our young men struck up a game of baseball with the men... I wasn't there that day but I imagine that it was a dream come true for those neglected gentelmen.
I am still struggling to reintegrate. I'm trying to make some more time for quiet in my life... less time for facebook and my iphone. I'm trying to seek the joy that so many Jamaicans had that evades so many Americans. I'm trying to think again about how to appreciate my life and how to teach my children to appreciate their lives. The gap between the cultures is astronomical.... there is no way to even dream about finding middle ground, but my hope and my prayer is that wherever my heart lands after this trip that it will be closer to the God who gave me this amazing life to live.
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