Mayreau

Dearest Friends,

I cannot even begin to tell you all how you have been on my mind. I am so sorry i broke my promise and was not able to blog before outreach St.Vincent began. Its been such a crazy pace. Most times, even when i have had technically free time, i've mostly used that time to pass out in bed. We've been doing ministry in schools, with kids, on the street, crusades concerts street evangelism-you name it! Most times its been one thing to the next, to come home to a full house (9 people, 3 bedrooms, one bathroom) to either make dinner or help clean it up to get ready for evening ministry. So that was mostly what ST. Vincent was like.
I cannot begin to tell you how beautiful it is. Lush green mountains everywhere, up close- in your backyard even, and the dark blue ocean sparkling a few doors down from where we stayed. The pace there is slow, slower than Jamaica. People take off a few hours after lunch and kind of just hang out, sauntering around or dropping by the house to play steel pan or beat drums and sing. They love music there. You strum two chords on your guitar and faces pop up around your walls peering over or swaying slightly to the beat.

You want to talk about Jesus? You need to work hard at getting to know the people. They will listen to all you have to say, then shrug and say no problem and continue sipping their bottle of rum or whatever it was they were doing. Like Jamaica, and many Caribbean islands, the gospel is nothing new or strange. It simply is. It may not even require any particular change of habits for them. There is a leisurely, gentle, swaying rhythmn of life, and I suspect the largest challenge long term missionaries will have there, is evoking more than a passing sense of emotion and passion, stirring people up from their comfortable drifting to realize what their lives without Jesus looks like. This is all based on my limited exposure to merely three communities in St. vincent. The one we lived in- Chateaubelair, and the two surrounding ones- Petit Bordel and Fitz Hughes.

We got a ride with the taxi man who drove Orlando Bloom around during the filming of the Pirates of the Caribbean and saw the area where the movies were filmed. The people are so laid back that the driver didnt think it was that big of a deal to have hung out with movie stars. He shrugged and mentioned that "Missa Bloom was real laid back like. Never like the people taking his pictures none at all. Got along with him just fine." No one else we met seemed to think it was cool or important that a major trilogy had been filmed in their back yards. It simply never came up!


We had a wonderful association with a church in Chateau that provided us with affordable accomodations, and a strong presence at the events we planned. You never knew who would be swinging by the house at what hour with a loaf of fresh baked bread, or a bunch of bananas or drink or sheets and towels. I mean, een the children and non church attendees were so hospitable and welcoming to us. It was like some dream. If we werent there on urgent Kingdom business I can see how easy it would be to become comfortable drifting in a place where bananas seem to grow right into your waiting palms and the ground is so fertile that i was confused about the papaya given to us which for all the world looked like a watermelon. I could not figure out what this thing was, seeing as it was bigger than any papaya had a right to be. So though the people in the areas we were in were not rich, they were well fed from the earth, whether or not they tended it.
The area of their souls was something which seemed to bother them least, and we continue to pray for strong christian witnesses to come flooding through to challenge the spirit of apathy, and be the relevant bridge between salvation and real life. We bless the christians that are passionately pressing through to see change in their areas.

Now to Mayreau. After barely surviving the one and a half hour drive to the warf- in out and over mountains and windy curves, I was almost decimated by the four hour ferry ride. I could not find my sea legs. Eventually deciding i was more safe asleep than awake, i put myself out for most of the journey, but was sufficiently awake to see the last two islands before Mayreau. The ocean was intensely aquamarine. then intensely blue. So clear that at times we could make out rocks and shapes below the surface. We kept stirring up flocks,(schools?) of flying fish as we sailed by. Its amazing how far those fish flutter above water before diving back below surface.  When we came to Mayreau finally, and unloaded an entire truckload of groceries, water and luggage, we were finally able to appreciate the promised land. This island will be home to another YWAM base really soon, to be pioneered by Josh and Renita Lapp and Annie Bobb. It's surreal to be the first YWAM team on this property, and we are aware of the significance of it.
Mayreau is dry and yet green- a strange mixture between desert and paradise,and the sea glitters in every shade of blue, in every direction you look. Its truly intense. While we're here we want to build relationships with the locals, prepare the spiritual atmosphere through prayer, clear some bush and brush and work with the church here. Its a small island, but being right next to Donald Trump's island, it has immense potential to reach people who would not ordinarly rub shoulders with missionaries.

please pray with us as we experience this intense adventure. it has bee stretching, as i'm sure you imagine. Right now, JOhn and I are sleeping in a tent right next to Josh and Renita. We are short on privacy, space and down time, but so far God' grace has been keeping us going, and keeping us excited about how He wants to disciple this region of the Caribbean. We are happy to be doing what we're doing, but please do not grow weary in praying for us! One day, we hope you will seize an opportunity to come down here and build, invest time and energy, and just support the work God is doing out here. We miss all of you and we send our love and blessings back at you. Also, our computer has had another spasm. Another major system failure - so that means no pictures until we can get it back up and running. Sorry! We'll do that as soon as we can. So thats all for now. Hopefully this everlasting post makes up for the ones I never sent!

Love and Blessings
Daisy