Busy!!!

   One of the B.I. Students Cresentia showed off her skills of hair braiding . She can braid so fast and the braids are so tiny. Many of us girls got our hair done while we were there. Ryan's big joke to Cres was to ask her every morning if his hair was long enough to braid yet..She would always smile and say"not yet."

                    We had some free time one afternoon and went to visit a bird sanctuary. There were many kinds of humming birds there and a bird called the Doctor Bird which has a long beautiful tail and is the national bird in Jamaica.  We were all given tiny bottles of sugar water and had to sit very still with the bottle tilted just so with our opposite hand held out making a perch in front of the bottle.

                                        All of a sudden a bird would be in front of you perching on your finger and drinking the sugar water..it was such an incredible experience.

   As well as ministry in local churches, schools, children's homes, a seniors'  home we were able to help scrape cement at the Bible school one afternoon.

                          Here we are all set for devos in front of the dining hall

                                               Another coconut experience with Mrs. Wolfe the cook.

                    We went to several schools to share the gospel through personal testimonies, songs, puppets and object lessons.

                                       Some schools looked more like little prisons than schools from the outside.

                         We taught the kids a version of " Jesus Loves Me"  with lots of clapping and they all loved it

                                         I tried to keep up with my running while I was there. I'm running a 10 k race in May, so didn't want to lose too many days. Ryan would meet me first thing in the morning at the field and we would run laps around in the wet grass. It was fun to run with him as at home one of us has to stay with the girls.

                  With a couple little ones at the children's home.

            Getting ready for another youth service.
 

Jamaica Day 3

                                        Every week day night we had special meetings with the youth of one of the local churches. It was supposed to be youth, but we had toddlers right through to seniors there! We started out with our team running games.

                                 Then object lessons

                             Personal testimony

                                              and special music.

                                     Ryan or our other leader Gary would speak and after we would talk to all the people who came out.

                             In between our day ministries, we had time to explore Jamaican experiences...like green coconut!!

             Our new friends at the Bible School were more than happy to show these excitable Canadians around their culture!!

                           So I am a HUGE fan of regular coconut in the shell....the brown(dried) shell. The green took a little getting used to.

                                    And the coconut green meat was like jello ..

                                  Slippery fall of the spoon quivery jello..

                  Then Hasnell got out the machete and expertly hacked into what I'd been waiting for since arriving in Jamaica!!!

                 It was amazing!!!

                                   Ashley and Ryan..we have recently unofficially added Ashley as our fifth daughter...we love having having her live with us in between her breaks at N.B.B.I.

        After supper every night a bunch of guys would play volleyball on the court at the Bible School. We would go watch.

                              All of us except for Maeghan..who had so much fun playing with them!!

  Tuesday was Becca's birthday and her sister Maeghan had planned a surprise party for her after our evening youth service. The cook Mrs. Wolfe had baked a cake and our Jamaican friends had planned a Jamaican birthday surprise for Becca too!!  This is Marvin showing us his trick of being able to squeeze a raw egg end to end as hard as you can and not being able to break it...We were skeptics to say the least at first.

                         As Chelsea's face conveys ..until he let us try for ourselves....

                    Nope....can't break it....

                Sarah nervously tried it ....

                    Then came Ryan's big moment.

                                              With his veins popping...and teeth clenched he still could not break that raw egg...

                          Then came the big moment......Becca arrived.... Ushered in by Marvin

   Hasnell then proceeded to dump flour all over her unsuspecting head.

                        Maeghan joined in the fun ...

                        Then proceeded to crack a raw egg over her head on top of all that flour!!

                                             And we thought butter on the nose in Canada was messy!!!!

                      A grinning birthday girl.. not everybody gets to celebrate Jamaican style!!

                            After cake and cleanup :0) Gary and Colby got out fake snow ( the kind they use in movies)they had brought and built a snowman for our southern friends!!

               So many good times we had