JESUS IS MY ROCK! March 24, 2008

I was downloading pictures from my camera and viewed the slideshow. This one picture in particular reminded me of a metaphor I had thought of.

4 summers ago, I went to Jamaica for the Bible Camp for the first time, 2004. 4 of us went together (2 Jamaicans and 2 Americans), we climbed up AND down the falls. There’s a stairways along the falls where you could climb up then take the stairs down. We didn’t go that way.

Even though the rocks can be very slippery, and you’ve got this powerful rushing water coming down at you! There were lot of times where I’d need my friends to help, hold my hand as I climb up, or down… or even when they reach out their hand to offer their help. It reminded me of how Jesus is my rock during the hard times, overwhelming times, struggling times etc…. And my friends are an example of how I need Christian friends to offer their supports during any of those times I am going through.

It was nice to remember that comparison from 4 years ago. I didn’t  climb up this time because of my stupidity, I forgot my Teva shoes which I left it back at the campus. I just laid out on the beach, reading a book instead.

Just wanted to share this with you!

Happy Resurrection Day!! March 23, 2008

Today’s the day to be reminded of what God has done for us… sent us His only Son to die on the cross for each one of us! I’m so blessed to know Jesus as my personal Savior! I pray that you do too.

Keri and I went to a local grocery store on Thursday I think. And while I was in the line, I saw one small shelf at the end of the aisle, it had Canterbury candies. I suddenly realized something. It is SO different and was SO nice to not see two or even three aisles of Easter candies, baskets, plastic eggs, etc!!!  They just do Easter Bun and cheese.  I’m sure I’ll have some of that.

The week has flew by quick. I’m not so sure about next week though. Friday, some of the staff and I joined the team to Ocho Rios. After the water falls, laying on the beach, we hopped back on the bus and headed to the town where they have crafts market. On the way there, I saw  HARD ROCK CAFE!  I think only my family who reads this will know what’s happening next.  Family-  you got that right! I HEADED over to HRC !!!!  I just had to go and get me a HRC pin to add on to my collection of HRC pins. As soon as I got there, guess what!?!  It was closed for Good Friday! I walked 1/4 mile maybe to get there!    I don’t know when I’ll get to go to Ocho Rios again unless I go on a Saturday.   I ended up just walking around, shopped at few stores along the way back to the bus parking lot. Found me an India restaurant and got some chicken garlic kebabs. Delicious!!! 

Saturday- I was dropped off at the Hip Strip (tourist stores) and met up with Calva there, a long-time Jamaican friend of mine. He travelled to MoBay to hang out with me for the day.  I just ran some errands around there and had lunch, chatting the afternoon away! Then we walked back to downtown to meet up with Odette, other staff. We went to few stores, chatting, being silly etc… then waited for the bus to leave (for Calva to go back to Mandeville). Then we decided to have dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Got me some broccoli and chicken. That was pretty good! Witcliffe came and joined us for the chat. I hadn’t seen him for 4 years! Samequeca also joined us. It was a good day of hanging out with bunch of friends.  I didn’t get back to campus until 9:30pm.

PRAY FOR:

* People to realize what Resurrection Day means and that they need Jesus in their life.  

*This week- hope not a boring week.

* Truitt Plattner, the baby of the Plattners Family- he’s had fever on Friday and Saturday. At least he wasn’t getting worse but pray that he gets well. And that the rest of the family doesn’t get sick either.

*Team members that are at Knockpatrick CCCD and JDV this week.  (The team at Knockpatrick is a team from Morton, IL!)

Such a small world!!! March 15, 2008

Visiting with a familiar face from home here in MoBay!!

IN THE PICTURE: (LtoR) Me, Keri holding Drew, Kirk holding Truitt (The Plattners Family) then Jeff and Janel.

Keri and Kirk told me about a friend of ours (which we both didn’t know we had a mutual friend) being here in Jamaica for the week. Janel (Blunier) and her husband Jeff Wiegland (sp?) were here in MoBay for a week. We all met up with them at the Jamaica Bobsled resturant. It was nice and fun catching up with them for a couple of hours before they headed to the airport!

It was a good visit and a GOOD Chicken Jerk Pizza !!!!  Yummy!

YAY! I finally figured out how to do the picture being added on to the blogs! So I’ll be sure to share pictures now and then!

My back is doing sooooo much better!!  THANKS for allllll of the prayers! Appreciate it!

Encouraged by your comments March 13, 2008

I wanted to thank all of those who have typed up comments, some of you have come back and continued to comments. Thank you so much for letting me know that you’re praying for CCCD and me, for reading my blogs, and for all of the encouragements you’ve given me.

My back is getting better each day. I’ve been just taking it easy. This week, the children basically haven’t been in school. Just doing the sports stuff. So, that helps me to stay home and be laid back on the bed or floor as much as I can. (Some of you know me…. I don’t last very long. That’s been hard to force myself to do nothing but rest my back.) During the times I’m laying back, I pray and read the Bible. I think that’s helping my back to feel better. 

The Blue House (my team) is 2nd place out of 3 teams. All fun stuff! And of course, all good times!

I’ll try and learn to put pictures up on my blog.  I’ve got somet pictures that I’d just love to share with you! That’s gonna be my goal during the next two weeks while I have lot of down times.   Wish me luck! HAHAHA    If any of you have weblog via wordpress and know how to include a picture, let me know!  Thanks!

PRAY FOR:

See previous blog… that was from two days ago. So, keep praying!  THANKS !!! 

God is good, AT ALL TIMES!!!!!!     (This is a phrase that the folks here at CCCD say often. )

Jesus can fix it all March 11, 2008

Saturday, 7 deaf staff travelled to JDV (Jamaica Deaf Village) for a revival weekend. Guest speaker was a deaf pastor from the Harvest Bible College in Georgia. It was a great service on Sunday…. 275 people!! It was PACKED at the church, I’m telling ya! But Praise God!!!!    6 students came forward and became saved over the weekend. (From Knockpatrick CCCD)

Yesterday, Monday… Mr. Reid did a message for the chapel Monday morning…. he pretended to barge in with a gun asking those who are Christian or not…and “shoot” the Christians. He said he was unprepared and thought of having me to do devotion but knew it was too late on Sunday evening to let me know so he just went to bed and woke up and figure out what to do… looked over his old notes and found “The last days”. He thought  nooo cuz he’s already done that before but felt he should do it. Who knew that was gonna be powerful message. The points of the message was about how blessed that we could worship God in Jamaica because some countries, you can’t!  And also… to be honest with yourself whether or not you’re a Christian. 

At this service, one student came forward, crying her eyes out. I prayed with her, counseled with her after chapel. Alecia W. is her name. Please be praying for her!!

This week is sports week. Today was the cross country. I’m staying home all day today. I somehow hurt my back… threw my back or twisted my back the wrong way. It’s killing me yesterday and today. So, I’m just staying home, not walking around on those concrete and hills. Just staying home, resting up. The nurse just walked in to see how I was doing. And said she’ll take me to the doctor to get some medicine. We’ll see!

Friday is a BIG sports day. Pray for safety of the children. I was just told that some children fainted today after the cross country. Pray that there’s no injuries etc……

Last night, we had an urgent prayer meeting. It was inspiring. Ruth, a housemother had a situation that had been worrying her all day. But we prayed for each other at the meeting. We had few prayer songs… “Jesus will fix it all for you” was one of the songs we sang.

PRAY FOR:

*Alecia W. as she continue to grow as a Christian.

* Housemother, Ruth…  that God will give her the wisdom, comfort

* Miss Frazier, a teacher here at CCCD. She will not be returning to CCCD. Pray that a job will open up for her elsewhere. She’s being positive and a strong woman. And pray for CCCD to figure out what to do with her classroom.

* Pray for Miss Russell, she’s in the States until Thursday visiting her daughter who had just gave birth to her first grandson!

* Pray for my back, that it doesn’t go on for long. I think the nurse is determined in taking me to see the doctor about getting some medicine. So, be praying for that too.

* Continue to use me in every way He can here in Jamaica

Kumbaya March 6, 2008

I learned what this word means. I’ve heard of it many times, usually at the summer camps, camps in the movies etc…  I learned the word means “God, come here.” We were in a classroom doing devotion time and they were singing this song but signing “KBY” so I had to ask what that meant.

This word describes everything that has happened this week. The week is still NOT over, yet it’s been such an inspiring week.

Last night, the work team, Hands & Feet Ministries did the program for the children with few songs, and the team leader, Jay spoke about their trip to the Philippines.

God used them to reach out to the children and the staff, especially the staff. He told us about how they built a school building for the deaf children there. They basically had NOTHING! They sleep on the ground, hardly any food to eat etc… very poor. Also, to get some wood for the building, you had to get permission from the government. Well, they got wood and used them all at the end of the day. They did not know how or where else to get more wood. They prayed and prayed that night. The next morning, to their surprise, God answered their prayers. A truck came with full of wood. Again, they used them all up and prayed again what to do. Next morning, more wood came! It even came to the point where the government came to the campus and asked where they got the wood. All Jay could say is that they prayed for it.  Powerful message!

Also he talked about how they had to have faith and wait for God to provide. It was a perfect clear message for the staff. See, often times since I’ve been here, the staff talk to me about how hard it is here, in Jamaica, at CCCD etc… and how they want to leave to be able to make more money to provide for their own families etc…  All I can do is pray for them. This week, the staff have been talking more about different things and plotting on leaving etc…. after last night’s message, powerpoint show… one staff came to me and was in awe of how poor they were (Philippines) and never realized how blessed she is (the Jamaican staff) to be here, and how blessed the children have these nice buildings here at CCCD etc… I pointed out on how Faith and Waiting on God is important, in regards to leaving CCCD. The staff person understood that and realizes how blessed they are here even though things are hard here but other places got it even harder than here.

PRAY FOR:

* one team worker member had found out that medically that it didn’t look too good for her mother back in Pennsyvania. I don’t know everything but pray for her and her family.

* God to give guidance, and wisdom to the CCCD staff in regards to their job.

*one teacher will not be returning to CCCD after the holidays. Pray for her. She remains to be positive about it. She feels that God has closed the doors for her here and trusts that God will open another door somewhere else. Positive woman! Inspiring woman to share that with two other staff and myself earlier this week.

* Revival Weekend at JDV (Jamaica Deaf Village) 6 deaf staff, 1 hearing staff, and myself will be traveling up to the mountains (out by Knockpatrick) to attend the Revival weekend. Pray that we will have a safe travel, and that all of us will be inspired by God’s words and be encouraged. Pray for one staff, she isn’t sure about going. She feels “tired” and not want to go. We are trying to encourage her to come with us and trust that it would be worth her time in going to the Revival.

This is the day that the Lord has made! March 3, 2008

Last week has been a very busy week! There was a performance competition where we had 4 judges come from the Seminary. We had three teams, Blue, Red and Green house. We all were practicing our skits/dances everyday during every free time we had!! Even that meant after school and after dinner! I hardly had time for catching up on emails, updating the blogs, etc…

We won the skit but overall we got third place. We had fun anyways!!

This week is another busy week. It’s end of term which means exams, exams exams and did I mention, exams!?!? We’re busy with that this week. 

We have a team here, a big work team! 42 members! They’re from an hour or two from Pittsburg, PA. I have a feeling about this team. In the past, most of them are reserved until the 4th or 5th day and then they’re gone. But this one, they’re already so friendly and I’m enjoying this team. Also, they did the devotion this morning and will be doing another one on Wednesday night. I’m also told that they will be doing some after school activities for the children as well as working on some constructions through the week. WOW! Most of the teams would just work on the buildings but this one is doing different things with the children, and doing the devotion services. That alone touches my heart! After devotion, the leader has came up to me asking that sometime later today or this week, he wants to sit down with me and share some feedback on how they can improve their programs for the future programs. Not that the other work teams’ heart isn’t in the right place but this one is also taking the extra time with reaching out to the souls of the children here, sharing God’s words with them as well.  I just can see myself missing them after they leave!

This weekend has been somewhat a blah weekend but it was a good one though. Friday, after the competition, school was out for the whole afternoon! I went shopping with one deaf staff and bought myself a Jamaican cellphone. Then Saturday, I went to the Nurse’s house out by Falmouth. That’s like 30 miles from CCCD. The highway there, just like American highways!! Smooth and spacey!!  NICE drive!! Spent about an hour or so at the Nurse’s house, talking about the other part of her house being built.  Gonna be a beautiful house with a GORGEOUS view of the ocean!! I just can imagine living there, waking up to a beautiful view of the ocean!

Anyways, then the nurse and I stopped by a pharmacy store because I needed some cough medicine. I was starting to get some coughs so I wanted some meds to stop it from getting worse. It’s just from sinus. Maybe from going back to the states then back to MoBay, weather changes affecting my sinus? Anyways, getting that taken care of and feeling better with less coughs as the day goes by.

This weekend, a guy from the Harvest Bible College (out by Atlanta, GA) will be doing a revival at the JDV (Jamaican Deaf Village). The deaf staff and I will be traveling to JDV to participate in with the Revival Weekend. I look forward to that.

PRAY FOR:

* my cough to go away, not get worse

* teamworkers this week. Last week, many got sick with bad case of diahrea, and some from heat. So, pray for this week that they remain safe.

* for the children to do their best on the exams.

* for the staff here at CCCD. It is HARD for them, being paid a VERY LOW salary and can easily leave CCCD but they don’t want to leave because of the children but financially, it is hard on them.

*The Revival Weekend, that God will use and give widsom through the leaders of the revival weekend.  

* March 14th is a big day! All 3 CCCDs will be coming here and do the SPORTS DAY! It’s gonna be a very busy day! Pray all goes well, and as well as safety of the children in sports, and for safe trips of those traveling from Kingston and Knockpatrick.