Kathy's thoughts-April

April 2008
Kathy's Thoughts
Hi!

I decided I would add my thoughts and describe our life a bit to show you what its like in Guyana. It's kind of like comfortable camping. We live in 7-room house with 2 baths, a stove, refrigerator, and microwave hot wired because the motherboard doesn't work. We live comfortable but keeping up with filtered and boiled water and having milk made up at the appropriate time is interesting. We awake about 6:00 each morning as the noise level in the community starts to rise with roosters crowing and people traveling up and down the street chatting on their way to work or to pick up breakfast supplies. The street is about 30 feet from the window. All windows are open at all times so you hear everyone's conversation and music(don't ask!). Houses are very close together as well. We get showered and dressed for the day, do some Bible Study, eat breakfast and around 8 are picked up to go to the Roadside Baptist Church Skills Training Centre (RBCSTC) about 10 miles away on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I change from Friday to Thursday as of this week. Sometimes we have the vehicle and pick Katryans up. We are getting acclimated to driving on the left. You dodge pot holes, animals, bikes, people, tapirs (taxis), minibuses, and other vehicles on the way. There is one main road with very narrow mostly dirt side streets. A few are paved including the one in front of the church/house where we live. It also has speed bumps mixed in with numerous pot holes. We live on the third block from the main road.

On days we aren't at the Centre, we work on studying, ironing, shopping at the market or supermarket, working with the computer, running back to RBCSTC for Board meetings and visiting. The supermarkets are about the size of convenience stores but packed with all kinds of items. We have found a few things we normally make in which we have all the ingredients but most have at least one or two things missing. Also, on Tuesdays and Thursdays about 5:30 P.M. we are picked up to go to the Missions. Saturday, we have prayer breakfasts occasionally and John has his class at 3:00 with the men in training and I serve refreshments in the middle. Most Saturdays at least one of us goes to the market. On Sundays, Sunday School starts at 8:15 A.M. with the morning service at 8:45. By 10:00 we are loading the minibus to take people home or to go to Roadside Baptist Church for their 10:30 service. John, being the Interim Pastor at Corriverton Baptist Church preaches here and Brother Almond at Roadside. The bus is loaded again and heads the opposite way while we wait for them to return for us and we journey home arriving around 12:30. We eat, have our Sunday afternoon siesta, and prepare for singing practice at 4:30. At 5:00 the evangelistic service starts. Occasionally John and Brother Almond switch churches in the evening so Brother Almond can maintain contact with his home church. (They are scheduled to got to the States on April 26.) We are through around 6:30 after John takes a few people home.

We walk to a little store around the corner for basics or the next corner on the other side for ice cream, if the truck has come, and there is a supermarket across the main road about 4 blocks away.

We are up and down stairs a lot as our bathrooms are on the second floor and the office at RBCSTC is on the second floor. My knees are stiff and achy at times especially if I sit or stand for very long. I have had trouble with my feet swelling but keeping them up on 2 pillows at night (which is interesting) has caused them to improve. I am grateful for our good health as the medical situation here is not the best.

There is much to rejoice in the Lord about and yet there is so much we could be doing. They would like us to have a literacy class at the Church here and have the library open as well as teach a Bible Club some afternoon. The Library needs a lot of work—someone shuffled the books and the numbers are falling off of the books. Many are not numbered correctly and there is no card catalog. I don't have a lot of time to spend on it so it is slow going. We are grateful to be able to be here and do what we can. The Lord has given us a task and by His grace we hope to fulfill it.
In Christian love, Kathy