Atalie, Katie, and Graham on the most crowded bus ever
The Heatwave. Our lovely catamaran.
a little boat on the beach in Speightstown
very cool pic of Katie in the water
everyone climbing up the iceberg that essentially caused James to break his faceMonday, we decided not to go to campus. Mondays are probably the days with the fewest people on campus anyway, so we decided to get a little more practice than usual by going to Bridgetown and sharing the Gospel there. Bridgetown is THE city in Barbados. If someone tells you they’re going to town, it means they’re going to Bridgetown. It’s where all ZR’s eventually end up. It’s the hub of Barbados. And that’s where we went to share.
I was with Dwayne and we had Chris as our staff person. He pretty much hung back, prayed for us, pointed out new people we could talk to, and just let us handle the sharing part. I thought this worked well.
So we went up to this lady sitting on a little wall thing first, and I pretty much took control of that conversation. Her name was Chanette, and she was from Guyana. She was just in Barbados to watch the cricket match (have I mentioned that cricket is HUGE here?). So I started talking to her and found out that she had gone to church when she was younger. I think she said she had been 7th Day Adventist, which we’re finding a lot of here. But she just didn’t feel like church was really doing it for her right now. As we talked more, she revealed that she was recently separated from her husband, had been raped when she was a child, had been pregnant six times but only had two children, and just wasn’t sure that God loved her. With everything she’d been through, she felt like he’d sort of forgotten about her, even though she said she prays to him and tries to connect with him. That’s definitely a difficult thing to deal with, and it’s a valid feeling, considering her circumstances. I wished I could have told her a magical solution to all of her problems, but, unfortunately, that is life. So I just talked with her about God and about giving her life to Christ and how his grace covered all of our sins. She totally understood all of it, except that she could not grasp the concept that you could not lose your salvation. That was the main point that was causing us to disagree. And, try as Dwayne and I might, we could not get her to understand that. So it was a little bit tough. I gave her my email address and told her that if she had any questions about God and salvation or just needed to talk or for someone to pray for her, that she could contact me any time. I told her I’d continue to pray for the struggles she was going through with her marriage and for her to be reassured of God’s love for her. So I’m doing that, and it’d be awesome if you would too.
Then we went up to a guy on a bench who was listening to the end of the cricket match (Australia won!) and started talking to him. His name was Curtis and he knew a lot about the Bible. He could quote scripture backwards and forwards, but he was just never really clear that he’d accepted Christ as his savior. Dwayne took the lead on this one, and he said that he figured he could ask Curtis a thousand questions and he’d get them all right, so he just went ahead and pulled out the 4 Spiritual Laws and went through that with him and he said that he was definitely going to be thinking about it, that it was a lot to digest. Totally valid. The cool thing was, he said that he was really wanting to get back involved in church again (he’d been raised Baptist and then Adventist). And there is a Southern Baptist couple who is trying to start a church in Barbados, and we’re looking around for people that might be interested in getting plugged in there. So we got his contact info and are going to give it to Keith, our crazy bus driver, who will give it to the couple. So something good definitely came out of that.
Then we met Colin Williams. He was an old man sitting on a wall who stopped us to ask us the score of the cricket match. We started talking to him, but it turned out that he would rather talk at us. He had lots of good thoughts, but he mostly just wanted to hear himself talk. Which was fine, because we were more than happy to listen. Of course, right before we left, he asked us if we were husband and wife, and when we heartily denied, he asked if we were together. Again, we said no and he said we should work on that and went on a spiel about how you can just tell when some people are meant to be together. Once we left, I told Dwayne that I loved him, but I just didn’t think we should get married. He concurred. We’ve had lots of fun teasing about it though—I thought I could get him to pay for my lunch, because that’s what husbands do for their wives, but he wasn’t too cooperative. Stubborn boys.
I really enjoyed our time in Bridgetown. Brad talked today about what a relief it must be to be back on campus, because it was so much easier to witness there, but I disagree. You didn’t have to search for anyone in Bridgetown, so you had no excuse NOT to share with someone. There was no escaping it, and I liked that. Going up to share Jesus with someone is a pretty nerve-wracking thing to do—you get nervous and kind of scared. But that’s what we’re here in Barbados to do. That’s what we’re here on Earth to do. So when you’re in a situation where you kind of HAVE to do it, it just makes it that much easier. It’s like, “suck it up, kid, it’s not like you have anything better to do.” Does that make sense? I liked not having a choice about whether to share, because then none of my human excuses were enough. Plus, after the rather sparse success we’d had on campus last week, 3 conversations in one day was REALLY encouraging. It was more than I’d had all week. I mean, it’s not about the numbers, but I like to have as many conversations as I can. Plant those seeds.
So we were back on campus today, and it went all right. Better than last week already. James and I teamed up at the beginning and we talked to a lady named Charmaine. She did not act like she wanted to talk. She didn’t make eye contact, she mumbled, I had to ask her to repeat stuff. Difficult situation when you’re trying to share the Gospel with her. She was also a 7th Day Adventist and she kind of equated baptism with salvation and said she’d never been baptized. She pretty much understood everything except that baptism doesn’t save you, but she just wasn’t ready to take that step. Honestly, I felt like I kind of copped out on this conversation, because I didn’t know what to say to her, she was intimidating and unfriendly, and I wanted it to be over. But I gave her the 4 Spiritual Laws and told her that there was a prayer in the back that she could go through and then kind of left her alone. So that was probably bad, and I don’t feel too good about it, but it happened and it’s sort of done now.
Then James had to meet with Chris, so I met up with Graham and we found two lady students sitting over by the Guild—Janine and Kimberly. Janine I think was a Christian actually. She said she wasn’t absolutely sure she was going to Heaven, but as we talked through everything, she sort of realized that her salvation was fixed and she didn’t have to doubt. I believed that she really knew God. Kimberly, however, was 50% sure and no matter how much we told her that God’s grace covered all of her sins, she just felt too much guilt—she couldn’t believe that she was really forgiven. We gave her the 4 Spiritual Laws, and we’re meeting back with her on Thursday. I don’t expect her to show up, but I hope that we at least got her to really start thinking about where she is in her relationship with God.
So that’s what the last couple of days have looked like. As far as the home front goes (well, the temporary home front anyway), my teammates and I have been having a blast. We play games almost every night—Mafia, Buckwild, Apples to Apples, Imaginiff, Big Booty, card games…the guys are pretty much constantly playing poker. That’s what men do, right?
I think that leaving will be an odd thing. Being away from home—REALLY away, because an hour and a half away from my house is still home, it’s still the South—has been beneficial to me, because I have suddenly realized that there are things about home that I forget that I love. I love a lot about the South, but because I am always there, I take these things for granted. I think that my appreciation for my home will be greater after this absence. I will enjoy returning to the South and I will be happy to back in contact with things like pickup trucks and banjos and Cracker Barrel. But I will miss the sea. I will miss waking up to see it outside my window every morning and imaging what future commands Captain Marcus Thatcher will give to his crew with that ocean as the backdrop. I will miss lying in the sun and hearing the waves and standing at exactly the right angle where a wave gently breaks on half your body and lightly sprays the other half. That is a truly blissful feeling. I will miss the ZR’s and random goats and monkeys and the friendly people who are so willing to talk to you about God. But I can deal with those things, because public transportation is not that great and I have plenty of animals at home I can adore and the people back home I can share with—well, that’s just a challenge I’ll have to face. But the sea…that’s what I’ll miss the most. It’s what I’ll dream about at night.
I was with Dwayne and we had Chris as our staff person. He pretty much hung back, prayed for us, pointed out new people we could talk to, and just let us handle the sharing part. I thought this worked well.
So we went up to this lady sitting on a little wall thing first, and I pretty much took control of that conversation. Her name was Chanette, and she was from Guyana. She was just in Barbados to watch the cricket match (have I mentioned that cricket is HUGE here?). So I started talking to her and found out that she had gone to church when she was younger. I think she said she had been 7th Day Adventist, which we’re finding a lot of here. But she just didn’t feel like church was really doing it for her right now. As we talked more, she revealed that she was recently separated from her husband, had been raped when she was a child, had been pregnant six times but only had two children, and just wasn’t sure that God loved her. With everything she’d been through, she felt like he’d sort of forgotten about her, even though she said she prays to him and tries to connect with him. That’s definitely a difficult thing to deal with, and it’s a valid feeling, considering her circumstances. I wished I could have told her a magical solution to all of her problems, but, unfortunately, that is life. So I just talked with her about God and about giving her life to Christ and how his grace covered all of our sins. She totally understood all of it, except that she could not grasp the concept that you could not lose your salvation. That was the main point that was causing us to disagree. And, try as Dwayne and I might, we could not get her to understand that. So it was a little bit tough. I gave her my email address and told her that if she had any questions about God and salvation or just needed to talk or for someone to pray for her, that she could contact me any time. I told her I’d continue to pray for the struggles she was going through with her marriage and for her to be reassured of God’s love for her. So I’m doing that, and it’d be awesome if you would too.
Then we went up to a guy on a bench who was listening to the end of the cricket match (Australia won!) and started talking to him. His name was Curtis and he knew a lot about the Bible. He could quote scripture backwards and forwards, but he was just never really clear that he’d accepted Christ as his savior. Dwayne took the lead on this one, and he said that he figured he could ask Curtis a thousand questions and he’d get them all right, so he just went ahead and pulled out the 4 Spiritual Laws and went through that with him and he said that he was definitely going to be thinking about it, that it was a lot to digest. Totally valid. The cool thing was, he said that he was really wanting to get back involved in church again (he’d been raised Baptist and then Adventist). And there is a Southern Baptist couple who is trying to start a church in Barbados, and we’re looking around for people that might be interested in getting plugged in there. So we got his contact info and are going to give it to Keith, our crazy bus driver, who will give it to the couple. So something good definitely came out of that.
Then we met Colin Williams. He was an old man sitting on a wall who stopped us to ask us the score of the cricket match. We started talking to him, but it turned out that he would rather talk at us. He had lots of good thoughts, but he mostly just wanted to hear himself talk. Which was fine, because we were more than happy to listen. Of course, right before we left, he asked us if we were husband and wife, and when we heartily denied, he asked if we were together. Again, we said no and he said we should work on that and went on a spiel about how you can just tell when some people are meant to be together. Once we left, I told Dwayne that I loved him, but I just didn’t think we should get married. He concurred. We’ve had lots of fun teasing about it though—I thought I could get him to pay for my lunch, because that’s what husbands do for their wives, but he wasn’t too cooperative. Stubborn boys.
I really enjoyed our time in Bridgetown. Brad talked today about what a relief it must be to be back on campus, because it was so much easier to witness there, but I disagree. You didn’t have to search for anyone in Bridgetown, so you had no excuse NOT to share with someone. There was no escaping it, and I liked that. Going up to share Jesus with someone is a pretty nerve-wracking thing to do—you get nervous and kind of scared. But that’s what we’re here in Barbados to do. That’s what we’re here on Earth to do. So when you’re in a situation where you kind of HAVE to do it, it just makes it that much easier. It’s like, “suck it up, kid, it’s not like you have anything better to do.” Does that make sense? I liked not having a choice about whether to share, because then none of my human excuses were enough. Plus, after the rather sparse success we’d had on campus last week, 3 conversations in one day was REALLY encouraging. It was more than I’d had all week. I mean, it’s not about the numbers, but I like to have as many conversations as I can. Plant those seeds.
So we were back on campus today, and it went all right. Better than last week already. James and I teamed up at the beginning and we talked to a lady named Charmaine. She did not act like she wanted to talk. She didn’t make eye contact, she mumbled, I had to ask her to repeat stuff. Difficult situation when you’re trying to share the Gospel with her. She was also a 7th Day Adventist and she kind of equated baptism with salvation and said she’d never been baptized. She pretty much understood everything except that baptism doesn’t save you, but she just wasn’t ready to take that step. Honestly, I felt like I kind of copped out on this conversation, because I didn’t know what to say to her, she was intimidating and unfriendly, and I wanted it to be over. But I gave her the 4 Spiritual Laws and told her that there was a prayer in the back that she could go through and then kind of left her alone. So that was probably bad, and I don’t feel too good about it, but it happened and it’s sort of done now.
Then James had to meet with Chris, so I met up with Graham and we found two lady students sitting over by the Guild—Janine and Kimberly. Janine I think was a Christian actually. She said she wasn’t absolutely sure she was going to Heaven, but as we talked through everything, she sort of realized that her salvation was fixed and she didn’t have to doubt. I believed that she really knew God. Kimberly, however, was 50% sure and no matter how much we told her that God’s grace covered all of her sins, she just felt too much guilt—she couldn’t believe that she was really forgiven. We gave her the 4 Spiritual Laws, and we’re meeting back with her on Thursday. I don’t expect her to show up, but I hope that we at least got her to really start thinking about where she is in her relationship with God.
So that’s what the last couple of days have looked like. As far as the home front goes (well, the temporary home front anyway), my teammates and I have been having a blast. We play games almost every night—Mafia, Buckwild, Apples to Apples, Imaginiff, Big Booty, card games…the guys are pretty much constantly playing poker. That’s what men do, right?
I think that leaving will be an odd thing. Being away from home—REALLY away, because an hour and a half away from my house is still home, it’s still the South—has been beneficial to me, because I have suddenly realized that there are things about home that I forget that I love. I love a lot about the South, but because I am always there, I take these things for granted. I think that my appreciation for my home will be greater after this absence. I will enjoy returning to the South and I will be happy to back in contact with things like pickup trucks and banjos and Cracker Barrel. But I will miss the sea. I will miss waking up to see it outside my window every morning and imaging what future commands Captain Marcus Thatcher will give to his crew with that ocean as the backdrop. I will miss lying in the sun and hearing the waves and standing at exactly the right angle where a wave gently breaks on half your body and lightly sprays the other half. That is a truly blissful feeling. I will miss the ZR’s and random goats and monkeys and the friendly people who are so willing to talk to you about God. But I can deal with those things, because public transportation is not that great and I have plenty of animals at home I can adore and the people back home I can share with—well, that’s just a challenge I’ll have to face. But the sea…that’s what I’ll miss the most. It’s what I’ll dream about at night.
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