Chris stops his game of Ultimate Frisbee to strike a pose.
Crane Beach. My pals jumped off the cliff that's right at the center of this pic.
Katie and I sit to the sidelines and cheer on our team during Sports Day
my pina colada cheesecake from the Harlequin Restaurant...delicious.
a rousing game of Spoons at our lime on Friday nightI don’t have any new interesting or encouraging stories to tell about the ministry we’re doing here, but here are a few fun tidbits about what’s been happening in my life.
We hosted our weekly lime (American translation: party) at our place on Friday night. It was lots of fun. We mostly just hung out and played games. Apples to Apples, Spoons, and Catchphrase (aka my new favorite game). We had lime jello and were supposed to have limeade, but that didn't really work out (clever though, no? LIME!). But we had a lot of people come, we had fun, we eventually got a noise complaint, and we went to bed probably later than we have the whole time. We go to bed early here--it's because it gets so dark so early. In Barbados, you always think it's later than it actually is.
We went to Crane Beach on Saturday, which is apparently a big deal. I didn’t really think it was all that fascinating but that might be because I almost immediately got stung by a jellyfish. It wasn’t that big a deal—it was a baby one, which was good, because Michelle said that that kind can get pretty nasty when they’re older, but it still hurt quite a lot. No permanent damage, though. I just had to wait a while for it to stop stinging. Other people seemed to enjoy the beach a lot—they jumped off a cliff into the ocean, so I guess that kind of thing is pretty fun if you can swim.
And Saturday night was first frustrating, but turned out well. We got kind of invited by the guys to go to a movie with them and one of our new Bajan guy friends. But after much debate over where we would go and to which movie, it turned out that the guy had really intended it to be JUST for guys. So we didn’t really know what to do, and we were bored and irritated and it wasn’t going well. But then Daniel, who is in charge of our training and is just a really stellar guy, suggested going to St. Lawrence Gap, which is this touristy place by the water with lots of restaurants and vendors and things. So we went with him and Chris to this really colorful and nicely lit restaurant for dessert. I got pina colada cheesecake, which was delectable. And the thing about Daniel is that he ALWAYS has games to play, no matter your environment, so we played high school, where everyone tries to guess what everyone else was like in high school and then they find out how right or wrong they were. And then he just asked us all lots of fun questions, like, “what are 2 things you love and 2 things you hate?” and “what is one thing about you that is misunderstood?” We were so irritated at first that the guys had kind of flaked out on us (which they really hadn’t—it was just a miscommunication), but we ended up having a really lovely time.
However, it was still a rough weekend for me, personally. For some reason, Sunday was just the day I decided to be extremely homesick. I was just really missing the South and my family and my pets and things, so it was kind of rough. And we didn’t really do anything that day. We listened to a really good sermon that morning, but then we just hung out by the pool, mostly. That night, we had a leadership meeting, and I (along with the rest of the girls) got very frustrated with everyone (privately, of course. I didn’t blow up or anything). I was just like, “I don’t even want to be here, and you’re making me want to be here less by goofing off when we have things to do,” which is, of course, ridiculous. No one was that horrible. I just had a bad attitude. I was missing home and I didn’t have any patience and so I went to bed very unhappy. One of the girls here, though, Katie, is pretty amazing, and she knew that I wasn’t happy and she checked up on me and prayed for me, which definitely helped. Just the encouragement and acknowledgement of my feelings was enough to brighten me up a little. So that was just a rough day altogether. Plus, everyone tried to teach me to swim that afternoon, and since I can’t do it, I got very frustrated with myself and my abilities and I got tired and hot and exasperated and it didn’t help my attitude. However, everyone was lovely to try to teach me, and some people were unexpectedly very encouraging.
However, my attitude from Sunday sort of segued me into Monday, so that I was feeling a bit better, but not like being very polite or reserved or anything. So it’s not that I was rude or terrible to people, but I was just sort of uninhibited, which turned out to be a very good thing. My lack of thinking about what to say before I said it really brought ME out, and I think people were exposed to a side of me that has as of yet remained hidden. Plus, I shared my story, my testimony, as it were, with the girls at our women’s lunch today, so telling my emotional story and being the center of attention for a while really sort of wore me out today, which added to my lack of discretion in speech (that sounds so bad, but lack of discretion is usually good for me every once in a while—it gets me out of my shell).
We had our sports day on campus today, which is not, of course, my favorite thing. I just sort of sat off to the side and read my Bible, because no one was really there for our first sports day, and I was certainly not going to be any good on the field. So I felt like I didn’t really get anything accomplished today or this weekend, and I was feeling pretty discouraged.
But we did some pretty good girl bonding today, and we got some encouragement from Chris and Daniel, so we baked them cookies. And we decided to go out for gelato, just us girls, but Graham and Dwayne decided to come and ended up treating us to our gelato. So I was really frustrated with myself and everyone else over the weekend, but it turned out well, with some friendships being solidified and some bonding happening and some definite encouragement from both the people here and from my answered prayers. I just ask that you would continue to pray that I would keep my focus solely on God and on doing what He has me here for. Also, please be praying that we would have more ministry opportunities this week. Since it’s summer school, there aren’t just a heck of a lot of people around, and we’re getting to everyone we can get to, but we’re looking for just MORE people. So be praying for that and keep on being encouraging, because you really are, and it really helps me.
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