The Last Update from This Particular Island

Brad and Michelle, our fearless leaders.
The beach at Bathsheba. Click on this one to make it bigger and fully understand how beautiful it is. Or at least as beautiful as it can appear in a photograph.
The raptor farm into which Dwayne wrecked our car. More details on that will have to be given in person.
Katie, me, and Dwayne with a baby goat. For some reason, I am known here as the one who loves animals, particularly goats. Which is true, it's just never been an identifying characteristic before. You must admit, though...this is a CUTE goat.
Bottom Bay, one of the most beautiful beaches on the island (though it's pretty overcast at this point, and you may not be able to tell how great it is).

I am going to Trinidad TODAY!

I have been on the campus of UWI for the very last time. It’s weird to think that I’m not going to get another chance to share with people there. We did what we came to do and now the rest is up to God (like it wasn’t the whole time anyway). We had a prayer time Tuesday night, just the students, for all the people we’d met and had conversations with. I think it was a really special and important time. Continue to pray that the seeds we planted will keep growing and that God will really just tug on those people's hearts and keep working on them. There are so many people we’ve met that are just really searching for Him and finding it difficult to see Him. Our hearts have broken just to see these people who are going through things that make them unable to see God’s love. On the flip side, it’s been wildly encouraging to see how much God has already prepared some people to hear His Word and start trying to pursue a relationship with Him. It’s been a roller coaster, for certain, but I have learned more and experienced more on this trip than I could have imagined.

Our last day of witnessing was Monday, and Brad led a girl to Christ. I think that was a pretty awesome way to end this thing. We saw two people come to Christ during our 4 weeks here, and while some may think “that’s not very successful for 4 whole weeks”—perhaps WE would even have thought that a few weeks ago—success is not about a number of people who pray a prayer that's written in the back of a booklet. We were here for purposes that are unknown even to us. I don’t doubt for one second that God worked in people’s lives this summer and that we were here for a reason. If He weren’t going to do anything, we wouldn’t even be here. It was definitely frustrating at times to know that we weren’t meeting that many people and the ones we were meeting weren’t accepting Christ and sometimes we felt a little helpless, but the truth is, He’s doing things way beyond what any of us sees. And at least for me, personally, that is very encouraging to know. This one is not up to me. It’s bigger than I am. It’s being controlled by someone who is far more capable of handling it than I could ever strive to be.

And, of course, completely aside from anyone we’ve met here, I know that God has been working in the lives of each member of our team. I have seen my friends grow in their relationship with Him and been a witness to how He is molding them and preparing to use them in bigger ways than they know. It’s exciting to see this firsthand. Every one of my friends here is well on his or her way to becoming a really godly person and I think we feel that we absolutely HAVE to keep in contact together because we want to be continued witnesses to this growth in one another. We want to know how God is using the rest of our team. We have become so much like family in these 4 weeks and it’s going to be difficult to suddenly NOT be with each other all the time. We are all excited to be going home for different reasons, but we’re going to miss one another terribly.

For our last night in Barbados, the guys came up with a date for us. We’ve been encouraged to do creative team dates the whole time, and on Monday, the girls cooked the guys dinner and served it out by the pool. That was nice enough. But the guys really outdid us (as they should have) and made us dinner served on their ocean view balcony complete with candles and rose petals along the way, a single red rose for each of us, and a trip to St. Lawrence Gap for dessert by the ocean afterwards. We shared some of our favorite memories, most awkward moments, and best quotes of the trip as we sat around soaking up one another’s company for the last time in Barbados. And the invitation to this date was lowered to our balcony by means of Brant’s fishing pole. Brilliantly creative, all of it. But I really think the best part of it was that we came back to the Magic Isle afterwards, where we met up with our good Bajan friend Marvin, and we all spread out on cushions and mattresses in the floor and watched Iron Man, which was followed first by a really intense pillow fight and then by a time of prayer by candlelight. I just think there was no better way we could have spent our final night in Barbados. I’m looking out my window now, completely disbelieving that I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and do the same thing. But our work here is done.

Now it’s on to CSC, the Caribbean Student Conference, which is sort of like the equivalent of our Winter Conferences and things like that. We’re going to be staying at a pretty sweet hotel, I’m not going to lie about that. It has a water park in it. : ) And 24/7 Internet access, which will be a relief. I am not yet sure what all our part in this conference will consist of, but I DO know that we have 10 minutes on stage to represent America. All the countries represented are doing this. We really don’t yet know what we’re doing, but we’re pretty sure we’re going to sing “I Saw the Light.” We sang it in worship one night, and we just had a ball with it and have been singing it ever since. It’s like our theme song.

I’m leaving for the airport in about 4 hours, so I am going to go pack and shower and run by the post office because Melody sent me a package and I never received it. I will update at least one more time before I come home, because I am sure I will have great stories to tell from CSC. And if you are interested in hearing about our experiences on Friday, which were the most memorable of the trip by far, either ask my family or wait until I get home to hear about National Lampoon’s Caribbean Vacation.