My Mum's dream come true!

My Mum, who is 72, has always dreamt of visiting the Caribbean but never thought it would be possible.  Up until a couple of years ago she had never been on a plane and then she plucked up the courage to fly out with our daughter Emily to visit us in Guyana.  She was even brave enough to come with us on a small aircraft to fly over the Amazon forest to see the Kaiteur Falls in Guyana and surprised us by being completely calm and stoical about it all!

As we were travelling to Guyana this time via Barbados we invited her to fly out and join us for a week.  She was really nervous about the thought of flying alone but we booked her special assistance, my brother dropped her at Gatwick and we met her yesterday at the airport here.  She is now enjoying her dream come true...she never thought she'd see and experience white sand and turquoise sea but her courage has meant she has now done what she thought was impossible.

A lesson to all of us...however old you are there may still be a chance to fulfil a dream if you're brave enough!  Here she is paddling in the Caribbean with me. 😃

Back to school

Mark telling the story of the anointing of David

This morning we went to Mahaica primary school to take an assembly...a school we visited regularly when we lived here.  A lot of the children remembered us and wanted to know where Nettie (our puppet) was!  They also remembered songs we had taught them and we had an enthusiastic rendition of 'Great Big God'.

Cheeky boy! 

Talking to the children about how we can't judge by appearances

After this we did some more visits - one of our visits was to a lovely lady called Shira who some of you may remember reading about in my blog while we lived here.  Three years ago she gave birth to twin boys and sadly one of them died of an infection in hospital and we had the privilege of standing alongside her through that difficult time and together took the funeral for the little baby.  Today we met the surviving twin who is now a robust and healthy three year old.  (A photo will follow once we get home). It was very special to be able to visit her in her home and pray with her again.

A joyful day

A cute little girl...maybe a future preacher! 

We thought we were being collected at 6.30 this morning so dutifully got up at 5.45 expecting our lift to be late as per the usual Guyanese custom, BUT had a surprise as he arrived just before 6am so we had a speedy departure!

I preached at two services this morning; the first one started at 8am and finished at about 10.30 (not because I preached for a long time I hasten to add!), then we hot footed it to the next service at 11 but didn't get there until 11.20 so were a bit late starting!  At both services we were so blessed by the warmth of the welcome we received and were asked to send greetings back to our churches in England.  I preached about self esteem and how we are all loved and valued by God and we had the privilege of praying for several people at the end of each service.

After the second service we were taken to another church where we met some more of the circuit youth and were able to spend a couple of hours chatting and encouraging them as well as sharing a lot of laughter.

Some of them came with us on the bus ride back to our hotel for an impromptu road trip and we treated them all (and our driver!) to a fruit punch before they headed back.  It has been such a blessing today and a real privilege to be able to share with these dear people.

This trip is so therapeutic for us and we are building some good positive memories and re-establishing some old relationships.

Preaching at the 8am service

aWith some of our Guyanese daughters and my first Guyanese granddaughter! 

A day with some of the youth

Today we spent the day at Splashmins, a lake for swimming, with some of the youth from our old circuit.  Sadly, we were not allowed to have all the circuit youth on an official day, so some of our beloved young people missed out, but we had a good time with some of them in an unofficial capacity.

When we arrived at the lake Mark led a short teaching session on the nature of fear, the effects of fear and how to overcome it, then we had a chicken and rice lunch and spent the afternoon with the young people swimming and having fun.  We're shattered now!  Early night ready to be picked up in the morning at 6.30am (Guyana time!) to be taken to the first of two services at which I am preaching, as Mark has not been permitted to preach during our visit.

Mark speaking to the young people

Thanks for your honesty!

We have spent our first full day in Guyana and we have had the privilege of visiting some of our ex congregation members in their homes and chatting and praying with them.  Everywhere we went we were greeted with such warmth and welcome (and big hugs and kisses) and it was a delight to catch up with some old faces.  (Photos will follow once we get home and clear the camera).

I had to laugh as at two different houses I was greeted by ladies saying 'you put on a lot of weight girl'...which I am sure is a compliment here!!  Note to self...back on the diet when we get home!

It's very weird to be back here again but at the same time it feels completely normal because everything is so familiar to us.  One moving comment someone made was 'ministers come and go but they never come back and you have come back'.  Another lady who is dying of cancer said she was so pleased she had seen us once more before she dies.  We feel it's been very therapeutic and a real blessing for us coming back and hopefully a blessing to those we are meeting again.

More travels...

I've just returned from a weekend at the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick where the annual Methodist Women in Britain conference is held.  I had never been before so didn't know what to expect and had a wonderful time with women from all around the country and some from other parts of the world. 

I met my colleague and counterpart from Ireland, Louise, and we hit it off like a house on fire (over a glass of wine in the bar!) so I think there is going to be some to-ing and fro-ing to Ireland over the coming years to strengthen links between our two units of the World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church Women. 

Jill Barber, the vice president of the Methodist Conference spoke and inspired us with stories about inspirational women of the past and challenged us with what we can learn from their prayer lives, their passion and their love for Jesus.  We had some wonderful contributions and one of the highlights for me was some worship led by a group of women from Zimbabwe - it made me want to be back in Africa...more on that to come! 

Anne Browse welcoming our speaker, Jill Barber

They said there would be some giant puppets and they weren't exaggerating!

Our Bring and Buy a Butterfly stall to raise funds to help women in poorer countries attend the World Federation conference in Texas later this year -  we raised over £1200 from this!

 

Wonderful exuberant worship led by a group of ladies from Zimbabwe

Some of the ladies went to a signing workshop and were helping in the worship with what they had learned

Our daughter Jo and her husband Ayo are here with us and we spent a lovely day with them yesterday. They are now cat sitting for us as we leave on our next adventure...today we head to Gatwick ready to fly early tomorrow morning to Guyana to visit some of the dear folk there and hopefully share some teaching and preaching with them in various places.   As and when I get wifi I will keep you posted! 

A variety of experiences

I travelled to Leamington Spa for a two day Methodist Council meeting...some of which was heavy going and other parts which were completely inspiring and uplifting. 

Mark met me from the train at Tiverton and we camped overnight so that we were closer to head to Minehead for a day at Spring Harvest where we joined Emily and Chris.  Emily and her colleague were running a stall to try to raise the profile of the charity for which Emily is communications manager - Middle East Media. 

Emily and her colleague at the MEM stand

The charity do an amazing work across the Middle East - training and educating women who may not otherwise receive this benefit, supporting Christians in primarily Muslim countries and using media productions to help traumatised children in troubled places such as refugee camps and conflict zones.  This is the first time the charity has sought to engage people at a Christian event in this way and Emily did a great job designing the posters and newsletters.  If you want to find out more about this charity do email Emily at comms@mem.org. 

Us with Emily and Chris at the stand

Good old Butlins!

A surreal moment...puppets of Elvis, a vicar and Jesus!  Not three characters you usually see together!

Home very briefly!

We arrived back home just over a week ago and I've been catching up with sleep, washing and post!  On Wednesday I had to go to London for my first Methodist Women executive meeting.  We met for a meal at Wetherspoons and celebrated the engagement of the daughter of our president Anne with some prosecco!

After a long day of business on Thursday at Methodist Church House, Anne and I headed south west on the train and had an interesting experience.  A Hungarian lady with very little English realised she had got on the wrong train...she wanted to go to Hungerford but the train didn't stop until Taunton.  Anne and I tried to help her work out which train she could catch to get back from Taunton using the Internet and were able to give her a little encouragement using Babelfish to translate a message (technology can be amazing!).  The young ticket collector could not have been kinder or more helpful to the poor, distressed lady.  She arranged staff to help her at Taunton station, got the lady into first class on a train to Swindon and organised a taxi for her from Swindon to Hungerford.  On top of all that she gave Anne and I a bottle of prosecco each for helping out!

We were blown away by her kindness and customer service and I have written to GWR to commend her. When you hear so many dreadful stories about immigrants being treated badly it was so heartening to see a visitor to our land being treated with such dignity and love.  It made me think of those words of Jesus, 'Whatever you do for the least of these you do for me.'  I'm sure he must have been smiling yesterday evening! 😃

Celebrating with the Methodist women...any excuse!