Thursday, January 14, 2010

We're leaving today! I'm excited!! I woke up at 3:30AM to get ready, and caught a ride to the airport with Tony and Annette Barry who are also going on the trip. Their daughter Colleen, and her fiance, Tristan, rode along to take the Barry's car back home. Tony and Annette are both retired from the Holley school district in New York. Tony was an Art teacher, and Annette was a librarian.

Our flight left Rochester at around 7:00AM, and we were there in plenty of time. Everyone got through security with no problems, and we had time to relax a bit at the airport and/or get some breakfast before we left.

Our first plane was relatively small with just two seats on each side of the aisle. I had a window and sat next to George Lee. He and his wife, Lois, both went on this trip (she sat across the aisle from him), and this was the first mission trip they had gone on. They've been interested for a while, and now their kids are old enough that they could get away.

We had a stopover in Philadelphia, but it was too short to see my girls who live there, unfortunately. Our next flight was a slightly larger plane with three seats on each side of the aisle. This time George and Lois got to sit together, and I was next to George again by the aisle.

We landed in Jamaica and went through customs again with no hitches. One customs agent, who was interviewing Steve Miller (I was right next to him being interviewed by a different agent at the time) couldn't believe that a bunch of Americans would give up their vacation to help a poor Jamaican church, and he seemed a little antagonized, but Steve got through OK anyway.

We got our luggage and went outside to look for our bus, but it wasn't there. There were, however, dozens and dozens of other people who would willing help us or give us a ride (for a fee, of course), but we had previous arrangements. So our Pastor, Ken Phillips, made a quick call to Fair Haven Guest House and Jamaica Link Ministries, and our bus and drivers, Joseph and Michael, were there in minutes.

The first thing we did when we arrived at Fair Haven was find our rooms and change our clothes! Most of us had already shed the hoodies, sweatshirts, and long sleeves we'd worn down, but now we needed to put on shorts! It's a wonderful thing to be too warm in January.

Fair Haven will be providing us two meals a day, so we needed to go grocery shopping for bread, fruit, chips, etc. for our lunches. We brought peanut butter and jam with us in our suitcases. Jon Burghardt, Christi Miller (Steve's daughter-in-law), Tony and Annette, and I went to a MegaMart with our driver, Joseph. It reminded me of StuffMart in VeggieTales. The fruit there was fantastic, of course, since it was all fresh and locally grown.

On our way home from the MegaMart, Joseph drove us to a downtown street market to look for fresh papayas, but we couldn't find any. We did see lots of local culture there, however! There was one man who was driving a bed through the busy street and yelling at all the people in their cars to get out of his way!

We had our first meal that night at Fair Haven: fish with orange sauce, curried goat, salad, green beans and carrots, and chocolate cake for dessert. I was brave and tried everything (even the curried goat!), and it was all excellent. Maybe I was just really hungry.

Fair Haven has a U.S. line phone that we paid a fee so we could use it as we wished. I called home and talked briefly to Krista, just to let her know we were all there safely.

Every night we will have a devotional time. Our format is that we sing a couple of songs, two of us each night will give a testimony, then there will be a lesson, and finally we will break up into groups of two to discuss the lesson's impact on us and pray for each other. Tonight, Charles Curle and Tony gave testimonies, and Pastor Ken taught the lesson.

He developed a series he titled "Lifestyles of the Righteous and Faithful" (think "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" with Robin Leach) where we will look at faithful people from the Bible and what we can learn from them. Tonight Pastor Ken (PK) taught us about the courage of Joseph of Arimathea, who, although he was a member of the Jewish ruling council, publicly identified himself with Jesus. We talked about the things we need to have courage to do.

Ethan Cornell and I prayed together that night. This is one of the things I love about our adult mission trips. It puts people together who normally wouldn't run in the same circles, like Ethan and me. He is a young college student, and I'm not. But, it was great to talk seriously for a few minutes and pray together.

That was about all we could handle for one day, so we went to bed shortly after the devotional time. I am rooming with six other guys: Steve, Charles, Ethan, Scott Anderson and his son, Chris, and Ed Haight. We thought we might have a real snoring chorus in there, but I didn't notice it too much—maybe because I was snoring too loudly to hear the others.

The rest of the team was in two other rooms: one for the women and one for the men. So, Lois, Annette, and Chrisi shared one room, and PK, George, Tony, and Jon shared the other.

Mostly the sleeping was fine. We had "white" noise from a fan and air conditioner that blocked out a lot of external noise. And we were really tired every day because we worked hard. We were right across the street from the beach, and almost every night, people would be there partying into the wee hours of the morning with loud music blaring. To me, that was the worst thing to try to sleep through. We were also right next to the airport, but that never bothered me. The roosters in the morning were a bit irritating, but not too much. We kept hoping we'd have chicken for dinner and then be done with them, but it was not to be.