Salem Bible Church

After a long day of travel everyone has finally arrived in JAMAICA! So ready to see what God has in store for us this week as the team represent Christ through our service at Hartland's Baptist Church! BIG thank you to everyone for prayers of safe travels.

Welcome, welcome, welcome! We are now in the Jamaican lands! It has been a very exciting adventure to get to this point and I thank the Lord for our safety. Now, i will give two descriptions of how our Sunday In Jamaica went and then you will get to pick to read the short version, long version, or both because you think i'm an amazing writer! So i will begin with a joke and a snapple fact.... "What does a bee use to come his hair? A HONEYCOMB!!!!" and the snapple fact is, "Did you know that Hawaii is further south than Florida!" Now, to begin the short version... We woke up, did devos, ate breakfast and were out to the Hartlands church by 11am. We had a church service and then ate lunch. We walked around the community and talked to locals. We then headed back to Old Harbor Bay Baptist Church for a night service and a team meeting to end the day! Now for the long version, We awoke on a beautiful Sunday morning to spend time in Gods word before breakfast at 7:30am. (By the way, none of us had the pleasure of showering this morning, but neither did Jesus when he was out in the desert so we are all sill good :) For eating today we had... Breakfast= white bread, hot dogs cut up, eggs, banana, and pineapple juice.... Lunch= beef patties and coco bread (AMAZING) with a pineapple and orange drink..... Dinner= Rice, BBQ chicken, Irish potato salad, and papaya drink. Worship went swell even though we have difficulty understanding their dialect. We participated in singing, reading, and worship. It is getting late and i need my beauty sleep so i will say goodnight now... (p.s. shout out to my mommy, daddy, and Jessica) #bethepelican #Christ #Serve #Jimmy

Back to Hartlands! We spent the majority of our day back at the church and school we were at last year. A lot of the kids are the same, but there's some new faces too. It was sad when they asked for the kids from last year that didn't come back, but we'll probably have them make cards and then we will deliver them. After the primary schoolers were done with test prep, we split up into tow age groups. I got to be with the younger group, and their energy level is astounding. I learned a few local games, and they're quite different from expected. They're all so sweet and want attention(I was climbed upon multiple times). After a break for lunch, we started work on the building that I think will become a library. The basic area of the building is laid, but it was overgrown and someone from previous years had dumped clay in it. A local Jamaican who works for the church helped out, and is able to work so much faster than any of us. Anyways, today was inspiring , just to see the joy in the little kids and being able to start the project. In a rock pile a few feet from the building, we found a scorpion nest. Justin and Rohan(the local) quickly disposed of them with machetes, and continued messing around with the now deceased scorpions. So, today was a pretty good day, and it was nice to be productive in Hartlands once again.

The Construction Site at Hartlands Primary School.

Ryan playing with his new Jamaican friends

Girls saying goodbye to their new friends

Why, hello there once again! As i ponder in what to write, i once again want to thank the Lord so much for everything He has done. I'll (Caden) start with a terrible and tragic event that took place last night! It was dark and about 2 in the morning... a HUGE tightening of the hamstring muscle began to happen! (Cramp) Then it happened again in a few hours :( I woke up with a sweat to my brow but i survived! Now we awoke from our sleep to have our daily devos before breakfast! Our breakfast consisted of festvals (Funnelcake tasting bread), pancakes, hot dogs cut up, and some weird juice :) We left for a long and B.u.M.p.Y ride to the work cite in Hartlands. A couple children were waiting for us and were so excited to see us! We began working right away by producing mortar and building up the foundation. The mortar was made by water, sand, and little rocks. Our leader, (Rohan) that instructs us and tells us how to do the job, pushed us to work hard in the sun! Some of us worked with children to leave the building to others. (Holly is taking over now) HELLLOOOOOOOO We started out our time with the children by playing their favorite game: Sharks and Minnows. Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly as organized as the day before and they began running around causing chaos... but they never stopped smiling and having fun :D We then had dancing and singing competitions with them. They taught us several songs, many of them about God's love which was very encouraging. This led us (Beka, Caden, and I) to sing "This Little Light of Mine." We talked to them about how the light represented Jesus inside of us, and they told us what they knew about Jesus. It was a learning experience for both the children and us :) Oh... and they really enjoy braiding hair, so I basically had dreads the whole day. (Here's Caden again) I'M BACK!!!! :) So, then after a long day at work, we went back to the church to chill for the rest of the day! Whats new in the few is.... Sami and Jimbo are now an OFFICIAL couple, Jake got a sea urchin to his finger, Lexi got stung by a jellyfish, Hannah ate a super duper fire pepper and was legit crying (she has a soul :') ), Justin came up with a new candy named "Hershey Squirts" and finally.... we have discovered a new species....LOGAN. He is here from the Cinncinasty, Ohio! His nickname is "pancake" and lets just say that this is what this creature says, "I'll give you 500 dollars to lick cheese wiz off of Phil's forehead!" (back to both of us) Time to say bye bye :) Goodnight and goodluck. #bethepelican #littlegreenfrog #sharksong #cheesewizsquirts

Our ladies worked hard today laying steel.

Workin' hard

Playing Sharks and Minnows

BOY BOY BOY am i tired... the day began with sum yummy, yummy, yummy porridge! (and other stuff)we drove off to Hartlands for our last horrah:( as our sun burn got worse and our mosquito bites got bigger we were still sad it was our last day :( We began right away with work and we were in like, gear 100. Some of us were working with the kids while others were baking under the hot, Jamaican sun working. The children heard bible stories of Daniel, Prodigal Son, Jonah, Noah, and more :) We played games outside and it was a blast! The workers and Rohan worked non stop with the project! (I legit thought that they were robots ;) We were sweaty and covered in dirt... we then cleaned up and said our goodbye's. :( We drove to Sunbeam Boys Home where we interected with them in sports, games, and talking. We then drove home for dinner, church service, and a team meeting. We are getting excited for tommorow's rec. day! (p.s. "tomorrow will never come!") So..... sleep tight ya'll. #bethepelican #Jess2443 #Holly

This is how far we have gotten in the few days we have been working!!!