Bridges Christian Church

The team arrived safe. After having some good Jamaican patties and coco bread for lunch we set out for the St. James infirmary, here we had a wonderful time interacting with the residence and the kids from the community. It was indeed a wonderful experience for us today.Looking forward to our worship experience tomorrow. Pray for us as we set out to be God's agents.

Today’s schedule consists of attending a church service at Full Gospel Church. We’re excited to experience a different type of church service other than our own! As we walk into the church, we’re greeted by many handshakes and smiles. Pastor Syd begins preaching enthusiastically, which really caught our attention. We sang a variety of songs, most of which were unfamiliar. We caught on quickly, though. Everyone was so lively! Todd was then invited to come to the front to let the natives experience some of how our preaching was. He did an interactive activity with everyone and many “amens!” were exclaimed from the people listening intently to Todd’s words. He did a great job. Then when church was over, we changed out of our church clothes and headed over to the St. James infirmary. This was an experience we won’t forget. The children and the elderly both lit up when we interacted with them. It was amazing to see how they would illuminate when we would even just wave at them. It touched our hearts as much as it did theirs. This was such an amazing feeling. To know that by spreading God’s Word or even just shaking someone’s hand that we could make an impact on someone’s life, was a truly blessed experience. This week will surely be an adventure and we can’t wait to see what’s in store. GOD IS GOOD! ?

Awakening to the sound of tropical birds and a summer breeze blowing in through the open windows, the ache in our bodies reminds us of the work in store for our team today. Many times youth group mission trips are closer to a vacation masked in righteous reasons to pay thousands of dollars to fly to one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Obvious to the muscles in our bodies, however, this is not the schedule today for our group. Today we are continuing to host two VBS programs for children in Norwood and Flankers which are both in St. James Parish, Montego Bay, Jamaica. The team played soccer and other games outside, shared the story of Noah and the Ark, learned and sang Jamaican songs about Noah and the flood (shared by Miss Norma), participated in a craft activity where they got to make their own ark, danced with Miss Abby and had their pictures taken for their very own photo frames. The kids in both communities were excited for VBS and melted our hearts with their smiles, love and affection. It was a fulfilling day for “Team Jam” (as Pastor Todd likes to refer to us), and the Praying Pelican Mission team helping us. This short term mission trip is giving us a nice taste of what mission work in the world outside of America is like, and we think God might just have more hot hours in foreign countries planned for this group. God is great! He keeps on giving here in Jamaica.

Today we completed our second day of VBS in Norwood and Flankers with stories of Jonah. Over 120 children attended and received the word of God. It was an incredibly rewarding day and we could feel the presence of God in our midst. Miss Kazan was able to deliver a special message to the teens in Flankers based on the story of Jonah and spoke with them about listening to what God says vs. Running from Him and living a life that would not please him. Another team member, Clifton, had this experience to share: “I woke up hoping that God would use me in ways that he saw fit and I most definitely was. Yesterday, I met a boy named “Rushean” who helped me out a lot, both literally and figuratively. Not only did he help me pick up beach balls, but he touched my heart. Meeting him again today was like I couldn’t keep him out of my arm; nor would I want him to be. I felt that God put him in my life for a purpose. To see kids that have so little yet are so rich with love and happiness puts a special kind of feeling in my heart. This is like something I’ve never experienced before. I texted Mom the first day I was here and said, “I’ve only been here for 5 hours, but I know, now, that this is what I’m supposed to be doing the rest of my life”. I was so excited to be in a third world country and felt at home serving the people. We can give money to third world countries, but mission trips are about reaching the people and forming that triangle between God, people and yourself.” We are tired, but looking forward to a good night’s rest so we can enter our third and final day of VBS with these children and give them a wonderful experience that helps them to know God and walk a little closer with Him. Pray for us today that we may do His work and touch the lives of these children like they have touched ours.

Today was our last day in Jamaica that we will have performed a VBS program. During the day we went to Norwood and Flankers to host the program for the children in each community. We started off the programs by dancing with the children while Zumba music played from a nearby speaker we setup. After we were finished dancing with the children we organized them into groups. During the program we had a game station set up with a variety of activities available to keep the kids engaged and having fun. In addition to games we had several other stations set up in order to educate the children on biblical stories and basic principles of the bible. One of these stations was an art and crafts stations that children were given colouring sheets that depicted biblical scenes to help familiarize them with the story. The other station was a storytelling station that had one of the VBS team narrating the specific bible story of that day to the children. Interacting with the kids in all of the stations was a spiritually enriching experience for every member of the team that everyone found enjoyable, and by sharing biblical stories with the children, we were able to enrich them spiritually in return. After we had finished our programs for the day in both communities we all felt satisfied with the work we had done in God’s name.