Is it me or was it not just 80 degrees a week ago? As with the way things are in Michigan, once Labor day arrives someone turns the switch and summer ends and fall arrives. I must say besides having winter come after Fall- I love it. The colors are bursting everywhere on the trees and things just smell like Fall. The time for apple pie and pumpkin carving is just around the corner.

Enjoy!

 This is my dad or better known as Popie! This is yesterday in Grand Rapids with Jake. I drove over with my folks to see Drew run in his cross country race. My folks wanted to see him race before they left for Florida for the winter. I was a little leary of traveling with Jake for 6 total hours of driving with him strapped in a carseat, but he was a champ- he slept all the way there and back and then just played for the time in between. He was awesome! Thats my grandson! Oh yeah- Drew did awesome in his race- time of 26:43 for a 5K- team came in 3rd overall. Good day at the meet.

Earlier in the day I went over and picked up my text books and upon arriving home and combing through them the main thought I kept having was—WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO! Yes if I was terrifed before it is even worse now. Please Pray for Me! It is going to be an interesting time.

Arrived home around 10pm and put Jake to bed at Niki’s place and then waited for her to get home from work. She makes me so proud- she is such a good mom to Jake and is working so hard to make things great for her and Jake. She is waitressing at Kruse & Muer on the Lake (If you go there request her for your waitress) 6 nights a week and going to college in the mornings and being mom to Jake- She is doing awesome! I love her to pieces.

The new school year has begun..we dropped Drew off last week at his dorm and got him settled in, Niki doesn’t start classes until the end of the month and Kelsey begins her senior year on Tuesday at Lake Orion…oh yeah, and then there is me..yes that is correct, I have decided to go back to college and finish up my nursing degree…I am terrifed to say the least-  its been a good many years since I have been in school- but now is as good of time as any to go back-  so if all goes well it should take me about 1 1/2 years and I will be done.  Keep me in your prayer-  I will need them!

Just some comic relief for myself:

Back at it!  The wireless has been down for the last couple of days, thus the reason for no update on the adventure.  But were back up and running today so I thought I would try and give you the latest.

 
Saturday- was a day of rest after being in Toco for the week.  The team went to Port of Spain for some shopping and the to Maracas Bay for a time of swimming and beaching.  The view is always amazing at Maracas- don’t you think.

 

Sunday found us in church at Campoo.  That church has come along way from five years ago when they were meeting in the bar down the street.  Look at it now!  Then it was church in the evening at St. Helena- always an uplifting time of worship and prayer with the Trini’s.  You honestly feel so close to God when you are in these services- I want tobottle it and bring it home.

 
Monday- we were off on a two and half hour bus ride to the far south side of the island to a town called Point Fortin.  We went to a children’s home (they don’t call the orphanages) that was awesome.  It was a private home with 18 children ages 2 months to 17 years.  The children were great and we shared Christ’s love with them in many different forms.  Then we were off to another home, which is being run by retired schoolteachers.  That is cool because the children are being schooled at no cost and the best part is that the teachers are Christians, so the children are being taught the Word and the love of Christ right in the home.  Great day of ministry - exactly the type of ministry I love to do as you can see below.  Here are a few of the faces that will always be in my heart!

Sweet Little Jadan-  just two months old.

 

Jadan shares his bed with the laudry in the kitchen

 

Children at El Shaddai sing for us.

Christian – just three years old

 

Back from the Bush….
Well we made it! Actually it was beautiful and but of course rustic. But I loved it. Going to Toco was an expereience that is for sure- from the open hearts of the children to the werid food that Aunty Patsy served us- lets just say I won’t be having fish anytime soon. I did not know you could do so many things with fish parts- but overall the food was even good.

Ministry was awesome! The team held a VBS in the mornings and God blessed the efforts of the team. We had 20 youth come to Christ and 4 of them were baptised in the ocean- how cool is that! Overall I can say it was a huge success not because of the numbers but becauses of the connections that were made with the people of Toco.

In the afternoons we did construction. Since the church in Toco is stil in process- the girls on the team painted the entire inside of the building and sanded the floor so that it would be smooth to lay tile, and were talking sanding with a piece of rock- not sandpaper. The guys by far had the most work. They had to dig a trench around the entire church that was 18 inches deep and 2 feet wide and most of the time it was straight down hill. But they cranked it out.

Have to go for now but See http://www.xanga.com/ColletteGang for photos

Okay today was one of the hottest days I have experienced in Trinidad - ever! It was Hot! But on to what is happening..

Today we did orientation with the team and then took them on a Cultural Tour to the oldest and newest Hindu Temples on the island. They will shocked to see an 80 foot monkey god that they pray to. It is sad that people don’t know the one and only God and that He is the only thing that is ever going to save them. But we are hear to share that good news with whoever God places in our path.

Church tonight in St. Helena- awesome time of praise and worship and prayer. Always good to worship with the Trinis. The team took part of the service and did an awesome job.

We leave for Toco in the morning- team was surprised to find out they could only take a backpack of clothes with them as there is not room for the enourmous suitcases that they brought. They will be fine- they just have to find that out for themselves. Anyway we start VBS in the aftenoon and then for the rest of the week. I will be without the computer until Friday- when I get bacak on I will give you all a few pictures and tell you of what God used us for while we were there.

Please pray for us as we go into spiritual battle this week-

So I made it to Trinidad- two flights later and 10 hours of flying- but I made it in one piece and was greeeted like family-  which it is like coming home when I come here.  Tonight was youth night so the compound was alive with all the family’s of the church so I was able to see lots of old faces and meet a few new ones already.

Got to see my sweetpea Kelsey and hear about the amazing job she is doing teaching school to boys who live in a house like a bove with a total of 16 children and 2 alcoholic parents.  They have taken boys ages 8, 9 and 13 from this family and have in just 4 weeks taught them to read, count and most importantly introduced them to Christ.  They spend everyday from 9 to 3 with these six boys teaching them one on one and it is amazing to see the connection that the interns have made with them.  We took them home just a little while ago-  it is midnight - and we took them to their home and no one was there,  lasts night they were locked out so they slept on the ground outside.  It is so sad-  but they love school with the interns-  this is the first time they have ever been in school-  so they are loving it and they are learning.  What happens in two weeks when the interns come home-  God knows-  are jobis to pray that someone will pick up where they are leaving-  Keep that in your prayers.

We update later-  need some sleep for now.  Team comes tommrow night.

Packing

So its the final say, I must get packed- and this is what I look like trying to get everything you “might” need for 24 young people who are going to a country where their stomachs are not used to that much curry. So I have way more than I would take for myself- but just enough stuff to keep a team well and organized for 14 days.

So I am two days away from leaving for Trinidad and I decide I NEED to BAKE! There is just something in me sometimes that say BAKE- so I do. I know this is strange- but it happens to me often!

I decide since I am going to Trinidad and my youngest daughter, Kelsey is there and that I haven’t seen her in 4 weeks and I know that she isn’t getting any baked goods- I decide to bake some of her favorite things. So I begin…

and yes this is what generally happens to me- I get to many things going at the same time and then I start eatting everything in sight. But the entire time I am having a blast and filling the house with praise music and doing my thing. Hoepfully when the day is done I actually have something to take with me to Trinidad because at the rate I am eating things it may be a close call.

Have a blessed day - the oven is beeping- so something must be done!

For you Gwen-
Gwen- if I don’t love on them and put aside the facts of their lives then I will never be able to share Christ with them at such tender ages. To be dropped in a Trinidadian Orphange means that is your life- you are there until you are 18 and then put out on the streets. Adoption is non-existent there. Parents can drop you off as a baby and come by 3 years later and take you home for a week- never having seen you during those three years- it is brutal.

But I have something they need and that they can count on everyday of their lives- Christ! If I can give them hope then I have done my task. Yes I am crushed by them- their crying and begging me not to go when I have to leave- not knowing what will happen to them between now and the next time I see them- Yes I am crushed as the bus pulls away and the tears are streaming down my face because I want to take them all with me- but I also know God has placed me there on that particular day for a few particular children to share His love with and that is what I do. But yes I am crushed as well!

This is why I go and love it!