A Little Bit of Home in a Cup...

Dear Family,

I know its been a long time since I posted, but I decided that whenever I posted something it would be for an exciting event. Like the zone visit we had in Georgetown this weekend! Every one of Jehovah's Witnesses was invited. Also, the branch in Guyana will come under the Trinidad branch starting April 1st of this year. So this may be the last zone visit in Guyana. So with all these factors, it made for a very exciting weekend!

Dania Hermicar and myself packed up and headed for Georgetown. We were in a bus with the ASL group from Skeldon. It took about 3 hours to get to Georgetown, but in a bus with nothing but Jehovah's people, it seemed like only a few minutes!

When we got into Georgetown we got something to eat(curry chicken with roti, yum!) and then it was off to the Princess Hotel for swimming! For a small fee we were able to swim all day. Think of it, a pool, a large pool, a large CLEAN pool, and it was all ours! I forgot how refreshing swimming in a pool was! After a few hours the girls and I went to the house we were staying at, which was not far from where the branch office is. We stayed with Sister Ceres who lovingly took care of us. We had never met before, but she opened her home to 4 sisters! Its really amazing to experience the unity in Jehovah's organization.

After settling in we walked to Pizza Hut. It was us 4(which includes Sheminel) and a few others. Kristen and Travis joined us(who we call Kravis) for pizza. In fact, it was their idea! They are a married couple serving in Orealla. Kravis have been married for about 10 months, but are still serving where Jehovah wants them They are a good example of how young couples can do so much for Jehovah! We also had Sage in our group, a brother from Tennessee that we adopted as our little brother. With Sage was his roommate Josh who is from Ohio. After what seemed like a 12 hour hike through Georgetown, we reached our long awaited pizza! It tasted so good! Of course it wasn't as good as the association we all had(but it was pretty close). We met Sister Janet(who serves in Orealla with Kravis) and her granddaughter there and they decided to join us. After Pizza Hut we headed home to get a good nights rest!

Sunday morning we all got up early and started getting ready. Sister Ceres made us a delicious breakfast and we had our Morning Worship. Soon after that we headed off to the national stadium. It was such a privilege to see all of Jehovah's people in Guyana congregate together. The program started at 9:30. The first part was a summary of the Watchtower given by Brother Hazel. After him we had a talk "Where Are We?" given by Brother Hinds. As of April Guyana has 2,575 reporting publishers, 239 regular pioneers, 18 missionaries, and 36 self supporting missionaries. Brother Hinds described where we are to a trip. While driving, you may fall asleep(not while driving of course) and wake up in a unfamiliar place. Although unfamiliar, the place your at is still beautiful. Its like where Guyana is right now. We are in a very pleasant place when it comes to the fruitful ministry. But this is not the end of the journey! We still need to work hard before the end of this system comes! Then he addressed the change of branch locations. He said whenever he told someone about him and his wife moving to Trinidad and they said "Oh no!" he would respond "Oh yes!" Jehovah's organization is on the move, and we need to keep up with it. We aren't losing a branch, we are gaining one! And Jehovah will bless this move as he has done to other moves.

     We then had the discourse "Are You Ready For Jehovah's Day?" given by our zone overseer Brother Manz. Brother Manz and his wife served as missionaries in Japan and now serve in Brooklyn Bethel. While giving his opening comments it started raining. He said that although he's been in Guyana for only 2 weeks, he can see why Guyana is called 'Land of Many Waters.' He discussed how Guyana received spiritual truth's in the early 1900's, and it is now flowing with 2,575 publishers! He discussed how we need to be ready for Jehovah's day. One way to see how prepared we are is to ask ourselves what kind of attitude we have toward Jehovah's day. We can either be satisfied with this system, or we can be in expectation. 

He also talked about the gold mine fields in Guyana. Not literal ones, but spiritual! Many people move to either the States, Canada, or Europe to find work. Brother Manz asked that the brothers and sisters to look at their circumstances and try to stay in Guyana. They know the people and the culture. There is still a lot of need in the interior of Guyana. 

He also addressed another need, to conduct Bible studies well. We can do this by keeping it simple, and asking good questions! 

Another need in Guyana is the need for brothers. The congregations in Guyana need more elders and ministerial servants! In fact, there are some congregations that have no elders, and some that have no brothers. He encouraged those brothers to reach out and do more for Jehovah! The attendance was 5,325. That means EVERY one of Jehovah's Witnesses was there, including more! How happy Jehovah must have been to see all of his beautiful people!

      After the zone visit, we changed and went bowling(it would be hard to bowl in saree's!). First we went to eat Chinese food and ice cream(which was awesome!). After that we went to Oasis, a coffee shop and Hermicar and I had an Americano. It was like having home in a cup! We all then piled into a taxi and drove to the bowling alley. 

We had such a blast! After playing a game we played some pool. Then they started playing music, and we all started dancing! People must of thought we were crazy Americans, but I'd like to think they were jealous of our killer dance moves. After burning up all the calories we ate that weekend, we went home and stayed up for some "girl chat." I won't tell you the details of that, but it didn't last long cause we were all tired! The next day we ran all around Georgetown, and we finally left for home around 3:30. We were telling jokes, laughing loud, and of course singing! I'm sure everyone on that bus hated us, but we had to enjoy the time we had together. This was the last time we would all be hanging out with Sage, our little brother. We gave him our letters, and after a tearful goodbye, we dropped him and Josh off in Hopetown. A little later we were finally home! 

     We all had such a good weekend! And it was because Jehovah arranged for us all to be together. We should always take advantage of any opportunity to be with Jehovah and his people. I hope I didn't ramble on too much! If you have any questions, please ask! And please leave me a comment and let me know how your doing! I miss you all, and please take care of yourselves(and keep warm!).

p.s. I know I'll get complaints now about the lack of pictures. Don't worry, I am working on sending them to you via email.

Facts about Guyana and Brighton

From Left to Right: Hermicar, Trisha, me, Rosalee(C.O.'s wife), Shannon(C.O.), Dania and Amy.

Dear Family,

       Greetings from Guyana! I'm doing great down here. I've finally adjusted to the heat, and I am getting better at understanding the accent here. The ministry is awesome. Today I met two women in the ministry. Both of them picked out the last question on happiness in the 'Would You Like To Know The Truth?'. I was able to share two scirptures(one actually read a scripture for me) and made arrangements to go back next week.

      I was also able to work with Sister Panchum. She is one of the 11 pioneers in the Brighton Congregation. She was baptized in 2000 and had been associated with the truth 4 years before that. Before becoming a Witness, she was Hindu. She said she loved what she was learning. She is just another example of how the truth can set people free. 

     We also have the C.O. this week. Brother Shannon Rainny and his wife Rosalee. Brother Rainny gave an excellent talk on why we must keep on the watch. He said how we should be so appreciative of the faithful and discreet slave and its governing body providing food at the proper time. He compared Jehovah's Witnesses to Christindom. While Jehovah's people are constatnly keeping on the watch, Christindom is compared to the watchmen described at Isaiah 56:10 who are described as "blind", "speechless dogs", and "loving to slumber." Yes, how happy we can be that Jehovah keeps us on the watch! How can we show we appreciate this? By putting Jehovah's will first in our life. Satan uses 3 tactics to distract us; Spiritual Apathy, Spiritual Sleep, and our own Imperfect Flesh. Instead of caving into any of these three tactics, we should feel as John did in Revelation 22:20(I won't quote it, I'm gonna make you look it up :). 

     Let me tell you a little bit about Guyana and the Brighton Congregation. Guyana has 47 congregtions(including 1 foreign language). There is one area named Cado(i think that's how its spelled). In that area there is only 2 sisters(for a long time there was one) and one unbaptized publisher. Despite having no brothers, they continue to conduct meetings and preach! 

      The Brighton congregation is about 5 minutes from our house in Bushlot. It has about 50 publishers and 11 pioneers(like I mentioned earlier). 2 of the pioneers are in the ASL field(Trisha and Amy). We also have a missionary couple and 2 permanent need greater couples. So between the pioneers and the publishers, we have a wealth of expirence! 

       What else is going on? I'm learning how to cook(I know!). There's no McDonalds or Subway to go to if your hungry and don't feel like cooking. We do have a Chinese resturant down the street, but you can only eat so much Chinese. Monday is my day to cook. I'm going to make Honey Curry Chicken with rice and bora. Instead of telling you how it turns out, I'll let my roommates tell you.

       Besides the circuit overseer visit we also have a zone visit in February in Georgetown. We are going early so we can go to a local pool and go swimming! At the end of this month we are planning on taking a trip in the interior to preach with the congregation in Oregala. And in March we are planning on taking a trip to Suriname which is the neighboring country to Guyana. From what Meeka has told us, it sounds like a lot of fun!

     I hope you all are doing well, I miss you a lot! Please keep in touch!!

Why isn't this working?

Dear Family,
       I AM NOT DEAD! Just wanted to put your minds at ease :) Dania and I are doing wonderful here in Guyana. Our flight here and the first week was a little difficult, but its just adjusting to the life of a need-greater. Let me tell you a little bit about our fist week here.
        Our flight was suppose to take off at 12:05 am and didn't take off until 3:30 am! With all the delay's JFK was a nightmare. It didn't take long for me to fall asleep on the airplane! When I woke up the sun was rising and it was BEAUTIFUL! The pictures I took doesn't do it justice. We landed in Guyana at 11:00 and it was off to customs. We filled out our paper work on the plane and handed it in. The customs officer wanted to know who was picking us up and who we would be living with. It was a little scary! But then another officer came and was a little more friendly. We got our 3 month visa and it was off to the branch office.
           Brother Sing picked us up and told us little bit about Guyana. For instance, Guyana means "Land of Many Waters." Most people are Christian, Muslim, or Hindu. But whoever you talk to has respect for the Bible and will listen to you. We were welcomed with smiles and a key to our room. Dania and I changed into proper clothing(we both showed up to Bethel in jeans and sneakers!), and has some much needed lunch. We met two sisters that were preparing breakfast for the next day. After lunch(which was delicious, but what would you expect from Bethel?) we took a much needed nap! Later that evening we went to meeting with Brother and Sister Hinds. Come to find out they knew a couple that we knew that is serving in Bethel! We enjoyed spending time with them so much.
          The next day we joined the Georgetown Bethel family in morning worship. The Guyana Bethel family has 8 members(3 couples and 2 brothers). Brother Hinds took the lead and we then read some of the yearbook. We then ended with a prayer and the family was dismissed. After we ate breakfast we took a tour of the branch. We visited Brother Hinds who is in charge of the Service Department. In fact we saw the very same fax machine that received our letter of interest! He showed us a map of Guyana with all the congregations. There is one foreign language group that is indigenous to Guyana. The congregation has 60 publishers but has well over 1,000 for memorial! They also have over 200 in attendance for Sunday meeting. Just more evidence that the fields are white for harvesting. We then visited Brother Hazel who is in charge of maintaining the facilities at Bethel. He is also in charge of making any changes to the Kingdom Ministry. For example, in the United States we may have an article titled "What will you do this summer?". Since the Caribbean doesn't have a summer they may have to change the title to "What will you do with your time?".
             After our tour Hermicar(our roommate) picked us up with the Adam's family. And about 3 hours later we were in Bushlot. The next day we worked out in service. The ministry is incredible here. So many people want to talk. Its very easy to keep the Bible as your topic. After service we went home and sent our roommate off to Suriname. She had to go renew her visa so Dania and I learned a lot in our first few days here. For example, our propane ran out so we had to go and buy another tank. When Sheminel(a young pioneer sister that stayed with us a night) tried to hook it up, it wouldn't fit. So we took it back and got another one. Well, that one didn't fit either! Brother&Sister Hollenbeck(missionary couple) sent over one of their Bible studies to help us out. He couldn't fix it so Dania and him and his son went back. When they came back to the house the owner came as well. After all that work we finally got it to work! When everyone left I told Dania to relax and get a shower. Then our water ran out. And we didn't know how to pump it. We decided to go to bed and worry about it the next day. The next day we called Brother Sanches who told us how to pump the water.
               I also started dealing with homesickness. I had went from talking to Mikey everyday and seeing my mom and dad everyday to no communication for a week! That's when I really learned how to rely on Jehovah. I remembered why I am here, and how Jehovah knows my needs before I even ask Him. Thankfully Dania let me call my mom Thursday and I was able to talk to her for 5 minutes. That day Hermicar came back and we told her of our adventures. That night we got internet! So I was able to talk to my mom and Mikey this morning.
       Today was market day. Everything was fresh! If you never had a fresh pineapple or fresh banana, your missing out! Despite all of the problems, I'm still having a blast here! We have our circuit overseer visit next week and we have a zone visit in February. Okay, I think I took up enough of your time. Please leave a message and let me know how your doing. I know you wanna see pictures, but the upload here takes a long time. But don't worry, I'll be sure to put some up.

7 Days Left!!

Hi everyone! It’s hard to believe that I’ve been planning for this since April and now Dania and I are only 7 days away from leaving for Guyana! It’s defiantly been an interesting few months. People who are “need-greaters” often tell me how much I will see Jehovah working in my behalf. I know this will happen because I’ve seen his hand in matters while planning for it! It’s amazing to see how Jehovah will provide if you put his interest first(John 6:33). Like I said, it all started this spring. I always wanted to move where there was a need for Kingdom proclaimers. A sister that I knew had already done this and wanted to do it again. I had told her that I always wanted to do that, and we started planning!

Our choices were Saba(a small island off of Puerto Rico), Peru, and Guyana. I’ll be honest, I was all for Peru! I always wanted to get involved in Spanish, and I thought what perfect way than to just dive head in first to a Spanish speaking country! Saba was next on my list, and Guyana was last. I wasn’t too thrilled about Guyana. I had never even heard of the country! But while out in service a brother in my Kingdom Hall encouraged me to choose Guyana. He was told from different brothers and sisters that Guyana was a “pioneers paradise.” This peeked my interest, so Guyana bumped up to second place. Then, the sister I was going with had said that Guyana would be the best place for us since it is English speaking and we wouldn’t have to worry about the language barrier. But even with our decision being Guyana, I still wasn’t thrilled about it. Then I started looking at a blog that a need greater couple had created. Their experiences were amazing! To see all that they were doing made me want to go to Guyana. I then started to email this couple, asking different questions. They were not only patient, but very encouraging! It was then that Guyana was bumped up to number one!

Of course there were some speed bumps along the way. I had originally planned to go for 6 months, but I had to cut it down to 3. Then the house we were going to stay at originally was abandoned because it was infested with rats. Then the sister I was originally going with was not able to come with me anymore. It was then I felt like giving up. I thought maybe Jehovah didn’t want me to go. I quickly learned that no problem is too big for Jehovah. If he can bring 10 plagues upon Egypt, part the Red Sea, and lovingly provide for his people during their 40 year trek in the wilderness, he can certainly provide for me! Let me tell you how.

First I had felt like a failure because I couldn’t go for the time period I wanted to. But after talking to a few people, they said realistically 3 months is a good amount of time. One sister who served in Nicaragua and is now serving in the Dominican Republic with her husband said that the first 3 months are the hardest. And if I can get through that, then I can eventually go back for a longer amount of time if I want to. Then I had to find new housing. But that came sooner then I expected! In the very same email that said that our house was abandoned, the couple that I had been emailing readily offered their home since they would be back in the States for the period of time that I would be in Guyana! It’s always amazing to experience the world wide brotherhood. We had never met in person and only talked on the phone once. Yet, they were happy to help me in anyway possible. I couldn’t thank them enough for that! Then came the roommate situation. My parents didn’t want me to travel alone. I honestly felt that I wouldn’t find ANYONE! It was then that I talked to a friend of mine that serves in the Dominican Republic. He had been serving there for 2 years. I had told him how a lot of people were telling me to not go. It was then he said “Jessie, have any of those people served in a foreign assignment?” My answer was of course no. His next question was, “I’ve been serving in a foreign assignment for 2 years, and what am I telling you?” Obviously he was telling me to go. It was then he said something that always stuck with me, “It’s not a question of if Jehovah will help you, its a question of how he will.” That really helped me! What also helped was a gift that this brother gave me. When he was back in the States he let me see a DVD on Guyana and the experience of a couple that lived there for 4 years. Then a few days later in the mail, he sent me my very own DVD for me to keep! That DVD encouraged me so much! I am forever grateful for that gift!

But still, how was I going to find a roommate! Well, a certain text message was sent to me from a Dania Sharpe. We had went to pioneer school together and had recently visited Bethel. She wanted to congratulate me on getting my letter from the branch. I told her thank you, but I wasn’t sure if I was going because I needed a traveling partner. I’ll never forget what she said. “I hope I’m not being rude by inviting myself, but I’d love to come.” Can you believe it! All three of my problems solved in a matter of days. That day I met with my elders because I wanted their advice on what I should do for a roommate. Come to find out Jehovah solved the problem for me!

Dania quickly got her letter together and sent it out. In the meantime we both saved and started buying things we would need. We waited for her letter, and waited, and waited! Dania then called the branch office in Guyana. Come to find out, the branch never got her letter. She had to resend and we waited in anticipation. We were less than a month from leaving and we didn’t even have our plane tickets! It was then that I remembered a scripture in Micah 7:7 which tells us to have a waiting attitude. I remembered Jehovah’s hand in the past few months, and knew that he would provide for us. That very night Dania got her letter! We met the next day and bought our plane tickets.

And here we are! 7 days from leaving and still planning and packing! Jehovah has blessed me in so many ways. He gave me confidence in his abilities to provide. He is refining my teaching skills through the 2 day assembly and pioneer meeting. It’s true what one Gilead trained couple said. Whatever you may think will be a problem in serving in a foreign assignment, Jehovah will fix it! What you need is the desire and the circumstance. Anyone who wants to serve where the need is greater and has the circumstances to do so, make it a matter of prayer and see how Jehovah answers you! It’s important to “count the cost”, that is something I wish I would have done better. Also, do research and talk to others who have served in a foreign assignment. Ask them not only the blessings, but the challenges. That way you can have a balanced view on it.

Okay, that’s enough talking for me! Please leave me a message and keep in touch over the next 3 months!

p.s. Thank you to everyone who came to my going away party, it meant a lot to me!!!

Dania and I visiting Wallkill, NY.

The best going away gift I got, a visit from My Mikey :)