Montego Bay-Thursday

I missed doing an update yesterday - it's so busy. In the morning we got ourselves together for our first day of ministry. The team is from Chino Hills, CA, and most of them are first-timers. We began with our first show at Catherine Hall Primary School. The school is set up so that all the rooms are in a big square around a grassy lawn, with balcony hallways facing the lawn. The kids are having their final exams these last two weeks of June, but in the primary schools, only the older grades have them. But it still meant that we had to be a little stricter with getting there on time so we wouldn't cut into class time. We set up our stage in the grass and the younger kids came into the fenced courtyard with us and stood on the edge while the older kids were still behind the fence and up on the second floor. They all had uniforms: khaki for the guys and blue dresses for the girls. Here the song "Daddy-Oh" is huge; everyone knows it and cheers for it. The kids also like "The Champion" skit, which is a depiction of the war between Jesus and Satan. We did a show of songs, puppets, drama, and personal testimony, and at the end Pastor Jason gave the Gospel and led the kids in a salvation prayer. We got to talk with several kids at the end, but they had to get back to class pretty soon. But Jamaica Youth for Christ, headed by Basil, who is staying with us, is doing follow-up. One thing that all the kids wanted to do was feel the girls' hair, which, obviously, is different from their own. I met a few girls who were in fourth grade.

Right after that we went straight to the next show at Flankers Primary School and Junior High. This school wasn't set up like the other one, but we had a nice patch of grass on the side of the school and a tree to provide shade this time, so the kids sort of gathered under the tree on a concrete picnic area. We did basically the same show for them, but we got to have more one-on-one time with the kids. During the songs, I was toward the back of the group on the concrete where some of the girls were teaching us to dance. One little girl whose name I didn't find out latched on to me and we stayed together for the rest of the show. She couldn't see during the skit, so she got on my back to watch. After the presentation, many of the kids were getting ginups for us from a tree that grew on the other side of the schoolyard. This is a little green fruit with a hard shell that you crack off and then pop the insides into your mouth. I don't like them because they have the texture of a booger-encrusted marble, but since they gave them to me I ate one.

We went to lunch next at a Chinese restaurant. We were standing in line for a while (since there are forty of us) so I figured out the surface area of the ceiling tiles (1,034 ft squared) before getting my food.

During the afternoon I was so tired that I took a nap. Then we went to supper at a local place called the Twisted Kilt. It's an Irish bar in purpose and decor, but we had some delicious chicken sandwiches and soup.

Right after that we had a street show up in a neighborhood called Roselyn Heights. We set up on a dirt patch on the side of the road right in front of the fence to this big pink house. We had our generator for electricity since it gets dark and we did about an hour long show for anyone who wanted to come by. We had lots of kids and their mothers, and some of the men of the neighborhood were farther down the road. One woman handed me a baby, which I held for most of the show. As it turned out, the baby's name was Cheria (I don't know if that is spelled right) and her mother lives in the pink house. We were packing up after the Gospel message and a young woman named Kim wanted to pray with me. She is already a Christian, but she wanted some encouragement. She brought me into the pink house, (don't worry, I grabbed a guy to go with me) and it was actually very nice. Tim showed Cheria's mother the pictures he took of her and I, and Kim asked us lots of questions about ourselves, like our ages and if we spoke sign language.

I really enjoyed being able to work with kids this day because they just love you for being American and they really get into the presentations. It was about midnight before I finally got to bed though.