Hello Everyone,
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| Deuces Ashtyn! |
How are things? We are doing good. The time has come for Ashtyn to leave us. She arrived January 5. We have enjoyed having her here with us. It is great to have help with Sign Language. I know many of the friends here will miss her. As Ashtyn will tell you, there is a lot of work that needs to be done in Guyana. So, come on down! Email me and let me know if your thinking about it.
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| Sign Language class |
Saturday afternoon, Jaide, Ashtyn and I were on a Bible study with a couple. It was going really well when suddenly, a wave of pain swept over me, and I broke out sweating. To quote Brian Reagan, "my insides seemed like they wanted to be on my outsides." Something I had eaten wanted out of my body, in a bad way. So here is the dilemma, ask to use their toilet or ride 5 minutes back to our house. Using their toilet is a risk, because maybe they don't have toilet paper, or their toilet doesn't flush properly, which are both common problems. Both could cause another embarrassing situation. Or do I try to make the ride home? Of course, no Starbucks or McDonald's toilets here. If shops and restaurants have a "toilet", it is a wall outside. I decide to try to make it to our house. I try to make my exit. Of course, its not that easy. They are insisting that I have a soda that they bought for us, and Jaide is asking me why. "Did you forget something?", she asks. "Why are you going home?" At the same time I am trying to get out of waiting for a soda. I thank them and tell them I don't need it and that I REALLY need to get home. They're not having it. I don't want to offend them, so I wait for the drink and pat my stomach and tell Jaide, "I don't feel good and I NEED to go home." Jaide said I didn't look so good. She said my veins were popping out of my head. I get the soda and down it as fast as I can and after a few minutes I am off. Now, about 100 feet down there path on my bike I am starting to doubt my decision. I am afraid I am not going to make it home. I think the exerting of peddling the bike isn't helping matters. I need to move and move fast if I am going to make it home "safely." I don't think I have ever ridden that fast. All people saw was a white flash. Alas, me and my sensitive stomach made it home in time. Disaster averted! Maybe next time, I will pack some toilet paper and imodium.
Let me update you on how Renny is doing. I wrote about Renny a couple of months ago. He is probably my best Bible study right now. We are studying the DVD 'You can be God's Friend'. He is getting it. We will understand a little of the DVD, then I will pause and ask him "it what?" Most times he tells me, "I don't understand." So we begin to explain the point with use of pictures and drawing. After he seems to get it, then we watch it again. Normally, he gets it then. Right now we are studying the Paradise earth and what the Bible promises it will be like. Its wonderful to see him get it. Here is an example of a typical answer to a question about the Paradise earth, "Earth change to beautiful all over, people eat, eat, eat fat. Hungry no." To teach him the concept of change we drew a picture of an old, dirty shirt and a nice, new shirt. We asked, "If you are working in the yard and have the dirty, old shirt on, then want to go to the Kingdom Hall what do you do? Change shirts". Then we draw under the old shirt a picture of the world today, and under the nice, new shirt a picture of the Paradise earth. From there he got the concept pretty easy. It is a fun study. He has a funny habit of shaking your hand almost every time he understands a point. Also, he likes to hug. Which is fine, I don't mind, I just wish he would shower before we come.
Guyanese expression of the day: "you know". It seems that a common habit is to end your sentence with you know. 'Its hot you know', 'I already did that you know'. Little Pheobe in Orealla is 3yrs old and would give us pretend food and tell us, "its hot you know." So cute. Or in my case, "I need a toilet you know."
Love,
G&J
