"We sometimes overlook the intertwining of our lives. I acknowledge the Lord's hand in these intersections. Some here have heard me say that one of the reasons we love each other in the kingdom is that our friendships are not friendships of initiation at all, but are, instead, friendships of resumption! Each of us has circles of friendships, and within those lie the portion of the human family whom God has given us to love, to serve, and to learn from.
You and I may call these intersections 'coincidence'. This word is understandable for mortals to use, but coincidence is not an appropriate word to describe the working of an omniscient God. He does not do things by 'coincidence', but by 'Divine design'."
We have had experiences this week while visiting Guyana, which make this quote come alive in our lives. "Coincidence" certainly doesn't fit these occurances, but "Divine design" does, perfectly.
The first person we met in Guyana, besides our fellow missionaries, Elder and Sister Beecher, was a beautiful 19 year old named Natasha. Natasha was diagnosed with throat cancer at the ripe old age of 12. She has undergone multiple treatments over the years which have left her physically frail, but a giant, spiritually. We felt of her strength. She blessed our lives far more than we could have ever blessed hers. Coincidence? We think not.
We met Trevor and Mayfield Rodrigues on our recent trip to Tobago. After finding out that they were Guyanese and that we would be going to their country in a couple of weeks, they invited us to spend some time with them when we got to Guyana. We visited the school which May founded (although she spells it "Mae's") and then we went to their beautiful lilac colored home. We are going to try to gather books for her school library. This will be a wonderful way for us to do service in this country. Was it a coincidence that we met them 2 weeks ago? We don't think so.
Students learning to play table tennis at Mae's School
Trevor and May introduced us to a friend who owns the Balwant Singh Hospital. It's a private hospital and the patients are charged a lot of money, but if we have a missionary with appendicitis or a car crash, this is where we should send them. We are grateful for this contact.
We were also introduced to hospitals in the country where the care and the prescription drugs are free. If we have missionaries with problems that are not life threatening, we can send them to these government owned facilities, otherwise, we will send them to the private hospital. We are grateful to Colin and Vonella Goodluck and Elder and Sister Samaroo, who are all local Guyanese folks, who set up appointments for us to visit these government owned clinics and hospitals.
Busy place. This is a waiting area
This is a dental chair in one of the clinics. They are pretty resourceful and make due with what they have.
Another beautiful corridor
In total, we visited 3 hospitals and 2 clinics. Two of the hospitals were in Georgetown and one in Berbice area.
Pres. Colin Goodluck chatting with a friend in the Government hospital
There is a huge need for humanitarian aid in the public clinics and hospitals. We asked what was needed and were told that a treadmill would be helpful as well as sheets, an autoclave for sterilizing, and newborn baby kits. These are items that would be easy to supply. Our church is always looking for ways to help.
Below: this is the Demarara River. The bridge we are driving on is a "floating" bridge and it is moved twice a day to let big barges through. Some of the rivers in this country are 26 miles wide, most rivers are brown because of so much vegetation that falls into them. Also, the mud is stirred up because the river runs both ways, depending on the ocean tide. It's an amazing thing to see. Doing laundry in this country is a challenge because of the brown water. Even the ocean bordering the country is brown for miles. Kind of depressing in a fascinating sort of way.
Went to the local craft market to see if they had anything we simply couldn't live without. Of course, I found something in alligator. Magnificent!
President Mehr asked me to hold music workshops when we visit the different countries in our mission.
This is the group which attended the workshop. We practiced conducting music. It was lots of fun. We had dinner, as well as music. Those in the pic below are the Taylors, Jordans, Henrys, Douglas, and Roger. Great peeps!
In Guyana, you share the road with the local livestock. Reminds us of Neola, so we felt right at home!
Ate lots of plantain chips. Love them!
Filled up our gas tank at a little gas station in Palmyra, Guyana. Took us back to our NY days.
There's lots of water in Guyana, so these lilies grow everywhere
Can't get enough of the colorful homes!
Speaking of colorful, these are our hosts, the Beechers, from Lehi, Utah. Wonderful people!
Then we spied a colorful Coca Cola plane. It's as if one color tries to out-do the other.
We made it back to Trinidad in time for the day of service with "Mormon Helping Hands". There was much good work done today on this island by members of our church. Roadsides and beaches were cleaned up, a homeless shelter that was full of rats and ick was cleaned up, plus, we spruced up our local LDS church. It was a good day. The pictures below are of the wonderful folks doing the cleanup on our team.
Rhonda Rose
Elders Little and Blackburn had a baptism Saturday morning before the service project. Brandon Blackburn (who is 16-17 Yrs. old) baptised his friend Chris Junior Charles. Chris' mom, Natasha, will be baptised in a couple of weeks.
Just one more non-coincidence before we end the blog for the week. We met a fellow named James while we were in Guyana. He is working in Guyana and is from China. James was recently taught about the gospel and baptised by the missionaries. One day while looking for something to do after work, he asked the security guard at the area where he is living if he knew of any place he could attend a church meeting. Well, the guard just happened to be LDS, so he sent him to the Mormon church around the corner. Who should meet him there at the church but the Branch President who had served a Mandarin speaking mission 50 years prior to coming to Guyana. They had a language in common that broke all barriers. Coincidence? We think not.....Divine design would be a better way to espress the workings of an omnicient God. He sees the whole picture!
And that's our week! It was a good one!
Looks like such a wonderful time! Matts niece, keyaira king, received her mission call to West Indies. She will be assigned to Suriname speaking Dutch. She goes to the MTC on February 5th. That would be so fun if you ran into her in your travels next year! Thanks for your fun posts! I love to read them
ReplyDeleteSounds like you had a crazy wonderful week. Are you sure you are really on a mission???? Hmmmmm..... we will all be jealous when we are freezing this winter,but for now the weather is spectacular here. Love our falls
ReplyDeleteSara, how exciting for us to have your niece. We will have to visit Suriname in March sometime. She probably didn't even know they spoke Dutch there. We didn't.
ReplyDeleteAs for you Ann, you guys just quit enjoying your winter and get out here!!! Think of the adventures you could have with us!