Hello, friends!
We have now been in Corriverton, Guyana, for about a week. This is an expedition country, which means that we are the first World Race team to ever partner with this ministry host. Our host is the Full Gospel Fellowship Church of Lime Path, and their ministry outreaches are plentiful. Hopefully we are creating a partnership that will allow future World Race teams to come and help out here, as well, for there is much work to do!
Ministry has been hectic but good. We were originally supposed to be here for a month, but with the flight mess ups in Colombia and the issues getting our Brazilian visas, we are only here about 10 days. That means we are trying to cram all of this work and their original plans for us into a tiny amount of time, and we do not have very much down time.
We have been going to station meetings, which are pretty much like house churches. In addition, we are involved in healing services, home visits, youth group, and both church services on Sunday. We are leading the entire services both at the church and at the house church meetings, from worship to preaching to…everything. This is a wonderful opportunity and I know it is stretching a lot of us. So far, all twelve of us have preached at least once. I love speaking, so this part is fun for me. There will be videos soon on what all this looks like.
Another wonderful opportunity we have had is that our host actually has a national TV show that reaches the entire country of Guyana. After we prayed, God made it very clear that Kristan and Madison were meant to share on the show this week. Neither one of them would have ever volunteered to speak, but God made it clear He wanted them to be seen and their stories to be heard. They both shared similar stories of God’s unconditional love, which was more of a confirmation to me that God had ordained their testimonies for the air.
After they both crushed it, I talked to the pastor about broadcast journalism and vlogging. He watched the video about my testimony and decided to include that video on the television show, as well. Please pray God softens hearts of all the Guyanans who will watch this broadcast this week! We are so grateful to have had this opportunity!
Overall, it has been a great time here so far, and it is wonderful to see the passion of Christians here. Below are some prayer requests for our journey.
Prayer requests:
-Please pray for the country of Guyana. One of the biggest problems in this country is that it has one of the highest rates of suicide in the world. A lot of this has to do with the fact that young people have so little hope. There is little opportunity to advance, and they don’t have dreams for the future. This week in Corriverton, a mom and daughter drank poison to commit suicide. The mother died, and I am not sure about the condition of the daughter. Another person was hit on his bike by a car and died, and a child was killed by a hit-and-run driver, as well. For such a little town, this is a lot of grief to handle. These deaths are so close to the people we are working with, and thus they are close to our hearts, as well. Please be lifting up these families and this community in prayer.
-Our two teams are not getting very good sleep. There is a high risk for malaria, so we have opted to sleep in our tents and hammocks on the porch rather than in the house without a/c and open windows being exposed to the mosquitoes. The stray dogs here have some serious barking issues and it gets dark around 6pm and light at 5am. We are all feeling pretty drained from ministry and many days of less-than-optimum sleep, so prayers for good rest would be greatly appreciated!
-Also, please pray against malaria and zika. As Kristan said, #mosquiNO
-I am not sure when the recording of the TV show is supposed to air, but please be praying God softens hearts and people are moved by our testimonies to see who God is and they are given hope for what He can do in their lives.
-Pray for continued cohesion amongst our two teams. We are getting along great, but we have very little time to hang out or be intentional with each other because ministry is so hectic.
-Pray for videos to be able to upload, please! It is very frustrating.
-Personally I am just dealing with a lot and being very hard on myself, and then being hard on myself for being hard on myself. So please pray that I allow myself the grace that Jesus died to give me.
-I have a skin rash. I’m not sure if it has to do with malaria meds or is because we are never not sweating, but it is itchy and annoying. It seems like a little thing, but I’m so sick of random health problems. Please pray it goes away!
Thank you in advance to all my precious prayer warriors!
Videos: Apparently 4G Internet does not exist here, so we only have Internet at the church and it takes each of my videos 4 to 5 hours to upload. I’m doing the best I can, but it is slow going. There are two videos at the bottom of this blog from the ministry we ended up doing in Georgetown while we were waiting for our Brazilian visas.
Other Updates:
At the market the other day, we split off in the buddy system and Fabian I went exploring trying to get some cool footage for videos. We ended up meeting Tony, who explained to us that he has been paralyzed from the waist down for 20 years due to a car accident. Tony asked us if we were involved in a church, because he really needed a new wheelchair since his was broken. He thought maybe a church could help him.
Neither Fabian nor I were carrying any cash on us, but after talking to him, I just wished we could do more for him. We prayed for him, but as we walked away, I brought it up with Fabian and we talked about what we could do. Neither of us felt like that was supposed to be the end of our interaction with Tony.
After talking to one of the guys with the church we are working with, we discovered that we could have a wheelchair mailed to the church. So we posted the story on social media, and within 24 hours the wheelchair had been completely paid for by generous folks back in the United States. I was planning to post this on my blog to ask any of you if you felt led to help Tony, but by the time I wrote this the need had already been met! We were blown away by the support and generosity of people back home, and I wanted to share the story with you. We can help people in mighty ways if we have the time to notice them and the faith to ask for help!
“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” -Matthew 4:19
This is the verse that came to mind as I watched these fishermen preparing their nets here. I love how Jesus used completely ordinary men to come alongside Him and change the world. In the same way, He can use each of us to do more than we ever thought possible. He does not call the qualified; He qualifies the called.
This is near our host church in Corriverton. The land on the other side is actually Suriname! We will take a ferry across this divide in about a week to move on to the next country. Please pray for continued favor and opportunities as we finish up our last week in Guyana!
We are learning what it is like to receive and to be blessed by others. It is hard when we came to serve, and yet everyone has been so welcoming and always insists on serving us. One of the ladies in the church we are working with has a salon and blessed us by giving us full manicures and pedicures! They were the most artistic ones I’ve ever seen. On an eleven-month journey living out of two backpacks with no air conditioning, it’s nice to feel like a girl again.
Also the drinks in South America come in bags. We got some juice at the market with our freshly done nails!
Also, in case you think I forgot the most important day of the year, I did not. I didn’t bring this garb with me, but this is a throw back to how I dressed up for the game two years ago. Woo pig sooie and gig ’em aggies! I didn’t get to watch the game, but I got live updates from my friend who was at the game in Dallas. 🙂
That is all for now! I hope that gives you a glimpse into all of the awesome things God can do in such a short amount of time. As always, I cherish you all and miss you greatly.
Love,
Tera
