Stefene's Birthday, Devotions, and Rainmakers

Hello family and friends! This is Lindsey bringing you today’s update. It is getting closer and closer to our final day here in Jamaica and I think that it is beginning to hit some of us that we are almost done here (at least for now) and just a few days from now we will be heading home. We have started calling Fairhaven home and feel as though we have become a surrogate family to each other throughout our time here. We have shared many laughs, hugs, some tears, challenging times, encouraging times, and so much more together. It is going to be a shock no longer waking up each day to these 9 beautiful faces that I get to see each morning and each night before I go to sleep. Sam is amazing (he has added this in when I was taking a break from working at the computer and hoped that I would not proof read before I posted… Oh Sam). We are looking forward to these last few days together. Okay, enough of that, it is finally time to fill you in on our day.
This morning we started bright and early with our team devotions here at home at 7:00am. We left at 7:45 to head back to Catherine Hall to do a devotion for the crazy 5th graders there. We once again did our skit about sin and how easy it is to get caught up in it. The kids seemed very interested, and once again enjoyed the songs. As soon as we finished there, we headed over to a prep school in Flankers. The prep school is similar to our pre-school age kids in the US. They were small and precious (see picture).
We headed back home after our second devotion and spent a little time at the beach before heading in to prepare for the rest of the day. On our way home we were driving through Chris’ neighborhood when he saw “Mama Celeste.” We picked her up to drive her into town on our way home and learned that she is the oldest lady in the neighborhood and helped raise Chris and many of his school buddies. She was set on having her picture taken with Jen, so here is one of the many.
After a few hours at home, Chris took us to a little jerk stand for lunch on our way up to the Peace and Justice center in Flankers. It was a tiny little place and we definitely were the only non-Jamaicans there.
The community center was a little different for us today than yesterday. We had 11 kids yesterday, so we were excited to head to back to hang out with them, but as we opened the door into the room we could barely fit inside. I counted 29 kids today by the time they all arrived. We make some rainmakers/shakers, which were fun to create with the kids, but we quickly learned that beans could easily sneak out of the rainmakers (especially when they were used to hit other kids) and end up all over the floor. We once again sang some songs with the kids and played a few games of hangman. During the time that we were in the community center, it began to pour and we had to take a different route home because the roads were flooded (apparently the rainmakers actually worked). The rain continued throughout the rest of the afternoon and we were sad because we had met a Rasta Man, Scratchy, last night who told us that he wanted to learn more about our Jesus today at the beach. The rain kept coming down and kept us from heading out to look for him.
This afternoon we spent most of our time preparing for Stef’s birthday. We decorated while she took a nap and came up with our surprise plan for her. We woke her up and told her to get dressed up because we were going to be taking a team picture, and then we all headed down the “hip strip” and surprised her by going to the Chinese restaurant that she has been eyeing since we arrived in the Jamaica. After dinner we headed home real quick to get out cake that the amazing ladies (Leoni and Sonya, who work at Fairhaven) made for Stef. We brought Stef into the room and shared with her all of our wonderful homemade birthday signs as well as giving her our team card and gift. We provided some music for a dance party in the family room and played some card games before we took off for that night swim that she has been waiting for. We are all so thankful for the amazing girl that she is and we are so incredibly lucky that we have gotten to spend this time with her as well as spending her 21st birthday with her!
Tomorrow is sadly our last day of scheduled ministry here in Jamaica. We are looking forward to the day and all that it will bring. Please pray that tomorrow we will be as excited and willing as we were on our very first day here. I know that we say it each day, but the support and love from each one of you does mean so much to us and we are so lucky to have each of you in our lives.

Mom, Dad, Shannon, and Kev: See you or talk to you all very soon! Hope that everything is going well and I miss you all! I love you very much.
Joey: Hope your class finished well…I think it’s over now? I am looking forward to lunch on Monday! I miss you lots! I will talk to you soon. smooches! (the team has started using that, and I love it!)
Audrey, Kristin, Mari: Thanks for the love girls! I will talk to you all soon. (Most likely on Sunday on my drive up north). Love you all!
Everyone else: Thanks so much for all the comments and love.

Love,

Team Jamaica