2011 Circuit Assembly

Quite a few things have happened in the past week and a half. Here's the highlights.

1. Went to the capital, Georgetown, with the Youngs for a few days. One of the things we did was.... actually, lemme just show you the picture and see if you recognize this place.

Something else you can do inside that building....

Something we discovered that you can do with the chalk:

We call this "The Luminous Nose". Which, come to think of it, would be a fantastic name for a restaurant in downtown Athens.

Shortly after this, the Dinoo's came back from Trinidad, which meant it was time for me to move back in with Micaiah.

Five points to anyone who can tell me what's changed about this house.

So, moving on to....

PIONEER MEETING!!
We had the pre-Circuit Assembly Pioneer Meeting this past Friday, and it was at the Palmyra congregation. It was packed.

Cool, I just noticed a new way to put the pictures up.
Anyhoo....


One thing that was neat for us all was being able to meet our new District Overseer. One of the things he talked about at length was the various benefits from the recent merging of the Guyana/Suriname/Trinidad branches. For instance, the branch is located in Trinidad, which among those three countries has the most resources available. So the primary effect of this merger has been brothers from Trinidad being sent in to high-need areas of Guyana. For instance, our District Overseer himself (Lemuel Smith) is one of those brothers. Also, Season Dinoo, one of our two elders here in Hopetown, is from Trinidad.

Actually, this subject was expanded upon at the Circuit Assembly, which was the following two days. In the part "Giving Attention to the Needs of the Circuit", our Circuit Overseer Shannon Rainey told us that Guyana has recently been put on the list of "Lands With Limited Resources". The effect of this is our National Building Committee has basically been done away with, and we now are under Trinidad's.... jurisdiction? Doesn't seem like the right word, but it's the best I can think of right now.

But anyway, Brother Rainey said "This is in fact a very good thing. Now that we have the support of the Trinidad branch, we will begin building like never before!"
Which we can already see coming true. Hopetown congregation will be getting a new Kingdom Hall in just a few months!

Well, the build will begin in just a few months. It'll still take quite a while to build. But still...
We're very excited about this. Our hall was built when there thirty people attending. We now average over one hundred per meeting. So the chance to get a new hall (and possibly help build it) is something I'm very excited about.

On another note, I discovered possibly the most relaxing way to have a Circuit Assembly.

In this picture, you can see people sitting in front of me, after that is the stage, and after that is what I like to call "the ocean". Is there any better setting for an assembly? (okay, is there any better setting besides London Assembly Hall?)

...and here's a few shots of what the rest of the place looked like.

Baptism pool. Three baptized, with a Saturday attendance of 809, and a Sunday attendance of 1,071!


I think, though, one of my favorite things about the past weekend, with the pioneer meeting and the assembly, was the chance to see lots of new faces.

Including some familiar ones....

Life In Bush Lot

As I said previously, for a short time I've been staying in the home of Brother and Sister Dinoo while they're in Trinidad. The house is in a village called Bush Lot, which is within walking distance of our Kingdom Hall. It's a quite nice house!

One interesting design feature of houses here is that the aim of the houses are to allow air to circulate freely. For instance...

The best thing about living in Bush Lot is it's the largest village in our territory, so it's where most of my calls live, which has made it extremely easy to keep up with said calls. It used to be I'd go by one of my calls, and they'd say "Sorry, I'm busy right now. Can you come back in an hour?"
So that made it a bit difficult. Either hang around accomplishing nothing for an hour, or reschedule for another day. But while I'm living here, if they ask if I can come back later that same day, it's very very easy.

One great call I have right now is with a man who lives two streets away from where I am now. His name is Amid, and he's been a Hindu all his life, but he's recently been getting interested in the Bible. He has a particular interest in death/resurrection/reincarnation. He's been having lots of odd questions which have had me studying constantly.

So anyway....
IN RECENT NEWS:
Micaiah Young's mother and brother both arrived. At this moment I'm in Georgetown with them. We just got back from bowling/playing pool. I'll have pictures in the next blog post (Translation: I didn't take my camera, and I'll need to get pictures from their camera.)

Since they won't be here very long, there was special effort to make sure they got to have a share during one of the meetings.

We have some neat things coming up. This Friday will be a Circuit Pioneer Meeting, followed by the Circuit Assembly.
Immediately following that, we have a joint Circuit/District Overseer visit.

So 'till then,  (note to self: Add wise parting words here before clicking "Publish Post")