Goodbye, Other Mom & Dad

Odd title for a blog entry, I know. I'll explain it soon enough.

First off though, the Circuit Overseer visit! Visitors into Orealla are always a big deal for us since we're so secluded from most of the country, so traveling overseers are especially exciting for us. This was reflected in the meetings for field service through the week.

Wednesday: 18
Thursday: 14
Friday: 12
Saturday: 20

For a congregation of 23, it'd be hard to ask for better. Seemed like nothing could stop the brothers from going in service. Public witnessing when the rain begins? Just take shelter and keep at it!

"If you could seeee / What I seeee...."

In fact, we had such good support that we were able to work our entire village in just the one week! Obviously this led to everyone getting invited to the public talk on Sunday, which led to an amazing turnout of 67!

Yes, all my KH pics are from the same angle. Every time.

Of course, all the Bible Studies and Return Visits everyone had got invited as well. None of mine were able to make it, though the wife and daughter of one of my studies came.

Look at that evil little glare.

After the visit was finished, the C.O. couple got taken back out to the coast early Monday morning on a speedboat. Kindly, they let a few of us from the congregation go along with them...

VERY early in the morning.

I was eager for the chance since it provides me with a final chance to stay with Tom & Michelle Sanches. If you've read this blog before at all you've read about Tom and Michelle. They're the ones whom I first stayed with upon arriving in Guyana. Picked me up at the airport, provided me with housing for a month, helped me acclimate to entirely new surroundings, etc. They're my other mom and dad. I think I could go on forever about how they've helped me.

But anyway, they recently received a new assignment, one which is outside of Guyana. They'll be departing by sometime in April, so they invited me out to stay with them for a week as a final hurrah of sorts. I'll still be seeing them again soon at our Circuit Assembly, April 5th, but this is my final chance to stay with them in their home. So, taking advantage of it.

Naturally, there's been some interesting stuff happening so far. For one, they've been redoing the landscaping in front of their Kingdom Hall in time for the Memorial, so I got to help out with that. Of course, I'm utterly useless with that kind of thing, but at the very least it was a ton of fun to watch and listen to them all, in their manner of polite bickering and faux fighting with one another as they worked.

A rare moment of peace at the work day.

Now since we were uprooting a fair amount of grass and assorted plants in the yard, this did attract some unwanted attention from the neighbors. And when I say neighbors, I of course mean...

Insert your own puns here.

After that all got finished (sorry, no pics of the finished result. Maybe Thursday) I got to go in field service with the Brighton congregation the following day. However, we weren't working a standard territory. See, Brighton has a large section called "Black Bush", a name spoken in hushed tones by many a pioneer that's served in this area. Allow me to give you a glimpse of why...

I'm not talking about the pink shirt. I mean the mud.

Absolutely ridiculously psycho amounts of mud are everywhere in this territory. This pic was taken in the nice part. I tried taking pictures of the bad part, but my corneas kept frying from the true horror that lay below. Needless to say, your shoes get utterly caked in the stuff, with each step getting heavier and heavier, until finally your shoes fall off under duress from the weight of mud.

It was so much fun.

And since this territory rests so far from the main road, the only way to get there is for everyone to pile into one or two vehicles, which winds up looking like this.

In case you can't accurately see, there's eleven people in that car. Only two of which are in the front seat, the rest are in the photograph.

So as you can see, I've had a great week thus far, and certainly expect it to continue getting better. I mean, every morning I wake up to this....

Drat. I'm going to miss these two.