Saturday Post -- 05/10/13

The Birthday Boy, with friends and family, church and otherwise.

Forgive me for bleating on about the weather yet again, but I write in the midst of another south wind, the second this week, and easily the latest such occurrence we have experienced here. Searing, unquenched humidity tends to dominate in October, as referred to in last week’s post. Not this year. Indeed, my suspicions that something really is askew with the weather are only confirmed by reports from Scotland of temperatures pushing 20 Celsius.

Who knows? Perhaps this is a little blessing from the Lord to help us endure the Furlough Countdown. The reality of our looming exit, however, is really beginning to kick in now, with Maicol, KC and Caleb entering their final week of ensuring ‘i’s are a-dotted and ‘t’s a-crossed before they leave Trinidad for the States a week tomorrow. In eight days’ time we will be the last missionaries standing.

Going back to the weather, it has not been without its difficulties, as the south wind has been accompanied this week by copious amounts of rain. This has battered our abysmally-installed patio doors upstairs and we have spent far too much time with a mop! As rainy season is now not too far away (or, at least it would be in a normal year!), we’ll probably need someone to come this week and fix the whole thing good and proper. Immensely frustrating, but very typical of this part of the world, where pride in one’s work is considered of little importance.

The week at work has been fairly routine, with a province-wide shutdown declared on Wednesday (in protest at the ‘results’ of last year’s census) breaking things up nicely! Still, I had a sermon to write and, as I’m the kind of person who needs a lot of preparation time on these things, I was able to make take advantage of the day off to make significant headway. Philippians 4:1-7 is the passage, on standing firm in the Lord through joy and prayer. As ever, much to dwell on before I even started typing.

Amanda has been putting in her usual shift in Audiology in the mornings since coming back. However, her afternoons tend to be dominated by church/social work. This week she and Rachel (back from Scotland for another short visit) spent some time planning a 1^st birthday celebration which, it is fair to say, probably wouldn’t have taken place without them.

This time last week, as I was waxing lyrical about last Friday night’s praise event, so ably put together and led by Carlos, something really quite tragic was taking place. Carlos’s younger brother, Rafael, had taken a fatal blow to the head at his boxing gym. By the time they’d flown him to a half-decent hospital in Santa Cruz, he was clinically dead, and in the early hours of Sunday morning, he passed away. Carlos being the responsible older brother, he accompanied Rafael both to Santa Cruz, and on his final journey back to Trinidad. ‘Rollercoaster’ barely begins to describe the emotions felt by Carlos within the space of 48 hours.

However, Carlos excelled himself in appalling circumstances, and represented the family with great dignity at Rafael’s wake and burial. And in the midst of great tragedy, Carlos continually looked on the overwhelmingly positive side of things: that Rafael, a believer, is now in heaven.

Carlos & Carla, with Kenny Cristobal.

As we’ve probably mentioned previously here, the mourning process is fairly brief in this culture. Indeed, Rafael was buried less than 36 hours after his death. Still, as you can imagine, Carlos and Carla’s attentions were somewhat distracted from their son Kenny Cristobal’s looming birthday. So, in stepped Amanda and Rachel to give Carla a hand in putting on a big party, for what is always a big occasion in this part of the world. Everyone had a good time and it was a particular blessing to see so many of Carlos’s family there, enjoying a moment of familial joy after a turbulent few days.

Prayer

• Two youth group items today. First up, we are wrapping up the Sex & Relationships topic tonight. Incredibly, we embarked on this subject a couple of months ago, anticipating we would have it wrapped up in a couple of weeks. But the youth have posed so many interesting questions – reflecting the deep confusion in this culture regarding these issues – that only now are we able to wrap it up. Anyway, please pray that the youth would really be thinking about, and applying, the lessons learned to their own lives.
• Secondly, we met this week to begin preparations for our first ever camp. As anyone who’s grown up in a church will know, youth camps are a big deal. Up until now, our youth have gone along to a camp run by another church, but this year we’ve decided to start out on our own. The proposed dates are the 16^th and 17^th of November (we’ve decided to keep it to one night – but two full days – to ease ourselves into this whole business). Please pray that, as leaders, we’d keep preparation for camp high on our to-do list, busy as we are in many other areas.

Praise

• Further to what I mentioned above, we’ve also been meeting with Carlos & Carla on Tuesday evenings to study the Bible together. This week, naturally, we ended up just reflecting on the events of the past couple of days. Still, we are finding these times to be of real blessing and encouragement for the four of us.
• We were able this week to book our flights to Canada for next summer. God-willing, Amanda will arrive there on the 30^th of May, while I, with studies to complete, will travel three weeks later, arriving on the 22^nd of June (we already have some church dates booked, too). We’ll then return to Scotland on the 14^th of September. Give thanks for God’s provision in enabling us to book these seats early – when they’re cheap! 

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda