CHRISTMAS!

Christmas Eve with our ship family. Jennifer and her nine children. ;)


Christmas morning in Curacao! Doesn't get much better than that!


Hard to believe it's already our 3rd Christmas as a married couple! Keeps getting better and better. ;)


Our chef prepared a glorious Christmas brunch for ship's company! A definite highlight of Christmas!

My 30th Birthday!

As I wrote in a previous posting, I had a wonderful 30th birthday on board!


My ship family threw me an "Indian" birthday party, so we all sat on the floor "Indian style!"


Our ship son BK (from India) always says that the best drink to go with Indian food is Coke. ;)


Our Indian buddies!


My cute little birthday cake!

Ebenezer church

At the end of our week helping finish the church, we attended their Sunday service. What fun to meet the congregation after working on their church all week!


We taught the kids a few fun songs with hand motions.


We did a presentation for the church about missions. Here John acts in the presentation.


We brought little bags full of school supplies for all the kids in the Sunday school class that an American church had put together and sent us to pass out in Guyana. As I passed them out to each child, I prayed a pray of blessing on each one. That was one of the most special moments of my life.


I loved playing with all the beautiful children. This is the pastor's neice Hosanna.

More pictures from our Guyana team

One afternoon, a local guy that was helping us climbed up a coconut tree and cut down a coconut for everyone on our team! He sliced off the tops for us and we drank the coconut water right from it. Doesn't get much fresher than that! YUMMY!


After we finished laying down the concrete on the floor, I had fun sweeping with this broom made from palm branches.


Everyone day for lunch, a group of local ladies made us incredible Guyanese lunches. What a treat!


I made lots of little friends throughout the week!!

Guyana church team

Here are a few pictures from the team we were on in Guyana that helped to plaster a church. I wrote all about the week in a previous posting, so here are the pictures to go with that posting!


John is working hard plastering the side of the church!


Ready for action! :)


Mixing cement!


Taking a little break ;) Man, does that side of the church look GOOD!!

Back in Guyana

Finally we're able to post some pictures online! Thankfully our internet is fairly fast here in Curacao, so we're going to be posting lots of pictures today. This set of pictures is from a children's Sunday school program we did in a small village in Georgetown, Guyana. The village is one of the most socially depressed areas of Georgetown, with an estimated 30% living with HIV or AIDS. What an experience.


A lady from the USA made these sweet little girls dresses for us to give out in Guyana. Here are a mom and a grandma are eager to have their daughter/ grandaughter try on their new dresses!


We did a little skit about Jesus being the "life savior" - here John's the captain of the ship!


We brought lunches for all the 50+ kids.


Here I'm helping to pass out all the lunches.

Christmas in Curacao!

We had an incredible Caribbean Christmas! And we even had a "white Christmas!" Not in the way you're thinking... white snow... but white sand! :) And we both agree that we much prefer white sand over white snow! ha ha! The highlight of the day for both of us was spending a few hours in the afternoon enjoying the crystal clear Curacao waters. It's just doesn't get much better than that as far as we're concerned! ;) We pray that each of you also had a wonderful Christmas celebration. May we always remember the reason that we celebrate Christmas.