Helping with the puppet ministry

A sea of anxious faces at Nassau Christian School - grades 4-6.

The kids and I had the opportunity to help with a puppet show at The Nassau Christian School this past Friday. We were teaching about forgiveness when it comes to someone doing something wrong against you, or you are in conflict. Our audience was 4th - 6th graders. Laura Danek is one of the staff members at ALC, and oversees the curriculum portion of the program that is taught at ALC. On Fridays she goes into the schools and presents a puppet show to drive home a concept to the students. Her goal is to speak to every student on the island. We were asked to help with the show because they needed extra help. The boys were reluctant at first, but once it was over, they were hooked again. The rememberance of doing puppets in Venezuela and Mexico brought back good thoughts about great times presenting the gospel to hundreds.

We hope to be able to help more often, as our homeschooling schedule permits. We may be able to rearrange our week to allow us to help more often. It was awesome to be able to share Jesus with such an attentive audience.

I was asked to give the closing prayer when Laura was finished. Before the program started, each grade stood and recited their memory verse. The 4th grade recited Ephesians 4:31-32. It brought to mind the song that I had learned as a child and one that I sing and make my kids sing to each other when there is conflict in our house. Before I prayed to end the program, I asked the audience to indulge me and my family as we taught them the song from Ephesians 4:32. They loved it! We ended up teaching it to the director at the school and several other teachers so that they can use it when needed.

Watch for our posts coming up about Fun Day at The Adventure Learning Centre on March 24th. We would appreciate your prayers as we host a fun day for the residents of Nassau and show them Jesus!


Laura Danek setting up the scene.

Mom and Travis showing one type of conflict and how to solve it.

Travis, Martin, and Hunter showing a conflict among friends and how Jesus tells us how to resolve our problems.

Great weather - lots of work getting done!

David and Martin painting the bus!

They are so proud!

So pretty and white - ready for a new design

We've had this yellow bus for quite a while, waiting for an art and design college to come put a mural on it. All this time it's been boring school bus yellow, but now, thanks to the great maintenance crew, it's bright white, and ready for new design. A missions team from SCAD - Savannah College of Art and Design will be here Saturday to start on a new design for a mural that will cover the whole bus. It had to be sanded and painted a base coat of white so that it was ready to receive its new design. What a blessing for ALC.

ALC is known for its special buses. They are seen all over the island and recognized by the wonderful paintings on the outside. The kids look forward to riding in the jungle bus which was painted by the same group several years ago. It is great to see the looks on the faces of the kids riding in the bus as they come into the Centre each day. Even when we are using the bus for other outings, people wave at you because they love The Adventure Learning Centre. It means so much to them that their children hear about Jesus, even while they are at school.

It will be exciting to watch the group from start to finish next week. I will post pictures along the way, so you can see how it develops.

First visitors - good friends - great day!

Mary and Bob in front of our house.

Mary and Bob Thomas were on a Southern Gospel cruise that included Nassau as one of it's stops. We had been emailing with Bob and Mary for about a week before their arrival to find out what they would to do or see while here for the day. They had been here before and seen the tourist areas, so they decided to spend the day with us, seeing the "real" Nassau. We had a gourmet lunch at Wendy's and then off to The Adventure Learning Centre! Mary immediately fell in love with the donkeys - she said that it made her homesick for her donkeys in FL. Bob was taken aback by the price of deodorant here - he said he would stink if he lived here, for $8 for men's deodorant. We had a great day visiting, catching up, and showing them what God has called us to do here in Nassau. It was so nice to see friends from home and get to share our life here with them. Thank you for being such a blessing to us Mary and Bob!

When Mary and Bob arrived we found out that the Brown family was performing on the ship. The Browns had performed at Harvest Chapel about a year ago, and our kids had become friends, and have stayed in communication with them through MySpace. Below is a picture of all of us together when they got off the cruise ship. Their family was in a hurry to get a video made during the day so we didn't get to spend much time with them. We are thankful that they took the time to have their picture taken with us. You can check our their website at http://www.thebrownsmusic.com/. They are amazing.

Our family and The Browns - February 2008

There are Sting Rays here!

We had our first scare last Sunday when David and Martin went out into the water to snorkel for a couple of hours, just to relax. All was well, until they came home and David showed me his finger where he "thought" he had gotten hit by a sting ray. I immediately applied some Sting Stop, but it didn't react the way it does on other stings. Within a few minutes the pain started in his hand, then up the arm into his shoulder. We prayed and gave it to the Lord, and made some phone calls to see if anyone had ever experienced this before. The advice we got was to go to the local clinic and get him looked at.

We jumped in the van and headed down the street from our house. They took him in and immediately gave him a shot of something like Benadryl and TWO syringes of pain meds - at this point David was writhing in pain. The meds didn't take affect as soon as the doc wanted them to, so he sent us to the hospital. Now you have to imagine the "public" hospital here. We have heard that you only want to go there if you are almost dead. By the time we figured out how to get into the ER, the pain meds started to kick in. I don't know if it was the pain meds or the place that made David change his mind, but we left the hospital. Once we got home, David took some old Benadryl we had here, and two Tylenol #3, ate a sandwich and banana and passed out. While we were gone, Travis contacted our home church, Harvest Chapel, and started the prayer chain.

On Monday morning, you would have never known that anything had happened other than a little stiffness in his finger where he was hit. David worked the rest of the week without pain or any after effects of the sting. It was a major allergic reaction to the sting. God is soooooo good!