Day 4, Monday, March 12
Our first of seven schools was on the agenda for today. In Jamaica, schools have a daily Bible devotion time, kinda Sunday School like. We were given this 30 min period in each of the schools we went to. How unlike Canada and the US! Another big difference for us was the discipline and respect that the kids showed us at each school. The first time I went in front of the school children to introduce our group I said “Good morning everyone” and 280 kids responded in unison: “Good morning sir”! I did a double take as I am not used to that in our culture.
Anyway, we were told to expect 15-20 minutes, but were given the full 1/2 hour! This allowed us to do more music with the kids as well as split the kids up amongst our students to share the Gospel with them.
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Students sharing the Gospel with the kids
After the school we went for a very different experience.. a nursing home.
We didn’t spend much time preparing for this type of ministry, but our students did very well. They talked to the patients, read Scripture that was requested, prayed with them and shared in music and testimonies.
We were scheduled to go to two nursing homes that day, but we had about 4 hours between them so our bus driver took us to a nearby beach!
It was really nice to swim in salt water again, and it was a bonus that it was really warm water!
After lounging about for a bit on a small Caribbean beach, we headed off to a second nursing home where we continued our ministry to the seniors.
A challenging day of ministry as we learned more how God can use us. Some of our students felt akward with the kids but loved working with the seniors, while others had the opposite experience. The whole team was very excited about the opportunities we had and the openness of the Jamaican culture to the Gospel. It made us even more excited about the rest of the week!
