Our trip was very documented...over 2500 pictures were taken! I've sifted through and found some of my favorite ones (Let's be honest, the ones I'm mostly in...Ok a few of other people) and made this post all about the pictures!
Lets start with some random culture things:
We ate this quite a bit, it's called spiced bun and cheese... not two things I would put together, but when in Jamaica...!
Now these little things are called Guineps. You bite off the outer green shell to find a gummy/slimy inside, kind of like a grape but not really. They're very delicious and pretty cheap, but you have to be careful because they leave brown stains that don't show up until you wash your clothes...speaking from experience.
The money, honestly I felt pretty rich in Jamaica, the bills are large numbers but the value is low. This is worth about $0.50... I liked carrying around $1000 bills but in reality I was carrying about $10
Before going and actually living in Jamaica I was guilty of planning on it being like this the whole time or at least the majority of our time.
(View from the YWAM Montego Base campus. We spent our last week here)
But, this is where we spent the majority of our stay. The YWAM Stone's Hope campus. It's in the interior of the mountains in Jamaica (Mandeville), about a half hour taxi ride to the nearest town. Still beautiful, but just a bit different than I had expected
Here is a map of Jamaica. We stayed mostly in Mandeville, spending a week in Kingston and Montego Bay
Now for the ministry side of our outreach!
We had the honor of visiting retirement homes.
We sat and visited with the residents and even danced with some of them!
Worked around the homes
Did their hair and trimmed finger and toe nails
We did manual labor.
We had lots of opportunities to serve the people around us.
We work hard and play hard! Having fun made the work go by faster!
We had opportunities to visit orphanages
Lead daily devotions for local primary schools
The kids praying after one of our devos! So cute!
Hanging out with the kids before devotions was such a blessing!
A few members of our outreach even had the opportunity to work with Bethel Christian School which is a primary school on the YWAM Stone's Hope campus. They got to help out with art classes, P.E, and teach French!
(Below is JoJo with her art class and Ms. McKenzie the principal at BCS)
We also got to take over a local Sunday school. For the month of October we went to Fellowship Tabernacle, a church in Mandeville, every Sunday and taught kids from 3 years old all the way to 17.
(Below is Jor teaching the smaller kids)
One week we got to be in Kingston and partner with Mike and Alice, a couple from Oregon who moved to Jamaica about 6 years ago to start working with inner city kids. Every other week they go into the parts of town no one else will go to because of the danger to run a Jesus Kid's Club. They pray, sing songs, tell a Bible stories, sing the national anthem, and feed the kids, but most importantly they simply show the kids God's love. It was an awesome time for our eyes to be opened to the "real" Jamaica and see that these kids deserve love too! Jesus didn't just go to the "safe" places. Everyone should hear and receive His love regardless of where you live.
We had about 40-60 kids show up each day!
All Sami wanted to do on outreach was face paint and while we were in Kingston she finally had the opportunity to!
Our whole team with Mike. He was such a blessing and a true inspiration to our team!
My favorite and most memorable time in Jamaica was having the honor of partnering with a local church in Spice Grove and Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child. We spent the day running a a kid's crusade hosted by, Nadeen, an awesome woman of God who's heart is to see her surrounding community on fire for God. There was a bouncy house, games, food, music, dancing, a Bible story, and at the end of the day we handed out Christmas presents to the kids who came!
At least 25 kids gave their lives to Christ on this day!
The little boy on the right kept repeating everything the speaker kept saying, it was super cute!
It was so much fun handing out the presents! Each kid received a box and a Bible story booklet. The cherry on top was that the boxes were from Charlotte, North Carolina! How cool!!
Another opportunity we had was to speak to youth at youth groups. This included sharing testimonies, doing dramas, bringing a message, and praying/talking with them.
There are two YWAM bases in Jamaica one in Montego Bay and one in Mandeville (the one we spent the majority of our time at) Both bases currently have a DTS going on so we got to spend time with both DTS groups which was a lot of fun to be inspired by them and to inspire them.
A cool thing that I know God must have planned was that the Montego Bay DTS group came to the Stone's Hope base for a week. That week we all got to hang out together. One afternoon we felt God asking us to love both groups by doing their work duties for them so that we could have the whole afternoon free to play games and hang out together. We worked hard all morning and then surprised both groups with an invitation to a fun work duty day!
We greeted them with music and cheering as they came in!!
Then we played games and had some snacks! It was a great afternoon of love, joy, and fun!!
As I mentioned before we spent the majority of our time at YWAM Stone's Hope. At first, all we wanted to do was travel around Jamaica, so we hadn't planned on spending a lot of time here. God had different plans! The theme of the outreach was Discipleship through Relationship. Through was a key word. It takes time to build a relationship, so shortly after arriving we knew God was asking us to stay at the Stone's Hope campus the whole time minus two weeks. We had realized a huge portion of our ministry would be taking place here by simply building friendships and bringing some passion to the base. It wasn't easy in the beginning, but eventually relationships started to be formed. Little by little friendships bloomed and we finally started to see the fruit of our prayers. By the end we felt welcomed into the Stone's Hope family and are truly blessed to be a small part of their history now.
We became more than "another team passing through" we became family
Musical chairs
Musical chairs can get intense!
Ms. Janet-Sue, DTS staff, Sami, and Siemona
Ms. Nancy, the librarian, and JoJo
Jor and Hilde with two girls who's parents are on DTS staff
Travis with Carlo, DTS/Kitchen staff
From Left to right: Ben, Francis, Travis, Alton, Gabby, and Roxanne
We even made a furry friend on campus!
Everyone at the Stone's Hope campus and our team!
Every ministry opportunity we faced two choices: either embrace it for all God wanted during the time even if we didn't want to be there or like what we were doing, or simply turn up and not care. I believe our team chose to be fully present in almost every ministry time we had and because of that we saw God work through us in ways we never dreamed possible. He gave us a glimpse of His heart and the work He is doing in Jamaica while we were there. We were equipped and ready, sure, but the biggest thing was each person was willing to allow God to move!
I was blessed to lead such an amazing group of world changers. We didn't just survive outreach, but we chose to thrive every day. This was and is an awesome group of people who are passionately in love with God. Our motto here is, "Preparing a few to reach millions." These ten have gone home and will begin sharing all that God has done in their lives the past five months and from that starts a ripple effect of sharing. Please continue to keep them in your prayers. Pray for safety and that their hearts be protected as the reunite with family and friends and begin sharing about their YWAM experience.
Thank you all for your prayers and support. I say it a lot, but none of this would have been possible if it weren't for you. You were a huge part of our outreach and you touched many lives in Jamaica!