Visiting & Visitors...

 Last week I decided to visit Miss *Susan, a dear lady that attends our church. I had met her twice before, the first time at church and then again after she was admitted to the hospital for a blood clot in her leg. After I heard she was discharged from the hospital but needs to take it easy for a few weeks I thought this would be a good time to visit her at her house. I was never there before but after asking around I got a general idea of where she lives. It was quite the walk...about a mile uphill. I was stopped on the way up by a young fellow asking why we wear "the black thing on our head", dresses and what the Mennonites believe and how our beliefs compare to Pentecostal, Jehovah Witness's, Catholic and Rasta. After explaining things to the best of my ability I continued my upward climb. Up and up and up...until I got to the point where the main road makes a sharp left. This was the place where I was told it is soon after that turn and I should, "just ask someone, they'll tell you." I saw a few people milling around and called out, "G' mornin'! Do you know where Miss Susan lives?" "Yes! Yes!" They all tried to tell me at once where she lives but one man's directions seemed the easiest to follow so I decided to listen to him. "Go past the yellow house on the left and the next house is hers. The green and white one. On the left." Sounded easy enough so I headed on up past the yellow house on the left and, sure enough, there's the green and white one. "Hello! G' morning!" I called out after seeing her sitting out on the front porch shelling pigeon peas. I headed up her steps and opened the gate and left myself in. After she declined my offer to help with peas I settled comfortably on the veranda wall resting my tired back against the post with my aching legs stretched out in front of me. It was a beautiful view from her veranda and I made myself right at home. "So, how are you feeling by now? How's your leg?" I asked, noticing she still was using a walking stick. "Oh, pretty good, but after that fall 2 weeks ago it's been acting up again," she said as she gingerly rubbed the offending knee. "So when did you come home from the hospital?" I asked. "Oh my, let me think", she replied, " I don't exactly remember! The older you get the harder it is to remember things!" I didn't tell her but I did notice she aged considerably since her hospital stay. Instead I assured her even at my age we forget things! We chatted comfortably about the beautiful view from her veranda, family, weather, recipes and faith. She talked and talked and talked. I listened and through the course of conversation she revealed to me she is 88. I about fell off my wall to the concrete drive a good 15' below. There are numerous people on this island that have shocked me with their ages but this one topped all. The first time I saw Miss Susan I would have guessed her to be in her 70's, at the most. Must be the tropical weather, I concluded. She had a bandana covering all her hair this time but I did see a few stray gray hairs escaping. After chatting a good half hour I decided it's time to head south. I gave her a good-bye hug and she clutched my hand tightly and said, "It was so good visiting with you! My name's Josephine. What's yours?" It's a good thing I wasn't sitting on the wall at this point or I would still be laying on the driveway below. I tried to hide my surprise and said, "Yes, it was good visiting with you too!" I didn't tell her I thought she was someone else. (Here is where I'll insert my feeble excuses for my mistake.)
Excuse #1. I did think something looked different about her but when I visited her in the hospital I thought the same thing, I concluded her medical condition was taking a toll on her.
 Excuse #2. After visiting with the "correct" Miss Susan I found out this lady is her great-aunt so maybe there was some resemblance?
Excuse #3. This lady had a sore leg too...
 Excuse #4. She had a bandana covering all of her hair so I couldn't see her hair color.) And I guess God knew she must have needed a friend that morning that I made the mistake and visited the "wrong" person.
I headed out her drive and, wouldn't you know, a few houses down there was a yellow one and, you guessed it! The next house was a green one....
*Name changed  
 Ok, here's some pictures...some are a few weeks old already...

I almost could forget I'm in Grenada with all these familiar faces. Thanks Angie, for getting married and giving these people a good reason to head south. I know you did it all for me...

                          Lauren & Nick went to school one day with the
                         children which was a real highlight for them!

                         Miss Janisa, all bright & colorful. This day they were celebrating
                         Independence Day. The students all wore colors of the Grenadian flag.

                          Carter loves basketball, or any sport, for that matter. Here he
                          is playing with some of the students and Mr. Coutain and Mr. Moses.

                                                And he even managed to score!

                               This is what Michelle thought of octopus. I don't think
                             her mother will need to put it on her grocery list anytime soon...

                                       Just hanging out

The reason for the (wedding) season. I didn't get lots of pictures
 for some reason. Probably because I hated to make them pose for one more picture....

I was telling someone how the Grenadian children will take as many bags of snack mix and lollipops as they can get from the punch table. No sooner were the words out of my mouth when I turned around and saw my Grenadian American son with snack bags and lollipop papers littered around him. Sigh...had me a large slice of humble pie...

         

                                       Chris was glad for Dwight's help this week.
                                     Here they are making a platform for crusades.

                                   Lauren celebrated her 13th birthday in
                                  Grenada. Kaylah decorated a cake for her

                               We played lots of games this week. Hopefully they
                               didn't cause any permanent marital stress...(Krista?)

                          

                                       

                              Some pics from another week...

 I invited Celina and her brother Keondra inside to bake one Friday afternoon. As a general rule the children are not allowed inside our house without permission. One of the first days I found Celina wondering through our house and, on the advise of others, told her she needs to ask permission before she comes inside. She steps outside the doorway and says, "Ok, may I come in now?" Ummm, not really what I had in mind. While we certainly want our children to interact with the Grenadian children we do want them to have a place to go if they feel the need to "get away." So anyway, I told Celina we will set a date to do some baking together. She was thrilled and Friday couldn't come soon enough for her.

Celina mixing the cookies. I needed to remind her to keep the hand mixer in the bowl after having cookie batter sprayed over my microwave and surrounding areas.

This scene unfortunately is not as peaceful as it looks. I made the grave mistake of telling Kaylah she cook bake on Friday too, thinking, mistakenly, that her and Celina would work together at baking cookies. Instead it was a real power struggle with who gets to do what and this pan is mine and this pan is yours, ect. Sigh!

                          Trying to relight the oven. It goes out about every 10 minutes:(

This picture doesn't look as funny as it really was. Kaylah baked "her pan" of cookies first and offered some to the men. The whole pan disappeared within seconds. Celina got "her pan" out offered some of hers to the men. They looked excited till they saw the underbaked lumps of warm dough. Dan bravely got a glob and ate it, I believe more for Celina's sake than his own:)

 

This game gets played alot

And that's all for now! We are going to a "wake" (funeral) tonight. That will be another new experience. Thank you for all the prayers and support. It means so much!

               

                                                    

Ramblings & revenge...

Dearly beloved, ....vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Romans 12:19b...No, this post is not about a great evil done to us and we are waiting for the Lord to exact His justice on the perpetrator. Rather, it is about my husband and the verse I do believe he has claimed as his personal promise from God to him...regarding me. Let me explain. Back in the States, back in the good old days, back when I used to have the freedom to drive anywhere, anytime, my husband used to frequently comment (complain) about my less-than-stellar driving abilities. Now, before you get the wrong idea and think I was a horrid driver, I really wasn't. I would bring up my near perfect driver's record anytime I felt the need to defend myself. And, I usually didn't get the opportunity to display my driving abilities to him unless he got home from work late and there were shoes to be put on on the way or maybe a plate of supper to be eaten. Which, of course, meant we were probably already running late, which, of course, isn't a real good time to display any proper driving techniques. I have to wonder why, after 15 years of marriage, he wouldn't have learned to not try to eat on the way with me driving. If  he didn't get indigestion from the stress of sitting in the passenger seat he sure didn't get much eaten between mutterings such as,

 "You know, tailing the car in front of you isn't gonna make the whole string of traffic go faster". yea, but maybe the car in front of me will get the hint to speed up alittle and move closer to the car in front him and that car will get the hint and, well, you get the picture...or,

 "That was NOT a complete stop at that stop sign!" All but!

 "Did you see that caaaaaar? yes, dear, of course I did, that's why I stepped on it...

 and, my personal favorite...(no, not his, mine:))
  The time he was talking to a customer on his phone and we approached a traffic light. Here again, we differ. My philosophy is to wait to apply the brakes until I deem absolutely necessary, especially if the light has been green for awhile and is in danger of turning yellow on me. Now, less you are picturing me losing my Christian testimony by wildly screeching through a near red light, it's not so. With the valuable seconds I gained prior to braking I now have enough time to slow down and ease my way through the traffic light, Christian testimony still intact. Again, I think he would know this by now. But anyway, this particular time he's busy wheeling and dealing with a customer on the phone and I approached the upcoming traffic light in my customary way. This time he is so horrified he became speechless and instinctively stomped an imaginary brake pedal clear to the floor. (on the passenger's side, that is). Only after his customer said, " Chris, are you there yet? Can you here me yet? Hmmm, did we get cut off?" did he come back to earth and reply, "Uh, yes. Yes, I'm still here"...while shooting me less-than- loving glances. By the way, I DID stop at that red light. I guess from previous episodes he thought I was gonna sail through it. Poor guy, being a trucker, and having had his livelihood depend on his driving makes him an extra cautious driver.
  Anyway, fast forward to this day and age on the little island of Grenada...
 Like I said before I can't drive here so I need to depend on him for most of my transportation needs. That's ok, but let me explain Grenadian driving. In Grenada everyone drives on the left side. That alone is enough to disorient me. But also, the driver and passenger sides are switched, as well as the turn signal and windshield wiper lever. The first time I went away with him, which coincidentally was the first day he was driving, I promptly started to jump into the passenger's side until he reminded me that is actually the driver's side. We headed out through and he put his turn signal on to signify which way we are turning, and the wipers blades start going. Oops. Wrong lever. Truly, the way people drive in Grenada makes my driving look good. Yellow lines are nonexistent and after seeing how they drive I realized they would be a futile waste of paint anyway. They pretty much drive in the middle of the road unless you see another vehicle coming. Around turns, in the middle of the road, no big deal, you just toot your horn to let oncoming traffic know you're headed around the corner. And, it's THEIR fought if you blew your horn and they didn't get over. Around here, it's not impolite to blow your horn, but considered rude and dangerous if you don't. There are also alot of people walking beside or, more likely, on the road. All this to say I was a nervous wreck driving with Chris the first time. Not that he wasn't a good driver but this time it was me saying,

 At a red light that's at the side of a building, not where a light would customarily be located, "Did you see that red light???!!!!" Yes, I remembered it was there from the last time we drove through here.

 "Do you see that lady walking on the road???!!!" as a  truck comes flying from the other direction...no response, but a white knuckled clasp of the steering wheel....

"You do know there's a steep drop off here and no guard rail, right???" as I peer anxiously out my window and directly down the cliff...yea, I know, kinda dangerous, right?

 "Don't you think you should get over alittle more on your side of the road?" as we round a turn...that's why I tooted my horn.." 

 That traffic light's REEEEED!" yea, but we're turning and that little green arrow on the other signal is green..."oh."

And most vehicles down here are European style with the driver on the right side but the mission truck is American style with the driver on the left side. That's all fine and dandy except where does that put me, his passenger? Yup, in the middle of the road with cars whizzing by seemingly inches from my right side. Traumatizing enough to give me gray hair in just one trip...

Or the time we were looking for a parking space...we were thinking about just parking at the side of the road but he decided to drive to the top of the hill to see if there is a better spot at the top. Only after we got the top and turned around and headed back down again did he look at me and say, "You know what? I just drove up that hill on the right side." I guess old habits die hard...especially when he's somewhat distracted. Thankfully nothing was coming the other direction!

 Yes indeed, I now can empathize with him and scary passenger experiences

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Empathy
Definition	Understanding what others are feeling because you have experienced it yourself or can put yourself in their shoes.

                    Business administrator in training. Dan Burkholder has been great
                 at showing Chris the ropes. He had been filling in till we got here.

                               Cottage meeting one Wednesday evening. There were
                                visitors from Canada here at this time.

                                   Trying to stay one step ahead of those nasty mosquitoes!

                                                 Just a random shot of Carter showing
                                                 off his candy from his dear Grandma

                               Some visitors that stopped by for a drink of water or out
                               of curiosity or something....I don't really remember

                               This was taken about 2 weeks ago but the scars remain:(

 No, he's not a malnourished child trying to scrape the last remains of precious food out of a near empty dish. He had been begging for snow ice, the Grenadian equivalent of a popsicle, since the first day of school. He came home from school and said the students are sucking something sweet out of a bag and he wants some too. He got a piece of finger jello and wrapped it in a plastic baggie and slurped it out. I don't know if he thought anything he puts in a baggie would magically turn sweet or what. I finally got some made and it's a perfect after school snack.

                                    Was glad I had my camera handy for this quick shot.

 The children's new play house/hideout underneath our house. I try not to think of the 2' snake and 3 centipedes Chris killed behind our house. A centipedes sting is worse than a scorpion's...or so I'm told. I don't want to ever find out. And no, the toilet doesn't work:)

                                                   The entrance to their "den"

                   Fresh orange juice coming up...anyone want to try some? 
                 Get away  from  all that  ice and snow and come on down!:)

                                         Loved this sticker on one of the bus's windows

I started this post over a week ago but it remained dormant this long because of more important things like weddings and friends and fun. I will post more on that later.....
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