Jamaica Day 1 and 2

We made it to Jamaica late and exhausted Saturday night. But, after a good nights rest at the Jamaican Deaf Village’s new conference center, along with the cool mountain breezes blowing, we were all ready for our mission adventure here to begin. After enjoying a great breakfast together, we began to get ready to attend church service at New Life Church here at JDV. We were blessed with a great time of worship and a great message from their new pastor, Pastor Sheldon. After church we were taken on a tour of the JDV furniture shop that features a new sewing addition where they have already begun to employ several ladies. After lunch with Pastor Sheldon and his family we enjoyed an afternoon of downtime for team devotionals and to recharge. In the evening we enjoyed dinner with all the JDV residents, Pastor Sheldon and his family. After dinner, we had a great time of team and relationship building with the residents playing games provided by Amanda Kohler, one of our amazing team members. Then thanks to Debbie Carter, Haley Roberts and Kayla Roberts we were able to spend time doing some fun craft projects and other activities with the kids at JDV. It was great watching our team spread out and connect with the residents.

The first night we were here, Ben Beukema, shared a great thought with me about the focus for mission trips here to JDV. He said that while there is always work to be done, the greatest work to be done is building lasting impactful relationships with the people here at JDV and in the deaf communities and schools of Jamaica. He said they would like for the teams that come, to begin looking at their trips here as relation trips instead of mission trips. Well, I think we got off to a good start today in making that our focus for this trip.

More to come tomorrow.

Good night,

Rob Patrick