Thursday, April 16.

It’s 6:30 am in the rainforest. I’ve gotten up, packed, organized my pics for upload, charged all my devices, straightened my room, and am waiting for breakfast, which starts at 7, but where I don’t have to be until 7:30 (we leave at 8:30). Although I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about coming here, this has been an AWESOME trip!  The rainforest and the conservation efforts are great, but the peace and serenity afforded by no phone, internet, tv, or roads – basically no contact with outside civilization – that has been priceless. Bug spray is at a premium, but aside from that, I think if I spent a month here I could probably forget about the “civilized” world altogether.  It’s a completely different vibe here, and the Spirit runs really high.

I don’t see any churches, though.  I had fantasies of a CME mission on Tortuguero, and having a group of young people come every year to do things like build houses, lay wiring for internet, etc – and then I remembered that the goal of this place, at least, is to intentionally AVOID all that.

Something happens when we humans converge on a place.  It seems we are unable to appreciate God’s gift to us, wheher that’s in the natural or the spiritual.  We always have to put our own stamp on it, suiting it for our purposes, rather than conforming ourselves to that which God has given us  The former’s not working so well for me these days; may be time to get very serious about the latter.  

But right now I’mma take a shower and get my luggage to the main building before there’s another downpour.  We’ve been quite fortunate during our stay here – me especially, since I don’t know where my umbrella is and didn’t bring a poncho – there’ve been a couple of sprinklings while we were on the boat, and a couple of showers, none lasting more than 5 minutes, while we were poolside  There was a big downpour yesterday right after I got off the beach; it lasted maybe 10-15 minutes.  But this morning maybe from about 1 to 4 am, there was TORRENTIAL downpour!! I didn’t bother to  get up to look at it, but it came hard ad fast.  The rooms here don’t really have windows – there’s just screens up covered by curtains with panels in them.  This is because there’s no a/c, only a fan to circulate air.  And quite franly, that’s enough.  With all the greenery things are relatively cool, but with rain like this, it’s quite damp.  It feels like the clothes I wore yesterday all weigh a few extra pounds, and they don’t seem to have dried off.  I had some crackers that I threw out because they’re damp.  The humidity is oppressive at times.  The blessing is that the weather changes frequently and significantly – it’s damp and humid now after the rains – the sun could come out and dry everything out soon.  Although now I understand why all the sidewalks and verandas are raised – the lawns are sunken, so that when the rains come, the water can run off the sidewalks and into the lawns.

The “m” key sticks on this laptop.  Annoying  I’m off to get ready.  Next post will likely be written possibly from Guapiles but more likely from SJ.  The howler monkeys are out…

Oh.  Don’t know if I said this yesterday, though I have voiced the sentiment many times.  It’s really annoying to me when I go to countries where people expect, demand, beg for tips.  It occurs for me as both rude and greedy.  A tip, after all, should be discretionary and should not be expected.  Having said that, I am aware that some people only survive because of tips (And I’m talking people in NYC).  That conversation got a completely new perspective yesterday as I sat with my camera around my neck and realized that camera likely costs more than some of these people’s homes.  Why wouldn’t I share some of what I’ve received?

The breakfast bell has sounded.  Let me get showered and fed.

9:39 am – So breakfast was great:  eggs, gallo pinto, pancakes, salchicha, fruit, bread, and coffee.  We settled up our accounts and came on a nice boat ride to La Pavona, the place (not almendreja as I said before) where you change from your boat to your bus and vice/versa.  Because of last night’s rain, the water was about 2 meters higher than normal; combine that with the fact that it was lower than normal when we came in, and our boat ride out was only about an hour, compared with the 90 minute ride in.  So we are sitting here waiting for another 45 minutes or so for the van to come.  The rest of the group will go to Guapiles to rent cars:  the young couple and the older couple who met while working on a cruise ship along with their 10-year old son Alexandre, will rent cars and go to the same hotel in front of Arenal.  Francois (who works for a French company that makes bumpers for GM and BMW and has plants in Henderson, NC and somewhere in SC and is starting one in Chattanooga), his wife, and their two teenaged kids (male and female, aged 17 ½ and 14) will rent a car and go on to Turrialba and then to Arenal.  Me?  I’m going to SJ and then back to NYC.  It’s been a great time, though!!

Kenneth, our guide, has been great.  I’m still on this “rainforest as place of spiritual renewal” trip.  As we rode out this morning and I looked all around, where I’m sure some of the saints would see bugs and yukky trees and whatever, I kept hearing “Majesty.  Worship His Majesty…”  And that’s ok.  Everybody doesn’t have to sit up in church all the time.  There’s something to be said for going into all the world and sharing the Love everywhere you go.  I guess that’s mission work, kinda – I’ve spent enough time doing service work that I’m not in favor of just going somewhere and trying to “help” people.  What I think is helpful to you may be very different from what you consider helpful to you; for my help to be meaningful, I need to give you something you want and can use.  Which, I think, I why building relationships is important.  I can preach as effective a message through my interactions with strangers as I can from a pulpit.

Jesus doesn’t have to be oppressive or cloying or overbearing and certainly not self-righteous.  The physical world has beauty and blessings and gifts and rewards for us; we can accept the or not; we can use them wisely or not; we can protect them or not; and we can maintain/sustain them or not.  There are rules that govern how we move safely and productively in this physical or natural, world.  The same is true in the spiritual world:  our Creator has endowed us with beauty and blessings and gifts and rewards and the choice to accept, use, protect, maintain and sustain them – or not.  There are laws that govern how we move safely and productively in this spiritual realm.  Many people spend time obsessing over the laws; I think that once one has grasped the concept, one is then faced with the task, not so much of discussing or parsing or adhering to the law, but of governing oneself by the Spirit of that law, and THEN walking in one’s gifts to be, do, and embrace all our Creator has allowed.  Which, of course, is beyond our wildest dreams.  We get so caught up along the way that we always end up limiting what is available.

If you’re reading this you probably think my mind is wandering yet again.   It’s not.  I’m sorta overwhelmed with what an incredible life I have, with how many opportunities I’ve been given, and I’ excited to contemplate the next step of my journey, but I am SOO not wandering.  My heart, mind, and spirit are re-focusing.  It seems that, with all the distractions of “modern” life, it’s easy to lose focus, to get caught up in the minutia of day to day living.  Getting away from it all is allowing me to re-focus.  I pray I can maintain it.

But now there are birds chirping and people milling around.  More later.

Pics form the day are 

Tortuguero

       

It’s 5 am on Wednesday, April15.  I’m here listening to the sounds of what must be the howler monkeys – although I think “growler” would be a better name.  “Here” is the Turtle Beach Lodge on Tortuguero Island, in Costa Rica.  Tortuguero Island is a very biodiverse ecologically preserved place on the Caribbean side of the country, a place so remote that it is only accessible by boat or by a private airline.

It is stunningly beautiful.  We took a 90 minute drive from San Jose, stopping somewhere for breakfast. Then, shortly after the town of Guayapil, we came to Almendreja, where we got off the vans and got onto little boats (and where they charged us $1.00 to use the bathroom).  The boat ride was very nice, about 90 minutes more, during which we saw sloths (maybe that was on the drive), crocodiles, caymans, turtles, the Jesus Lizard, hawks, and monkeys (again, that was on the drive,  I think). 

We stopped in  the Tortuguero park in the town of Tortuguero before continuing on to the lodge.  The town is just a poor strip with a school and some tourist shops.  Thankfully there was an ICE shop selling Kohlbi cards, since Claro doesn’t work here. Of course,  Kohlbi doesn’t really work here, either, but there is a place out by the beach where you can at least send/receive texts and make calls.  It says no internet, but a lot of my fb notifications seemed to come in while I was there.

One of the things that has impressed me while here is the nearly reverential way in which some people regard the land and nature.  I’m not going to make any parallels between that and native people deifying things of nature; I am going to say that, as Christians, we tend to focus on relationships with other HUMANS, forgetting that God has given us stewardship over an entire world.  What I am learning is that one’s verbal profession of faith is perhaps not as important as the stewardship one exercises over one’s talents /gifts.  And those talents/gifts do not have to impact one’s personal body. Perhaps your gift is a love of flowers.  Perhaps it is a green thumb.  Then you need to be the best florist, the best horticulturist you can be.  That’s what I see around me, people honoring whatever God has given them.

I’m going to go down and have some coffee while waiting for the 6 am (pre breakfast) tour.  I will never go anywhere in the Caribbean or Central America without being covered in bug spray – though I can’t really complain. I’m in the jungle here, and it’s amazingly beautiful.  The bugs live here; I’m the intruder.

I have slept incredibly well since I've been here -- took an afternoon nap and fell into an amazingly deep sleep.  I think that being so deeply in nature, plus having neither internet nor cellphone signal --I think the lack of distractions and the vast immensity of the natural environment does a number on me, taking me back more deeply to my natural rhythm.  Whatever the reason, I am truly loving the rest and the environment.

9:10 am.  We arrived back from the boat trip at 8 am, at which time we had breakfast.  This morning was pinto gallo, huevos revuelots, queso, pancakes, cereal, and bread with butter, cream cheese, pina jelly or dulce de leche.  The joke here  is that in Costa Rica they eat beans and rice for breakfast, beans and rice for lunch, and rice and beans for dinner.  Beans and rice (pinto gallo) is served at every meal.  While it is a complete protein, I have to watch my intake of it.  Haven’t been in a gym or on a scale for two weeks; if I follow my usual pattern, I will simply have gained back the last 5 or 6 pounds I’d dropped.  It seems my body’s set point is about 30 lbs higher than the goal I have for myself.  Oh, well.  It’s a journey, not a destination.

So the boat trip was amazing. Two hours boating around Tortuguero, stopping wherever we or the guides saw something.  It was  mostly the guides, and once I realized I’d never remember all the stuff, I started to write down what we saw.  We saw:

-          White Collared mannequin (a bird)

-          Toucans, both black mandible and “kill bill” varieties

-          Capuchin monkeys (in families!!!!)

-          Jesus Lizards (so named because they can walk on water)

-          A white-breasted something (little bitty bird)

-          Some bird that I think is some kind of oriole but is in the owl family.  It was cleverly disguised on the end of a branch, and though I saw it and have pics, I’m not completely convinced it isn’t the branch.  AMAZING how these animals camouflage themselves; more on that later;

-          Two different kinds of bats

-          A yellowtail (don’t remember its proper name, but it’s a black bird, maybe white chest and long bright yellow tail.

-          Tiger herons.

-          Spiders

-          Cayman (don’t know what the plural of cayman is, but we saw a lot)

-          Some bird that is or is related to the national bird of Honduras

-          Kingfishers

-          Bees

-          We heard the poisonous frogs; we are supposed to see them on  the forest walk that starts in 45 mins.

-          Yellow crowned night heron

-          Iguanas

-          Anhinga, a fowl from the duck family

-          Gazillions of butterflies, all indescribably beautiful

-          Bolt-billed heron

-          And, of course, tortugas.

So. It was amazing to me that the guides always saw things that we didn’t see.  The white-breasted whatever is only about 3 inches tall, and it was up in the top of a tree that looked to be 15-20 meters high.  Yet these guys spotted it.  Maybe they knew it was in the area because of its call, but that wouldn’t explain how they saw the little bats which were about the size of golf balls, the same color as the trees, and in one case, hanging on the underside of the trees.  What I took away from this is that to see things you have to know both what to look for and where to look.

There’s probably a sermon in that somewhere, and there’s definitely a sermon in the Bloody Tree.  It’s a big, giant yet unimposing tree.  What’s unique about it is what gives it its name:  when you cut it, apparently its sap runs blood red.  Interestingly, that red sap has curative properties.  When you put the blood (red sap) on your body to cure a cut or to otherwise use for healing, as it begins to work, the color changes from red to white.  As much as I don’t like the popular Christian notion that to be cleaned is to be whitened, you can’t escape the fact that the blood is used for healing and as it heals, it turns the area white.  I’ma leave that alone until I can figure out how to preach it without implying that whitening is healing.

But first I’mma stretch out and take a little siesta til the forest walk.  Then I think I’ll come back and hit the pool.  It’s been a good trip here, and even though I didn’t get to go to Quepos to parasail, and even though I didn’t even get to see Danny, this CR trip has been awesome, as always.

I’m quite taken with the focus on ecological responsibility, and would perhaps like to pursue the nexus of ecology and theology.  While I love people and people generally love me, Christian folk often get on my nerves.  Many times we uplift our tradition or our own understanding of the Bible over anything else, thereby shutting the door for God to still speak to us.  Right now, in the African American community, there is a big push for social justice.  That is as it should be, but that does not mean we ignore ecological integrity.  The things we’re seeing with our environment (and attributing to the end of the world) might have been prevented had we looked at our entire world, including our physical environment, 20 to 30 years ago.  Again, I am NOT saying we should not focus on social justice as well; I’m saying the opportunities for social justice will decrease and mutate as our physical environment shrinks and or is poisoned.  Just as humans must focus on the entire tripartite person, so must we follow Christ in ALL the world.

I happen to think that stupidity, while anathema to Cassandraism, is a choice, one that I need to respect.  If you’re invested in being stupid, I don’t know that the best use of my time, talent or resources is to try to get you to divest of that stupidity.  Perhaps the best move for me is to deal with someone who’s not invested in being stupid.

12:45.  Lunch is in 15 minutes, but I want to  get this down before I forget.  Last first:  I’m sitting out by the dining area and speak to a guy who walks by. It occurs to me that I have a camera around my neck which likely cost more than some of these people’s houses, and that put a whole new perspective on the constant asking for tips.  It’s not about being wealthy, it’s about sharing of what you do have.

And then down  the walk comes this American (I think).  I automatically don’t like him because of the way he walks, but when he and I are the only two people in sight and he doesn’t even acknowledge my presence, well – so I watch him go towards the registration area and pull out his iPad.  I know there’s no internet service except on one part of the beach, but since he hasn’t bothered to acknowledge my presence, I choose not to interrupt him.  I watch him wander around and around searching for a signal and remember how I was prone to do the same thing.  I then wonder  if I come off as arrogantly to some people, and think of the possibility that he could be a perfectly sweet guy, just a bit preoccupied. Of course, by then he’s wandered off somewhere else in search h of a signal, and I head to the room to write down these thoughts before they leave me.

So the rainforest walk was AWESOME!!! They gave us these big ugly boots. I thought it was a bit over the top, but the rainforest is full of mud, and we needed them.  Then we got to pick walking sticks as we entered the forest.  I’m not really one for traipsing around a hot humid rainforest, but this was great!  We saw:

-          Iguanas

-          Brown vine snake

-          Brown two-toed sloth

-          A turtle laying eggs

-          Cayman (two) in the water and

-          A Tiger heron, all on the grounds of the Lodge, before we even entered the rainforest!  Inside the rainforest, we saw:

-          A termite’s nest

-          The poisonous red frog

-          The hot lips plant

-          A woodpecker

-          Spider monkeys

-          Howler monkeys

-          More termites

-          Cicadas

-          The helmeted lizard and

-          The green climbing toad.  Kenneth talked about the Green red-eyed frog, but we didn’t see it.

So I wore shorts, a wicking shirt, and a long-sleeved cotton shirt.  I was absolutely drenched when I got out of that rainforest.  SO humid!  But I’m grateful it didn’t rain.  I think I’ll hit the pool this afternoon, then do some more writing or just chill.  This has been quite the adventure.

Pics from SJ are here:  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10205392428944018.1073741901.1048146180&type=1&l=95bc8b8d8e

And Tortuguero pics are here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10205392465464931.1073741902.1048146180&type=1&l=17de467d70

Weds April 15 - Tortuguero Morning Boat Ride is here
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10205392517826240.1073741903.1048146180&type=1&l=b84e69b962

and Weds April 15 - Tortuguero post breakfast rainforest walk pics are here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10205392810633560.1073741904.1048146180&type=1&l=9cf141f734

Lessons Learned

It’s Monday, April 13, at 7:45 in the morning.  I’m sitting in Miami International Airport. I should be in Escazu, Costa Rica, but missed my flight yesterday and couldn’t get from Jamaica to Costa Rica until midmorning today.  Lesson 1:  no matter how much you think you know your itinerary, LOOK at it, CHECK it, and DOUBLE CHECK it.  Whenever I go somewhere, I make it my business to know when my flight leaves.  I knew my flight left at 3 pm, and duly made reservations to leave the hotel at 12:30;  the 10-minute ride would get me to the Montego Bay airport well before the two hour window.  In a remarkable stroke of brilliance, I checked in online and confirmed my arrival time with my hosts in Costa Rica without ever bothering to double check my flight information. I had SO many opportunities to look at the departure time; I simply failed to do so because I thought I knew it.

So I was surprised and freaked out when I went to print my boarding pass at 11:55 and discovered that the flight was boarding 20 minutes later.  Seems the flight left at 1, and landed at 3…. I tried to get the lady at the ticket counter to let me make a run for it, but apparently the rule of thumb is that you need to have your bags checked at least an hour before an international flight leaves.  I’m grateful both that I had money to pay the exorbitant fare differential and that I had friends in Miami who were willing and able to put me up for a night.

So I spent the evening with my homeboy Rob and his new fiancée, Carlos.  They live in Miami Beach, right on South Beach, and yesterday was South Beach or Miami Gay Pride day.  So I went to the festivities with them.  Rob and Carlos are just a coupla guys, but as much as I enjoyed watching all of them, after a while I did begin to wonder if or why, in some people’s minds, to be a gay male is to be a scantily-clad muscled up twinkie.  There  were lots of nearly naked men with muscles, but after a while they all started to look  the same. I kept wondering what it was they were looking for, or what point they were trying to make.  It seems to me that somehow, somewhere the quest for acceptance of varying sexuality has gotten conflated with weirdness – or maybe it’s all a subset of individuality.  I don’t know.  I just think being gay shouldn’t really mean anything to anyone except you and your partner.  I don’t think it should define how you dress or speak or dance or live any more than being black should. Our sexual orientation and skin color are who we are, but we get to make choices about what we do; I don’t believe all gay men choose to muscle up and wear speedos any more than I believe all black people eat fried chicken and watermelon.

Despite – or perhaps in the face – of all that, I have to say that what I saw was a lot of love.  Yes, of course, there were the people pantomiming sexual acts, but the majority of those were the very butch girls – the hypermasculinized women who often exhibit more traditionally male social cues than men do.  Even that, though, seemed to be all about expressions of love as they understood love. I was in the middle of this crowd with a Christian T-shirt on, and not one person was rude or unkind to me.  I wondered if a person with pride colors or one of the “2QT2BSTR8;” or “ I’m not Gay but my Boyfriend (Girlfriend) Is,” shirts would have gotten the same acceptance and civility in the Christian community.  As a matter of fact, I posted a picture of a coupla guys in something like drag and one of my friends started commenting about sin.  Lesson 2:  Love is an action word, and our love shows in our actions.  Rob and Carlos asked me about officiating their wedding.  I believe officiating same-sex weddings is contrary to my church’s rules, but would likely have gone ahead and done it if I were already registered to officiate weddings in  the District of Columbia.  Because Carlos is here on a fiancée visa and has already been here a couple of months, I didn’t want to risk any last minute administrative hassles.  I realized I’d be ok with doing it when it occurred to me that a possible defrocking from my church would not make a substantial difference in my life, except possibly to decrease the burden of financial obligations for attending those ubiquitous meetings. (I’m writing this as I’m in transit from a meeting;  not all meetings are equal.  When I go to a meeting and come back with a deeper knowledge or an opportunity to have made a difference – that’s an altogether different animal from the meetings where you go sit in some ballroom listening to someone (misre)present concepts you analyzed 6 years ago, or pitch their latest book or other commercial venture.)

So in the middle of the festivities last night, I found myself wandering off.  Quite frankly, I was a bit bored.  I haven’t been a party girl for decades, so to me the music, the dancing, and even the bodies seemed monotonous.  I wandered along Washington Street, eventually going into a tattoo parlor called Salvation.  I was looking for an earring to replace my cross – it’s a barbell type with a cross hanging off it.  Got it on W.4^th street in NYC, so not sure the vendor will even  be there, let alone have the earring again.  It lasted all through the dolphin swim, but by the time I got to the Peter Tosh memorial, it seems to have fallen off.  I found another one that is a stud (which is actually better suited both for my swimming and for my calisthenics), but I liked the hanging one.  Perhaps the highlight of the evening, though, was when the guy in the tattoo parlor confessed Jesus Christ.  It got me to thinking about how we deal with the LGBTQ community – if I’d gone in there talking about how tattoos are unbiblical and prohibited by God or talking about how having a tattoo parlor meant he was an unrepentant sinner,  we probably wouldn’t  have made much progress. But we talked about his beautiful eyes, and beautiful things in the world, and nature and dolphin swimming and ziplining – and then we were talking about God and God’s majesty and about the Presence of Jesus the Christ.  I don’t have an agenda; I’m not on a mission, I’m just living a life full of God’s Grace and Mercy. It’s pretty cool, and I share it whenever I can.

So I’m here at the airport, and aware of the fact that today is the day I planned to go parasailing in Quepos.  Now I’ll probably not be able to do that at all, since I’m in Tortuguero from Tuesday through Thursday, and I leave Friday morning.  It will be good to see the turtles, but it would have been better to have been able to go parasailing.

But let me make those decisions when I get there.  I still have more than an hour til boarding begins.  Lesson 3: better to wait at the airport than to risk missing a flight.

1:37 pm.  So I thought it a bit ironic that, after missing a flight by minutes, the flight I had to take was delayed by over an hour.  We sat on the tarmac with the door closed, waiting for a mechanic to come and check the nav system, then bring a new computer.  It seemed we waited forever, but during that time a bit of calm came over me.  First of all, it wasn’t like there was anything I could do, and second of all, I was en route from Jamaica to Costa Rica by way of South Beach.  How could I complain?  So we’re in the air and I’m chill and I remember talking with the Haitian taxi driver (it’s amazing how many varieties there are of spoken English, and how much I don’t understand.  Between the Jamaican and Haitian patois, people have entire conversations with me and I have absolutely no idea what they are talking about.) – I remember talking with the Haitian taxi driver about how he made a mistake on his return date and was charged an additional $300.00.  Fortunately, he was staying with family and had the liberty of simply extending his trip.  But he told me I should have travel insurance, and I remembered that I did, indeed, buy travel insurance!!  Not only that, but I have a physical copy  of the policy, which seems to cover missed connections.  So we shall see….  I’m pretty sure I’m not in business class here, but there is enough room that I am able to cross my legs while seated.  A large man I used to know liked flying American because he said they had the largest seats.  The fact that there’s no one in the seat beside me is also a plus; I’ve just taken my camera bag from the overhead storage bin and stored it under the middle seat.  Additionally, I got Danny some rum leaving Jamaica and some more leaving Miami, plus I got some in Jamaica for Rob and Carlos, so I’ve been able to legally purchase and transport 3+ liters of rum.  They’ll enjoy it.  Lesson learned #4:  Do your best, but in all things remember that God’s got it, not you.  That doesn’t absolve you from the responsibility to put forth your best effort, it simply reminds you that the results will be determined not only by your efforts,  but by God’s Grace.

So I’m not gonna get to go parasailing.  But I did take the time on the airline to title the videos I have, and perhaps can upload them to Youtube this afternoon.  It may have to wait until I reach the States, but whenever it happens, I have them titled by date, which should make things easier.

Am getting better at this sim card thing.  I had an old Vodaphone sim from Egypt that I’ve put into my phone.  That way ATT won’t know when I land, so there won’t even  be a question of roaming charges.  Last year I didn’t do it, but going forward I think I will keep my Jamaican and Costa Rican sim cards loaded (I can probably put $1.00 per quarter on  them or something).  Then I can switch cards in flight, and be in communication as soon as I’m in country.  It would also mean I’d have a foreign phone number to give to my office – checked the bank statements and find some accounts in the negative.  Another signatory was supposed to be available to make transfers,  but it doesn’t appear that is happening.  I really need to groom a staff that can function effectively in my absence.  I know who I am as the head of the organization; it seems to me that for me to have optimum performance means the people around me should  not have to depend on me for every little thing. 

But enough with work. I think I’m taking another nap now and will write more later.

Saturday, April 11, 2015 - The Ultimate Dolphin Swim

I got up and had breakfast, then went down to the pharmacy to get some bug spray. I also got a sorrel.  On the way back, someone was blowing at me, and I find I still get confused with this wrong side of the street thing.  I tried to get out of the way, but they pulled up beside me.  It was Mr. Elliot, who had just dropped Bishop and Mrs. Reddick and Rev. Spragin off at the airport.  I would probably have preferred to have ridden with him, but had already made arrangements with Wayne, so I went with him.  By the time I got back to the hotel, Wayne was there (he was a bit later than the 11:00 we had agreed on, but he did call to say he was running late).  We headed off to Negril.  The trip was uneventful; Dolphin Cove is about ¾ of the way from MoBay to Negril.  It’s much smaller than the Dolphin Cove in Ocho Rios, but it seemed much closer. I HAVE to figure out how to get a Jamaican ID card.  My swim was 179; with a Jamaican ID, it would have been 104.  I’mma see…

 

So I go to Dolphin Cove and there’s about half an hour before the next swim.  I got to play with the stingrays and was surprised to see they’d let you take pictures.  Since I’d put all my stuff in a locker, I told the guy I’d come back after my swim. 

Get to the swim and the guy is explaining it.  I’m the only one for the Ultimate Swim, but when they hear what it is, a couple from Houston decided to upgrade from the regular swim to the Ultimate.  I was glad, because I was still skeered to do it.  Silly me. 

In addition to the kisses (I swear, my dolphin, Miguel, the alpha male, was pushing up on me.  He kept giving kisses, and literally started to push up on me!), the petting, the dancing, and the singing, there are two other things in the Ultimate Swim.  The regular swim has you carried belly to belly with one dolphin.  The Ultimate swim has you swimming with two dolphins.  First you are in Superman position, prone with arms outstretched in the water, and they come up behind you, pushing you from the feet, and push you up out of the water.  I was scared, but as soon as I felt their snouts on my feet, it was just  like jumping out of a plane:  AWESOME!!! The other thing they do is that you grab the dorsal fin of each dolphin and they drag you around in a semicircle.

(insert on 4.20.15:  Not sure how I did this and left out the part where I got BITTEN by a stingray!!!  Here is the video:https://youtu.be/Z4xJzc1HImQ

Plane is landing now.  More later.

Pics from the day are here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10205342892705643.1073741894.1048146180&type=1&l=55f38390b7

Video is here:
Dolphin Swim
https://youtu.be/SrlbEjHWl5E

Saturday April 11, 2015

So I’ve filled in the gaps from the 8^th and 9^th.  Yesterday after we dropped the group at the airport, it was still quite early.  Bishop and Mrs. Reddick were kind enough to invite me to wait with them and Dr. Spragin at the Hilton. I had recommended the Wexford to Bishop Reddick, and it simply did not meet his standards.  He is very conscious of not spending monies frivolously, but balances that with the need to restore and replenish himself so that he can continue to lead effectively.  I get that. 

So we sat in the lobby of the Hilton.  I had loaded up my Digicel card but the data was almost immediately sucked out of it.  I went upstairs to the internet café, realized I still had a Digical account and put $30.00 on it. I thought I was good.  Bishop invited me to join him, Mrs. Reddick, and Rev. Spragin as they made house visits to some of the preachers who were not able to attend conference. I won’t put in too many details, but will simply say that I am always pleasantly surprised when I see this man of God behaving as a man of God.  First of all, he adheres to the admonition to not stay too long in any one place.  We met the people and any family present, sang, prayed, read Scripture, heard updates about their conditions, and Bishop gave a brief update on Conference news and gave them whatever the Conference had for them (in one case, he was moved to go into his own pocket to give a caretaker money to help care for an ailing preacher.  You just don’t see that very much any more.  At least I don’t.  And it wasn’t hamburger money; he gave them enough money to make a significant difference.) – but we did all that, in each visit, in from 15-20 minutes.  The visits were not rushed, but they weren’t drawn out, either. 

So we visited a couple of people around MoBay, then  one person out by Negril.  Bishop introduced me to his driver, and despite my constant data drain, I was able to arrange to go to Peter Tosh and Negril on Saturday, leaving Friday nite free to go to Luminous Lagoon (Glistening Waters). I tried to take pictures, but it was best seen in the dark, and with my long lens, I couldn’t stop it down far enough to get a fast enough shutter speed to really capture it.  The water has microorganisms that make it light up like those glo-lights.   It was great, and Mr. Elliot Gladstone, the driver, was good and played great Christian music.  However, I think the highlight was going to the Lilliput Jerk Centre on Lilliput Road in Lillput. Quite frankly, while it was very friendly, it wasn’t the sort of environment where I was going to pull out my camera, even with Mr. Gladstone there.  I didn’t even want to take a picture with my iPhone, mostly because I didn’t feel like or want to seem like a tourist.  I just wanted to enjoy it.  I do believe, though, that I might get a little jerk and bammy tonite, as well. 

OK, so the Wexford.  I’ve stated how Bishop Reddick didn’t like it, and when I showed it to Mr. Harris, he didn’t seem to impressed, either.  Which is fine; their purposes are different than mine.  But all that was playing in the back of my head last night when I got in line to check in.  So there are two people at the checkin desk.  One is on the phone; the other sees me standing and THEN picks up the phone to make a call.  When she finishes and I tell her I am there to check in, she directs me to the guy who’s on the phone.  After 20 minutes, he finally got me checked in, but not until he had answered two or three additional calls (while he was waiting on me.  I felt like I should have just picked up my cellphone and called rather than standing in front of him), received some used towels, taken them to the back and folded them up (yes, while I’m watching and waiting), searched for his pen, and I don’t know what else.

FINALLY got me checked in, only to find that I didn’t get the oceanfront room I’d paid for.  Thankfully I had enough data left to pull up my reservation and show them I had paid for an oceanfront room. So they of course blamed it on Orbitz.  They brought the owner out, and I told her the issue.  They decided to upgrade me to a junior suite, which is still not ocean view. She said I could come downstairs and sit on the veranda if I wanted to see the ocean.  Which is true, but misses the point that I paid for the privilege of doing it from my room.  The room is a junior suite.  It is in the new block of buildings, the one my room last year looked out on.  IT’S A SECOND FLOOR ROOM IN A HOTEL THAT HAS NO ELEVATORS.  I don’t get how you build a hotel that’s already up a hill and you don’t put elevators in it.  But that’s what bellhops are for; it just increases the price of the room.  There is a Jacuzzi in the room, which would have been nice had I not been so exhausted last night. I will try it out today.  Aside from not overlooking the water and not having an elevator – ok, it’s a room with a Jacuzzi.  It could be anywhere in the world.  So I’m sitting out here on the veranda writing. My driver is spozed to be here  in like 90 minutes.  I should probably call and make sure I can get into Dolphin Cove Negril…it seemed much smaller than Ocho Rios.

More later. Pics from the day are in the next and previous posts.

Friday, April 10, 2015

Can’t believe we’re leaving already!  I have some notes from the 8^th and 9^th and will fill them in later, but that is mostly church stuff.  It’s 5:30 in the am and I’m in the hotel lobby waiting for the group to come so we can leave at 6 to get to MoBay by 10 or so.  It’s been an awesome time, just too short.  They decided next year to do the Conference in Savannah LaMar, which is inland, so I’m not so sure I want to come to that.  I do, of course, I’m just having difficulty wrapping my head around coming to Jamaica and not being on the beach..  We shall see. 

The other night I took a stroll.  I needed something bubbly for my stomach, so I went out walking.  I hit this bar where they had ginger beer, but no Ting.  Instead, the guy beside me suggested I get Schweppes grapefruit (which was delicious, btw).  They were three white kids (kids.  They were maybe in their 30s, maybe older, maybe younger.), one of whose mother lives in Jamaica.  One was from Jersey, and the other two I no longer remember.  What I do remember  is the one who suggested I get the Schewppes was rolling a humongous spliff and was even more stoned than the Rasta guy from the previous night.  He went off on  this conversation about how Schweppes was an evil giant out to break the back of the people who make Ting – which could very well be true, it just lacks a bit of credibility when the person ranting about it has their eyes glazed over and seems unable to coordinate their body. 

So Vanessee Burns preached an awesome sermon at what was supposed to be a commissioning service.  I recorded it; it’s about 18 minutes long, 2.2G, and I have now spent several hours attempting to upload it.  It appears that the free data I get with my digicel plan did not extend to YouTube.  I’m now at 79% uploaded,  and am trying over wifi.  Never had a prepaid phone before.  Data overages sorta suck…

I wore shorts again today cuz, well, I’m on vacation.  But these mosquitoes!!!!

So I wanted to go to the Peter Tosh place and to Luminous Lagoon tonite,  then to Negril to swim with the dolphins tomorrow.  The driver wanted nearly $300 for the two days, almost  my entire budget for that time.  I got him down to 200 but he doesn’t know where the lagoon is.  One of the women from Church, Evangelist Leslie, told me how to go via public transpo, but the guys at church suggested I not do that.  So I’m not yet sure how that’s going to go.  Once I have proper internet access, I may see how much I can get done  in one day and simply chill tonite.  We shall see.

In Costa Rica, I’m sad to find that I won’t even  get to see my friend Danny.  I will stay at his house and hang out with his daughter Sophi and hopefully meet her new boyfriend Gino, but Danny is working and won’t be around.  So I’m in Quepos on Monday, then off to Tortuguero on Tuesday through Thursday, I think, and then I’m back to the States.  Tortuguero should be nice and relaxing;  just have to get to the dolphin place while in Jamaica.

So I got a message this evening that my upload was completed.  Seems that upload I started yesterday  of Pastor Burns' sermon has FINALLY completed.  It was 2.2 GB, and that's what was sucking up all y data.  When I went to see it on YouTube, I saw instead a message they'd removed it because it was too long... Pastor Burns maintains the reason is that the sermon was not supposed to be posted, so I'mma run with that.  My pics from today are here  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10205352397423255.1073741897.1048146180&type=1&l=f426bd9167

  I think they may be included in the next post, as well.

I totally left out the part about getting the driver that Bishop Reddick uses, Mrt. Gladstone, and having him take me to Luminous Lagoon.  On the way back, we stopped in Lilliput at the Lilluput Jerk Centre.  I may have written about it for tomorrow's post;  it's worth mentioning more than once.  And that Bammy!!!  Here's a link I found to it, along with a picture of the inside.  And it is decidedly a local, non-tourist place, so I'm kinda glad I didn't whip out a camera.  http://www.afar.com/places/lilliput-jerk-centre-saint-james-parish

Thursday, April 9, 2015

So we had the closing conference session with the Bishop’s remarks, the various reports, and the remaining disciplinary and statistical questions.  It’s interesting to see: 1) how provincial and US-centric our questions and structure are (which begs a larger question:  if we are inwardly focused, (how)are we building or tweaking an organizational structure that is scalable and readily adaptable to 21^st century ministry); practically, this observation translates to how interesting it is to see: 2) how our disciplinary questions must be adapted to local cultures.  The property ownership and insurance questions particularly come to mind here. 

But the session went on; afterwards there was a lot of teasing of Bishop Reddick, comparing him to Bishop Hoyt who was legendary in the length of his conferences.  Mid-morning worship was led by Eric Spence, and the final Conference Bible Study was from Acts 9, comparing and contrasting Philip and Saul and their Damascus adventures.

At some point, we had a praise dance from the Youth. I have no words to describe it; only video here:

We had our lunch, I think we had some more afternoon business.  The last order of business was the location of next year’s conference. Not only will it not be at Good News, the guest hotel will not be close to the beach.  The conference will be in some convention center in Savannah La Mar, and the hotel will be inland.  While I’m neither happy with nor impressed by this, 1) it’s not my conference so my opinion is irrelevant; and 2) it is closer to Negril….

By now, instead of 2:30, the ordination service began around 5:30.  There was no one to  be ordained.  Earlier, Pastor Burns had put up a Facebook post, asking for prayers for prayers as she prepared to preach. She specifically asked that God's anointing power fall and that His believers might be empowered with the Spirit of Boldness to witness and make disciples with signs and wonders to follow.

She put out that prayer in the morning, I believe; the Spirit fell heavy on the conference, both during meditation and during her sermon.  Not sure her sermon had a title, but the message was quite clear:  “GO!!!” I can’t describe it, and she has asked me not to post it yet, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

We got back to the hotel, did the final tipping (and if you’re reading this with a thought to come, please add into your calculations the fact that it’s customary to tip the hotel waitstaff as well as the drivers as well as the hotel housekeeping staff.  If we are fed by buffet, we tip the waitstaff and the drivers communally; housekeeping tips are individual). 

Pics from the day are here:  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10205352209578559.1073741896.1048146180&type=1&l=c24ba26e17

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

I’m actually writing this on Saturday, the 11^th, and find that many of the details have escaped my memory.  But the days were too packed for me to write regularly.  Wednesday morning worship was led by Rev. Lena Laing, the woman beside whom I’ve sat for the last two years, who plays a mean tambourine.  We read Psalm 136 responsively, something I’d never noticed before.  Rev. Miriam Brooks-Malcolm brought the morning message.  Rev. Brooks would later lead an afternoon devotional service and she was kind enough to write down the words to four songs for me.  I will copy them in later.  She preached from Psa 136 and from Habakkuk; from what I could tell, the gist of her message had to do with Habbakuk asking how long and the Lord answering.  I thought she used Habakkuk 3:17 as the focus verse, concentrating on the omnipotence of God, despite external evidence.  She then continued on citing a series of Habakkuk questioning God about various tests and God’s responses, summing up with an admonition to look to the future, secured by the Promise of the God who is the Joy of Our Salvation! 

Conference business went on with Choruses by Evangelist Leslie (this may be where Rev. Brooks led the songs), followed by Pastoral reports from each of the main districts.  As I stated in previous years,  this CME church in Jamaica is composed of people from a variety of faith traditions.  Sometimes the Annual Conference (now to be followed by an annual Teaching meeting in November) is the place where they are introduced to matters of CME doctrine and polity.  Indeed, in his answers and discussions, I saw Bishop Reddick weave together Christian doctrine, Methodist history and tradition, and CME polity.  The disciplinary questions, then, took on an instructional aspect. Given my role as a teacher, and my thoughts on the importance of proper instruction both in general Christian formation and in the training of preachers, this is always of special interest to me.

At the same time, the Bishop addressed practical issues, even interweaving some of his personal experiences (this particularly concerning the “efficacy” of baptism and why there is never a need for a “second” one.  I could not listen to the discussion without being reminded of the Donatist controversy in the early church:  were the sacraments of “traditores” still effective?) .  What I took away from this is that people still, without proper teaching, are inclined to look  at the outward benefits or manifestations of Christianity without understanding the cost or commitment.

Bishop Reddick challenged the assembled group to procure/provide Sunday School literature for Jamaica for this 2015 year. (I have an idea to discuss with the missionaries about supplies for the kids in our schools, perhaps a better-thought-out-idea than the one about computers).

Bible Study was from Acts 8.  Yesterday we learned about Simon the Sorcerer and his cheap tricks.  The story continued today, again noting that he focused on external signs of Christianity, that he fell in love with the Power of the Holy Spirit, but not with the Cause or the Positive Effects of the Holy Spirit. Rev. Spragin discussed Simon, Philip, and the Ethiopian Eunuch (and, I believe Candake), once again in their socio-political context.  Apparently I got caught up in it, because my notes are nearly unintelligible.  Net net:  Philip used the presence of the Holy Spirit to speak about Jesus the Christ.  Likewise, when we preach, we need to do the same.  Preaching needs a subject and an object; the object is Jesus the Christ, and the Subject needs to (be able to) respond. 

He ended the study speaking of how, after converting the Ethiopian Eunuch, Philip moved to Ashdod.  Once there, his response was “OK, now that I’m here, what is it God wants me to do?”  He left us to ponder the question of who is God calling US to minister to, to preach to, and to Set Free?

My notes for the rest of the day are a bit jumbled.  We were visited by the McIntyre family from Georgia, and Rev. McIntyre brought us a word from Acts 8:26.  She spoke on a topic very close to my heart:  “It’s not the Destination, It’s the Journey.”

After another delightful lunch, we had group sessions, and after that we reassembled for business:  the Committee reported and there were various other reports.  Closing Worship was led by Mr. Rawlston Rowe, the District Lay Leader, and the evening message was brought by Brother Cosmo Grant, who came from Matthew 25:1-13.  His sermon title was “Ready Waiting.”  He told us that we are to be prepared, ready, and waiting to do what God calls us to do.  We will encounter those who are negative or unprepared, but if we properly prepare ourselves,  the Grace of God will get us through. Like the wise virgins, the church must hold on and stay focused.  He used an extraordinary sermon illustration to remind us how we must always Pray First, Aim High, and Stay Focused!!!

By now, the routine has settled in.  We go back to the hotel, have dinner, piddle around trying to post our pics, and go to bed.  I believe this is the night that I was able to Skype with Danny, and he got to see and greet Bishop and Mrs. Reddick and Pastor Burns.  I’m a little bummed to know that I won’t see him in CR; he has a gig and will be away, so I’ll hit CR on Sunday (if I ever remember to let Sophi know when I’m coming in), I think chill with her for a day or maybe go down to Quepos and go parasailing for Monday, then leave out early Tuesday morning for Tortuguero.  I should be back from Tortuguero on Thursday, and would like to chillax until I leave on Friday.  We shall see.

So Wednesday night was Wednesday night, and then we are heading into our last day of worship,  The final morning meditation was led by Rev. Gloria Rowe.  She took her text from Matthew 28: 1-20, reminding us of “Our Journey.”  We don’t know the day nor the hour, but Jesus is coming, so keep on journeying on.

Pics from the day can be found here:

Some videos can be found here:
Good News CME Youth Praise Dance, Pt. 1
https://youtu.be/iwAMB6Z0fcM

Good News CME Youth Praise Dance,Pt. 2
https://youtu.be/9XsA1LO9hCg

praise dance feat. Bishop and Mrs. Reddick
https://youtu.be/Hhroim0jIRA

Revive Us Again
https://youtu.be/YUMohOTtRN0

Don't come knocking, v.2
https://youtu.be/5RvAdsbaDBA

Don't Come Knocking
https://youtu.be/KxYlM8G12oI

Evangelist Gloria Leslie leads choruses
https://youtu.be/9oS2xQF6DfM

Even Me
https://youtu.be/qs_3S68kHo0

Break Every Chain/We Are Soldiers/I am a Warrior medley
Youth dancing
https://youtu.be/V7KpLhScoHQ

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Today was the first day of the 34^th  session  of the Jamaica Annual Conference.  It’s delightful to be here.  This time I’m in another oceanview room; last night I was a bit disappointed that it did not offer a view of the ocean.  Probably because of the time changes, the stress associated with traveling (especially thinking you were going to rendezvous with a group only to find out after they didn’t show up that plans had changed), and the abundance of processed food one finds when traveling, I woke up early this morning feeling like absolute crap.

So I wandered to the window and found an absolutely stunning view of the ocean!

(A link to more of the day's pictures is below.) As you can see, the view was spectacular.   It was so beautiful that I decided to go for a stroll along the beach.  For me, it’s a bit tragic to come all the way to Jamaica and have the only time you’re not in church be spent either as a consumer or having people serve you in hotels.  I like to get out and walk around, meet, and interact with people.  And while I love doing  it with the Saints, I also want to do it in a non-controlled environment.  Kinda.  So I went out walking on the beach.  There was a Rasta (or at least a guy with a Jamaican accent and dreds) walking around.  We spoke and went our separate ways. 

Spent some time walking the beach and, like Otis Redding, watching the waves roll in.  It actually helped the headache.  When I finally headed back to the room, I found myself falling at one point (I find the steps and the pavement here consistently uneven, and since my gait is not as synchronized as I’d like it, I do notice it.  It’s not usually a distraction, but this morning my head was somewhere else).  So I fell.  And I got up and went on.  It didn’t break the skin, and while there was some pain inside the knee, it didn’t appear to damage anything.  Since I’ve had operations on both knees and may someday have them both replaced, this (the fact that I didn’t hurt myself) was a minor miracle.  I limped back to the room, massaged and stretched the knee, took a hot shower and didn’t give it too much more thought.

Breakfast was a buffet with something that looked like cheese sandwiches,  banana bread, bacon, ham, fried dumplings, fruit (papaya, watermelon and pineapple), scrambled eggs, ackee and codfish, calaloo, and the yam/plantain stuff.  Delicious.  I have to watch my portions and end up tasting a little of everything, cuz it’s all so good.

Conferences are really interesting, and being around Bishop Reddick is quite fun.  I am admittedly and somewhat intentionally oblivious to politics in the CME Church; I do, however, enjoy watching people.  And I can often “see,” sense, or feel people on a spiritual plane.  Or something.  I can sometimes see who you present yourself to be as well as who you are and who you could be.  It’s quite an interesting process, and maybe it’s not a spiritual thing, maybe it just has to do with emotional intelligence. Whatever it is, Bishop Reddick seems to possess the same ability.  So breakfast was very interesting, not the least of which were conversations about his DUDS days and my rediscovery of the fact that he is a complete and total CME history geek!

We got to Good News CME Church about 9ish, I suppose, and after morning devotion (where PE and Host Pastor Colmie Simms took her text from 1 Kings 3:18-28, preaching on “Bring the Live Baby Back,” talking about how a spiritual death threatens to take us over, and we must bring the Live Baby back by drawing closer to the Lord), we made some brief presentations: Mrs. Reddick gave a gift to Mrs. Grant; Rev. Heath and Pastor Burns gave gifts to the kids and to Rev. Grant; I put the candies and all 1100 bracelets in the care of Rev. Grant.

The conference then started and continued on til mid-morning Bible Study.  The devotional was led by Rev. Christopher Bennett, and Dr. Ore Spragin, Jr. did Acts 8, 1-15.  Like any excellent Seminary professor, my twin Dr. Spragin broke open the text, historically, socially, theologically, and spiritually.  He located and identified Saul and Stephen and the Samarians, explaining how sometimes going into all the world as Jesus commanded may not appear the way we had conceived of it, but offering assurance that, if we continue on with God’s plan, that God will bless.

After Bible Study we were served lunch.  The US delegation along with some of the Presiding Elders and some of the primary schoolteachers ate in the Pauline B. Grant school cafeteria. It was rice and peas, some deliciously fried chicken, some escovietch fish, I heard there were oxtails, maybe some curried goat, and I don’t know what else (this, with the additions of a macaroni salad and some cole slaw, would be the menu every day).   I’d asked Bishop Reddick who could take me to get a sim card (even though Rev. Simms had offered me her phone, I’m going to be here longer and didn’t want to impose.  Plus I’d have to have cut her sim card to use in my phone, rendering it unusable for her.  I would learn later that her supply of phones is legendary, but at the time, I didn't want to inconvenience her). 

So as soon as I finished lunch we went to Black Water, about 15km away, for one.  We went first to the LIME office, because everyone says LIME is better.  Their computers were down.  Then we went to the Digicel office across the street.  They had no sim cards.  Then we went to another Digicel store which also had no sim cards.  Then Rev. Bennett called a Digicel store, took me on a 30 minute drive in the opposite direction, and I finally got a sim card!  I got some plan that gives me a GB or two but unlimited FB, Twitter, AppChat, and Instagram.  The sim, the plan, adding data and text all came to less than $20.00 US. The best coverage I could get on Digicel was 3G until the middle of the night; don’t know if it was less traffic or the fact that I rebooted the phone, but after I did that and took out and replaced the SD card (only because I wanted to copy my ipad movies to it), I suddenly, at 2 am, got 4G speeds.  I also know Digicel has 4G speeds in MoBay. 

A member of our delegation had asked me to get her some Alka Seltzer. So while I was in Black Water, I went into the drugstore to get some and the lady asked if I wanted it in a lotion or powder.  She heard “Aqua” something, and was trying to give me something for the skin.  When I asked her what she had for the stomach, she said she’d have to check to see if Alka Seltzer was a prescription medication.  When I told her it wasn’t and asked what she had for an upset stomach, she offered me Pepto Bismol and Xanax.  I would have gotten the Pepto, but they didn’t take US dollars.

We got back to the church just in time for Communion.  Rev. Clarence Kelby Heath preached from John 20:1-4, “Running to Find Jesus.”  He started talking about various runners, comparing Usain Bolt and Jesse Owens, but in the end saying that none of them was the best runner; the best runner was the one who runs for Jesus, with all their heart and soul, in every situation and circumstance, no matter what, and who is not deterred. It was QUITE the moving sermon.

We came back to the hotel for dinner of tossed salad, macaroni salad, peas and rice, pepper steak, steamed veggies, fried fish, and ice cream. I’m probably leaving something out.  It was good, and we all sat around talking for a while. (Velma Lois Jones has earned the right to eat her ice cream first, and I forgot to put in how Vanessee Burns ate my ice cream when we stopped at the Pelican.  But it wasn't very good, so she allowed me to eat some of it.  Between the two of us, we still didn't finish it.)

After dinner,  of course, we went into the lobby, the only place where the wifi seems to work. I can get wifi on my phone and my laptop, but not on my ipad which is where all the videos are.  So I stayed there until about 11 getting them off my ipad and onto my laptop (and hopefully later onto my hard drive.) I’ll probably have to wait until I get back to the States to upload them.

I was sitting with brother Cliff Harris trying to figure out why his Skype didn’t work and the Rasta guy from this morning came by.  He was high as a kite and spoke with a thick Jamaican accent, but I think he told me that he drives a boat and some guy give him a hard time and wanted to fight him and he didn’t know how to fight, and he hurt his hand, so he’s had a bad day.  But we made each other smile, so that was good.

That’s what I remember from today.  Nothing especially profound; in  the last 24 hours I’ve learned that it’s ok to let people be who they are, even if they’re unpleasant, unintelligible, or unbelievable.  Let them do and be them, and RESPECT who they are.  I also learned that I can drink a large coffee with no sweetener. 

Because the cell coverage is so bad, my phone doesn’t appear to connect to the network enough to even change the time.  I have no idea what time it is, but want to walk the beach tomorrow, so I’m calling it a night.

Today’s pics are found here:  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10205322162587403.1073741892.1048146180&type=1&l=5ba2f235e7

Additionally, some videos are found here:

He Touched Me
https://youtu.be/8ywB8mh1lfI

Rock of Ages
https://youtu.be/B6QP5U80ozI

There is a Fountain
https://youtu.be/SGe0FEDsPPs

There is Power Mighty In the Blood
https://youtu.be/-LrY3o_2rPA

All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name
https://youtu.be/hBsDxdhYXIg

Draw Me Nearer
https://youtu.be/IUbC9z0Ldj4

Hallelujiah!  What a Savior!!
https://youtu.be/CqgLdOSImtI

Monday, April 6, 2015

So Supershuttle came at 2:45, just as they said, for a 6:30 departure out of JFK.  Between the American/USAIr confusion, my passport not scanning, and the fact that USAir somehow didn’t have me down as TSA Precheck, I would have been prepared to have been annoyed except that one segment of the flight was first class.  That meant I got to check THREE bags (If I’d had three checkable bags) and the weight limit was higher:  70 lbs instead of 50.  There was food service on real china and wider seats.  I may have to do that again.

There were a variety of things going on:  the kids in back of me kicking the chair and their mother  insisting they weren’t;  the kids in front of me in First Class making noise; or the fact that I routed my flight through Charlotte because I thought that was where everyone was meeting, only to find that everyone had made their own individual flights,  which meant I could have gone directly to MBJ from JFK..

But we got here uneventfully.  No one from the Tourist Bureau to meet us, though the woman I talked to on the plane was met by someone who helped me through customs quite quickly.  We hung out for a looooong time then had some lunch, then headed to St. Elizabeth. 

This year, the US delegation was led by:
Bishop and Mrs. Lawrence L. Reddick, III, Senior Bishop and First Lady of the CME Church; Presiding Prelate and First Lady over the 8^th Episcopal District, which includes Jamaica.

The trip was ably coordinated by:
Ms. Beverly Ross, 8th Episcopal District, Beebe Tabernacle CME Church, Houston, TX.

Additional members of the delegation were:
Rickey Fontenot, 8^th ED; Sheeler Memorial CME Church, Houston, TX;

Clifford Harris, General Secretary of the Lay Department, 9^th ED, Pettie Chapel, Bixby, OK;

Clarence K. and Lakisha Heath, 8^th ED, Carter Metropolitan  CME Church, Ft. Worth, TX;

Dr. Judith E. Grant, Past President, Women’s Missionary Society; 7^th ED, Holsey Temple CME Church, Philadelphia, PA;

Velma Lois Jones, 1st ED; Trinity CME Church, Memphis, TN

Dr. Vanessee J. Burns, 8^th ED; Christian Chapel Temple of Faith, Dallas, TX

Dr. Ore L. Spragin, Editor, The Christian Index; 5^th Episcopal District and
Cassandra G. Perry, 7th ED; Williams Institutional CME Church, New York, NY. 

Once everyone had finally gathered, we stopped at a Mega Store for water and then at the Tortuga factory.  I started on what, in retrospect, seemed for a moment to have been an ill-fated search for a Digicell sim card. 

That’s all I wrote on the first day. I left out the group luncheon at the Pelican, the stop at the Mega Mart to get water and treats, and the first night's dinner at Treasure Beach.  Apparently I put the pictures for today and tomorrow all together, so I will put the links in both places,
Here is the link, which includes a variety of pictures from the journey in as well as the first day.  If the hyperlink doesn't work, just copy and paste this link:  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10205315586343001.1073741891.1048146180&type=1&l=0455de5107