Preaching In Black Bush and Beyond

Preaching In Black Bush and Beyond

Last Saturday we traveled about an hour to the Interior part of our territory. Its an area the Locals call “Blackbush”. Most of our territory is right near the main highway but this small community is a ways out in the country. Its mainly where all the farmers live who harvest the many Rice fields here. The area is not worked as often in the wet season since the roads get so muddy and slick you can easily get stuck. Tom says he got caught in the rain out there once and the normal 15-minute ride home ended up taking 2 hours on his scooter.




This picture is for you Dad! This is a rice picker. We are still working on getting a picture of that huge tractor I told you about.



This is an early rice field. Rice fields dominate the farming and landscape here.


This is what all of Guyana would look like if Man didn’t ruin it with land fills and garbage dumps. Its quite Beautiful!



This is a bus shed where we met for the meeting for field service. That’s Michelle and Tom.


Here is a banana tree. People give us bananas to bring home. So nice!

Last Thursday I had a pretty rough day in service. We went to a part of our territory where mosquitoes are known to be the worst. The night before, it rained which made it even worse. We got out of the car and walked toward our first house. The mosquitoes swarmed us. That morning I had decided to give my Burt’s Bees natural repellent a try- big mistake. I got bit so much that I felt like crying. We left one side of the road and found shelter in a home where the mosquitoes weren’t quite as bad. The family we visited with was very interested in the Bible’s message and we had a nice long discussion with them.

After that we walked a mile and half to a return visit Michelle had out in the country. I felt quite drained and miserable from all my swollen mosquito bites. I prayed for strength to continue and the ability to stay positive. When we arrived at our destination Michelle return visit was not home- that did not help my mood. We were also out of water and really tired. We did however meet a very friendly mule that I really wanted to take home with me. As we were leaving Michelle return visit we passed a house where Michelle had visited before and remembered they had a lot of coconuts. We asked the man if he could cut some coconuts down for us to drink from. He was so nice and did exactly that. It was so amazing and exactly what we needed to continue on to our next Bible study. I forgot all about my mosquito bites until later that evening. Yes, Jehovah certainly provides us with what we need!

Mike had a public talk today. He had to change many of the illustrations and expressions because they would not be understood here very well. He did great!
He has his first talk out in September. The title will be “Renewing the Spirit of Self Sacrifice”. We have to travel to the congregation but I don’t think it’s more than an hour or so away.

Berbice EXPO and ASL Info

This weekend the Berbice region is having an Expo the next few days. We aren’t real clear on what it includes but it involves education of the area. Since there is nothing for people to do here it is a very big deal and everyone goes. Security has been very tight with police all week and even the President of Guyana will be attending. We will be attending tomorrow afternoon and evening to sit at the JW sign language booth. No, we do not know sign language but Michelle is learning and the circuit overseer asked Michelle to help out at the booth for people that are interested in finding out more. We are confident it will be an excellent witness.

For anyone that knows ASL- there is a great need here for support. The closest group is an hour away in New Amsterdam and since transportation is such a challenge here, it might as well be 5 hours away. There is an 11 yr old deaf girl, Nasonia in our congregation who does not know how to sign. The past couple years there have been a couple sisters who are need greaters that know ASL and have been trying to teach Nasonia ASL so that she can communicate and learn the Truth. Now those sisters are gone but thankfully Michelle has learned enough ASL to sign prayers for her and also brings her laptop to every meeting for Nasonia to watch the ASL videos. Its slow progress. There are other deaf people in our territory but most do not know ASL and would need to be taught.
We are very tired and very busy but very grateful to be here. It’s an amazing feeling to see the desperate need in the congregation and the territory and to be able to be used by Jehovah in this way. We are learning a lot about ourselves and also about Jehovah and the strength he provides in these new circumstances with all its new trails.

We are thankful to have Michelle and Tom so close by. They have much training from Gilead and years of experience in third world countries. Their practical advice and emotional and spiritual support has truly been a blessing from Jehovah.

We miss you and love you all. Thank you for checking in. Please keep up the posts; we really enjoy reading them. We are also able to receive emails so if anyone wants to ask more questions or details please post here or write us an email. Mykenlara@live.com


With Much Love,

Mike and Lara
(written by Lara)