Special Assembly Day

The special Day assembly was the main reason we were visiting Lethem, mostly to support the local congregation since there are only 30 publishers, and it’s a lot of work for the few brothers there!

Many other visitors also came from congregations throughout Guyana, so this ended up being a perfect trip to meet other need-greaters.

As you can see our meeting location was not the traditional assembly hall we were used to. It is called a Benab, and in Guyana they are very commonly used for events, mainly because the thatch roof allows for a cool and breezy environment! Everyone commented on how much better it was than last years meeting place and much cheaper. Last year they met in a large school, but when they tried to reserve it again, the owners tried to increase their price five times as much! So the brothers looked around for an alternative and found the Benab, which was better, cooler and Free! Jehovah certainly does provide.

There was a lot of cleaning to do beforehand so after service on Saturday we all helped with sweeping, picking up trash and broken glass, and cleaning the bathrooms. They also had to figure out how to get the sound system working since there are no built in speakers here! But in Guyana we quickly learn to improvise.

- - How many brothers does it take to put up a Speaker? - -

- - Day of the Assembly - -

For the actual assembly there were 265 in attendance, including a large group of about 30 from the Shulinab area. Shulinab is one of the villages a few hours away from Lethem, there is a meeting being conducted there but no publishers yet. So all that attended are Studies!

- - Group of 30 from Shulinab - -

- - A few Visitors from Brazil! - -

The Visiting Speaker was Brother Hinds, the Guyana Branch Coordinator, and boy did he give some great talks. One was titled Don’t Use the World to the Full – Fully Accomplish Your ministry” He used a nice Illustration to emphasize not spending too much of our time on unnecessary things. He explained that often if you go to someone’s home for a meal they will set out appetizers to enjoy before the main course. But you wouldn’t want to fill yourself up with appetizers when there’s a delicious meal still to be eaten. So you take of the appetizers sparingly, saving most of your appetite for the real food. Likewise today, are we filling ourselves up with the appetizers of Satan’s system? Entertainment, Technology, Vacation and other pleasures may have their place but if we find, after enjoying them, that we are too full for the real spiritual food then we have a real problem.

- - Brother Hinds and his Wife - -

We did have one get baptized for the assembly, and we were all so jealous that she got to get baptized in the cool and beautiful Takatu River! (this is the river that divides Guyana and Brazil)

Being a few hundred miles from the equator, you can understand why we were all thinking, “Hey I think I need to get baptized too!”

- - There were Over 40 that walked with her down to the river to see the baptism!

After the Assembly the Breakdown and Cleanup went very quickly with all the help. The brothers were able to borrow a tractor for free to haul off all the equipment and chairs. And this was the same Tractor that brought the entire group of students from Shulinab!

Before leaving we were all amazed by these twin girls that were reciting bible stories. After only reading the stories a few times they could recite the entire story, word for word, and both perfectly synchronized!