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| A Guyana Reunion Party we had in Oregon! So Happy! |
Well we've had another
successful return trip, working and saving to extend our ministry in Guyana.
Our last stay in Guyana was the longest yet, 18 months!
We returned home around February
this year, stopping at our Doctor in Venezuela on the way to get our routine
cleanse and check for any unwanted bugs.
As usual we came back to the
states with our hands completely empty, no jobs, cars, or even a place to stay.
But Jehovah took care of that in a hurry, and some of it even before we arrived
back home! We greatly appreciate the loving Generosity and Hospitality that was
shown to us by our Family and Friends in the past seven months!
We had a lot of nice experiences
that helped us to see Jehovah's Blessing on our efforts to find work. For one,
when I returned to the states this time I had to start nearly from scratch to
get the plumbing business going again since my father had to sell his business.
It was a tough choice but he just couldn't afford to keep it going while I was
gone, plus there was no one reliable enough to do the work. So I had been
dreading all the time and expense it would take to start working again
including the purchase of Tools and a Work Vehicle. Thankfully
my brother in Law had recently purchased a second truck since his first one was
too big and bad on gas, but he offered to let me use it while I was there
working. Awesome! Then in my search for tools I had been trying to find a Drain
Cleaner to use, but they were very expensive to buy new, around $500! And We
could not seem to find a used one that would work for what I needed. We had
almost given up when my Dad suggested that we try Pawn shops. I had never tried
that before but he called around to a few local ones and on the second call he
found the exact one I needed for only $100!
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| The Truck I Borrowed |
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| My New Drain Cleaner! |
I also had wondered what kind of
response I would get from our previous customers that we had to neglect for so
long. Would they give me their business
again, or would they be satisfied with their new plumbers? When calling
several of them, every time I got a very happy response that I was back, and
they all seemed eager to give me plenty of work!
Lara also had some good
experiences looking for work as it is difficult to do temping long term since
they send you all over the place, and the schedule is very sporadic. We
seriously doubted that she could find a stable job since most Dental offices
are looking hire permanent workers, not ones that can only stay for 4-5 months.
But we prayed a lot about it, since the schedule was making it very difficult
to Pioneer. Before we even started asking around, a sister called Lara out of
the blue since she had heard we were back and looking for work. This sister
explained that she knew of an office that needed help since their lead
assistant was very sick. So Lara quickly sent over her resume, but the schedule
ended up conflicting with our meetings. That was a bit discouraging but about
3-4 days later Lara got a call from a different Dentist who was also looking
for a new assistant. He we in contact with the office that Lara applied for
originally, and he was in desperate need of a lead Assistant. Strangely enough
he only needed someone for about 4 months! Their schedule fit perfectly
with ours, and Lara would even get off early on our meeting nights. She worked
there for the next 5 months, and they even gave her a goodbye party when we
left. Plus the Dentist hired me to do some plumbing work for his office in
exchange for some much needed dental work. So it was kinda like killing two
birds with one stone!
These were just a few
experiences that were really reassuring since it is very difficult to give up
stable work for long periods, and we never really know what we will come back
to. But Seeing Jehovah's support little by little along the way greatly
strengthens our faith, and helps us to remember his promise to provide the "other
things" when we strive to put his kingdom first
So our Original plan was to
return to Guyana around August but early on we received an email from some
friends of ours at Patterson who invited us to attend the Annual Meeting with
them! We were so honored we couldn't say no, even though it would mean
postponing our departure date to October. We decided to just stay longer in the
states since the extra airfare to Guyana , back to NY, and then back to Guyana
again would take a huge chunk out of our savings. So we made plans to fly to
New York for the Annual meeting, and then fly down to Guyana right after.
Since we had some extra time,
and we kept hearing about all the need for volunteers at the bethel branches,
we decided to apply for Temporary Bethel Service! We sent
the applications in around the end of June, and made ourselves available for up
to three months starting in August. Not long after we sent them in the letter
was read at the meeting asking for volunteers to come help with the Warwick
project. So that was encouraging and we felt that our chances were pretty good
to be accepted, but as the weeks went by we started to lose hope. We went to
the Bethel Volunteer Meeting at the convention and spoke with one of the
brothers, asking if we should call and see if the application went through. The
brother suggested to give it a few more weeks, and if we hadn't heard anything
still, then to call. So we waited... and finally we couldn't take the suspense
and I called in to the Volunteer Desk at Brooklyn Bethel. I asked the overseer
about our applications, he checked and verified that yes they had received them
early July. Then he paused and he asked me "So when are you and your wife going to be back from Guyana?".
I almost laughed and then explained that we had been back since February.
Apparently there was still a memo on our file from a previous temp application,
that we would be in Guyana and couldn't come temp until we returned. So the
brother explained that they book all workers at least two months in advance,
and they were booked out till the end of
September now! So I explained that we wouldn't be able to come in October
since we needed to get back to our assignment, but we will try again next
summer when we return to the states.
Even though we didn't get to go
temp at Bethel, we were still very excited to
be able to go to Patterson and attend the Annual meeting there!
So stick around for a experiences
and photos from the Annual Meeting in our next Post!
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| View from Hill at Patterson Bethel |
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