Prayer of Faith

Haley is sick today so I used my Bible's concordance to find a passage about sickness for her to read and this is what I found:

James 5:13-20

¹³Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. ¹⁴Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him,anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. ¹⁶Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. ¹⁷Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. ¹⁸ Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

¹⁹My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, ²⁰let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

I feel like everything in this passage is important for us to remember in our work here in Jamaica and at home. We need to express how we are: suffering, cheerfulness, sickness. I find it really interesting how forgiveness of sins and healing go hand in hand. Also that confessing sins comes before ministering to people who have wandered from the faith. That is the part I think is so important in Jamaica. We need to be super aware of our spiritual position before we go out in the streets.

Laser Sounds

I realized after I posted the last blog that I forgot to mention why I titled it "Creeperazzi". Well, yesterday at the beach, Chelsea (from the other team) and I were taking photos of people on the team without them knowing and said we "paparazzi'd" them. Then, on the bus we were making fun of Chris for taking weird pics of people and called him a creeper. After making fun of him for a bit I fessed up to taking pictures of them all while they were sleeping on the bus during the ride from kingston. Chris called me a creeper, I said, "no, I'm paparazzi", he said "more like creeperazzi" and Chelsea and I were infinitely amused.

Laser sounds are because Mr. Betty, one of the bus drivers likes to listen to praise music while we're driving, but it's really funny because it's in the style of dancehall raggae so there are laser sounds mixed in and a guy going "hey hey hey" in the background.

Today has been good. The team did 2 schools and a correctional facility. Haley and I are waiting for them to get back from the correctional facility. We came back to the hotel when Mark came to pick up their lunch so that we could rest. The team is really tired too, so pray for their endurance through the night show and courage to share the gospel. Tonight is their last show, tomorrow is their Recreation day and then Horizons comes in on Wednesday and we all head to the Sunflower in Ochi on Thursday =)

Creeperazzi

Today was fun. Haley and I got to know the team a lot better. The first thing we did was go to a "Place of Safety", which is a home for girls. We all had a really good time dancing with the girls. After that we were supposed to go to a prison, but the boys were eating lunch, so we waited at a beach for about and hour. I got to know Chelsea some more and learned a lot more names. For the night show, we went to a church in Kingston. I call it a church, but it was really foundation with poles and a tarp over it. I got to play with some kids and we walked a round a little to invite people to come over. There were a ton of kids at the show!

We're going to church tomorrow. It should be fun. Pray for the team's endurance. We're all starting to get tired because we've been getting up early and going to bed late.

Daddy-O

We got up at 5:30 this morning and had breakfast, then headed to a show at a high school. We were originally told to do two hours, but then we got cut to more like an hour. I trained Hannah (from Whittier) on programs and demonstrated how to keep time for a show. She did it herself for the next school, which was a primary.

The primary school was so much fun! The children loved the show and the music, they were very involved. Afterwards we ended up having a lot of time to play with them because the bus was gone picking people up from the airport. We were hungry, but the team made the best of it.

We're waiting for the rest of the team now. A mosquito is in my room and keeps landing on my arm, but flying away before I can kill it. We're going to eat lunch when the rest of the team gets here. I don't know what's going on tonight because our original show was canceled.

Thank you for your prayers, we really appreciate them.

The Day Michael Jackson Died

Well, Michael Jackson died today. We found out through static radio news, it was crazy. All we heard was "Michael Jackson... rushed to the hospital... attempted to revive... music legend".

Besides that, only part of the team made it down, 8 of them. The rest of the team got stuck in Memphis due to mechanical problems. Pray for their endurance and patience with the airlines. Also pray for our schedule, we haven't seen it yet, but we think we have shows in the morning before the rest of the team gets here.

On a side note, while the boys were listening to Michael Jackson in the van (before they found out he died), we were in the bus listening to Gospel raggae music with laser sounds. It was... interesting.

Jamaica Time

This morning, Karra, a few girls from our room and I got up early to wake the team up and then set plates out for them so that we could leave at 6:15, because the earliest the hotel would do breakfast was 6 and it's buffet style. So the team is ready to go about 6:20 and Dick tells Karra he needs the schedule he sent her this morning printed out...

Karra's computer wouldn't connect to the internet and then mine wouldn't read the printer right. They ended up leaving a half hour late and just took Dick's computer with the downloaded file. Pray for the team's endurance and the school's patience.

The rest of us, Haley, Leisha, Roger, Brad, Larry, Mike and I are just waiting for our team to come in. The first half lands at 11:00 and the second at 1:00. Then we head to Kingston! I'm so excited.

Well. This is my first blog ever. Probably no one will read it, but that's ok.

I'm in Jamaica! After 10+ hours of travel I thought we'd never make it, but we did. And we met some cool people along the way! On our first plane we talked to the girl across the aisle from me. I think her name was Amy. She moved to Arizona a few months ago, just because and was headed to Alabama to pick up some stuff and drive it back to Arizona with one of her friends. On our next flight we met Nathan, a spiritual man, but doesn't believe the story of Christ. We talked a lot! We were trying to help distract him from his fear of flying. He asked for my email address and said he'd email me. It will probably be about interpretation of scripture. I'll keep you updated. On our third and final flight we were sitting next to each other and slept quite a bit. I let the man next to me borrow my pen. Then we had a fun time in customs because I didn't know anything. We made it back to the hotel and got some food about 4pm.

It's been a lazy day so far, but a team is coming in in about an hour and we'll be doing ministry tonight. If anyone does read this, pray that everything runs smoothly!

Craig's sunglasses are very reflective.