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I’m not one of those preachers who gets upset when a baby cries while I am preaching. I figure there are probably some adults out there who are also crying (to get out!) But teaching here can truly be a challenge.  The upstairs classroom has not windows. there are just openings in the block to let the air flow through, which it often does since the school sits on a hill. Behind the school, being on a hill as I said, the hill proceeds upward at about a 60 degree angle. Two times I have been teaching when a rooster decided to roost. (Poor bird must get its name from one thing it does. What if we all were labelled like that?) Anyway, it roosted on a rock behind the school that could be seen from the classroom. And it did more than roost! It crowed. And more than the biblical three times. And it crowed and it crowed> I asked the class if they ate roosters, and they chuckled (that was the best I could get since it wasn’t really funny, but then the dogs started! Down in front of the school is a home that also is the residence of four dogs. If anything but the wind moves, they are on it. And no sooner than the dogs started, a plane decided to take off. I have previously told you about having to pause until takeoff. Sometimes its just the noise of the goats next door munching and trouncing in the brush out back or to the side, a little bleating or a little mooing from the cow who also lives next door. But when the rooster gets to shouting and the dogs get to barking and the plane gets to flying. it all adda to the ambience of teaching at WISE. If I can do that, then bring on the babies!

Yesterday I was able to go by boat to Tobago Cays which is a 3 hour boat ride to the south of St. Vincent. I did have a great day and saw some absolutely paradise-like sights, but let me tell you about it. We left at 8 from St. Vincent (we being a family of 6 from Connecticut and a couple from England, though light brown skinned with black hair, thus, I am assuming, not of English decent. We went to a neighboring island and picked up a group of “older” people for the trip. Some from Illinois, some from England and some from somewhere. Along with our new riders came booze and a lot of it, along with a lot of food! It was only 9 a.m., but they were drinking like sponges left out in the sun. I never saw so few people drink so much beer and liquor in so little a time! I am not kidding you. I watched in amazement as they drank and drank and drank. Never an empty hand. Every time their hands went up, their mouths went open like some kind of machine. I watched as adults started acting like little children, but not in the manner that Jesus recommended. I laughed with them, I tried to avoid their breath when they talked to me. I was going to be with them the entire day, so I did the best I could. i was going to call on God to rain down fire and lightning, but then in the nick of time I remembered that I was on the boat and we were out in the Atlantic Ocean!! I remembered the story of Jonah, but was not in for telling a fish story when I got home. I also remembered the three hour Gilligan cruise, and did truly hope that the captain did not drink too much. I think I saw two life jackets, and no one was wearing them.

Anyway, I cannot describe the ocean to you. Such magnificent beauty. You who have been blessed to go on cruises know how the deep rich blue of the ocean is. There were white caps on our way south and the waves were kickin’ and bouncing the catamaran. I enjoyed watching birds dive into the water and emerge with fish, and I loved watching the flying fish. They would surface out of the wake of the ship and fly beside the boat. The sun would gleem off their silvery scales, they would fly along, then pitch into the crest of a wave. Absolutely awesome. How creative our God is.

I went snorkeling at one location and was able to view sea turtles dining on the grass at the ocean’s floor. Only about 20 feet deep. Another stop and I snorkeled into some coral. Well, not into the coral; around it. Unfortunately it was not the bright coral i had imagined. That was disappointing and the fish I anticipated in all their colored glory as I had seen in Cozumel were limited. But still, snorkeling and seeing God’s creation underwater was great. While I and the group from Connecticut snorkeled, guess what the others were doing? You guessed it. They stayed on the boat and drank and ate.  We then boated to an island with a white sand beach and stayed for 3 hours. I wandered amidst the palms, took a nap, walked to the other side of the small inlet and watched the waves, sat in the sun some, and read a Leadership magazine I had brought. The others first went to the bar on the beach, then got wet for about 15 minutes, then went aboard and….. you know by now.  About 3 p.m. we boarded and began the 3 hour trip back home which was much smoother and boasted a truly breathtaking sunset.

6 hours on a boat. The sights were beautiful, but the bottom can only take so much bumpy riding and tossing on a fiberglass seat. 3 hours would have taken me from Louisville back to Converse, Indiana and that is boring on cushioned van seats. Imagine the pain I endured for three hours. It was worse than sitting through one of my sermons for a half hour! I probably would not have noticed the pain if I had been in the loose condition of the others. (The dark skinned guy from England did get seasick however). I can’t  imagine how the others didn’t toss some Heinekin (sp?), but thank the Lord they did not. I did have a good time and arrived back just in time for one last sunset picture of me before the sun went down behind a boat in the bay. Cleton took it at just the right time and place. It will be my favorite from the entire three weeks.

And as I type, the dogs are making the noise.

I can’t believe that I have only 5 more days remaining. This has been a true blessing and a high point in my life.  

People have teased me about how much I make of the food, telling me that that is all I seem to talk about. But as I tell them, it is the one thing that changes all the time and is new to me. Now something that is old but has been new to me here is Spam. Yep, they eat it and love it! Tonight at supper, they had something that looked like spam, but I could never get what the name actually was. So Ismel, who is from Haiti, went and brought me a can of this mystery meat. It was chicken spam!! That is all I can say. It comes in a can from Denmark that has the the old fashioned little metal key that fits the metal strip surrounding the can. Do some of you older folks remember those? They used to open spam that way! Maybe Denmark just bought the old spam can factories. Or maybe that is still the way Spam is opened (besides on the computer  with your email).  You roll the little key thingie and it rolls the strip around the can and opens it. But on the can Ismel brought me, there is a picture of a rooster (see a connection) with the name Three Men and under it is imprinted “chicken lunch meat”. Not the best stuff, but it was good with the leftover rice we had from lunch. And that was my supper for the evening. Now you wonder why I think about food so much?!?!?

But one response to my blogs lately. Everyone has abandoned me. I guess they are too long or too boring or the uniqueness of it has worn off for my friends and coworkers back home. In fact, only one of my coworkers has even responded. But then there is Joy letting me know that she is reading these and sending me emails besides. She must love me, eh? (A bit of Canadian in honor of the Olympics.) And I love her.thank you darling for being so faithful.

If you haven’t read the responses, then do read the responses from Cheryl Gilbert on behalf of Adam and her. They are hilarious. Cut her a break for the spelling. She is in a hurry. the response to my Friday in town last week is priceless.

Kept you long enough this time around.

From the guy with a bruised butt and a bit of sunburn,

Ahoy!

Rob

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