Lethem Special Day Assembly

Hey again everyone, so I am sorry its taking me so long to get everything down from my Lethem trip. It is a lot of information to write in a really short time, we are getting busy here. I have 53 days until I come home and I want to make the most of them. Also the more I do, the faster all the time will go. We have memorial, special talk, and the Berbice special assembly day all coming up soon. It is so nice to be busy. Ok so I left off with our trip to Moco Moco Falls, which puts us at the assembly weekend.

We had a nice surprise visit from Brother Hinds who is the Bethel overseer of Guyana, he came out to be the special speaker for the assembly. I love them so much, they are so sweet and they remember everyone. We all met for service Saturday morning in the village that is named St. Ignacious. It was the site of the assembly, we did a full morning of covering as much of that village as possible with invitations to the assembly. We got a good deal of it covered in the morning.

After that we all stayed behind to help out with the cleaning of the assembly site, which is called a benab, funny I know. It was a really big group, a brother named Leon was in charge of the cleaning, let me tell you he had his work cut out for him. Giving assignments was hard enough, but there was a lot of work to do that required standing in the sun for long periods of time. Michelle and I took care of the stage, it was nice because in addition to us, the circuit overseers wife Rosalia and sister Hinds worked up there too. The three sisters all speak spanish and they all took turns teaching me phrases in spanish. It was a lot of fun. It took a long time to clean the stage then I worked with sister Hinds on cleaning the chairs, they are covered in red dust like everything else there. By the time we finished the chairs all of the work was done. Some brothers stayed behind to work on the sound system, trust me I wouldn't have been of any help to them with that. It was kind of funny however to watch them climb up this handmade ladder. Two brothers hold the ladder while the other brother who is named Jordan climbed up it to hang the speakers.

So the next morning was the day of the assembly, we got there really early. About 2 hours before it started, it was very early. For all of you who dont already know this, I am NOT a morning person! So after finding our seats, we started wandering around. A really cool thing about the assembly was that people from a village named Shoulanab came to the assembly, they havent ever come to anything and at least 30 were there. A brother named Paul Donlan helped trasporting them back and forth. Hopefully I will remember to write about him and his family, they are amazing. They are raising their daughter named Bethany here in Guyana. She is 3 now and the cutest little thing ever. Ok back to what I was talking about. So in the morning we did a run through of our part. Yes I was on the assembly, Tom interviewed Abi, Dana, and I about maintaining soundness of mind during youth. The walk through was entertaining. The brothers in charge of sound are boys that we had been with a lot during this trip and we cant take them seriously. Then to top it off, they had to readjust everything a bunch of different times. Finally after what seemed like a very long time, we got through it successfully.

I was able to visit a bunch of the local brothers and sisters. We had 265 in attendance, there were 30 publishers from the local congregation, then the rest were need greaters from other areas and Bible studies. Not to mention a bunch of people who had been invited the week before. It was a big group of friendly people. For all of you who havent been to your special day assembly, it is wonderful. Oh and I had a first at this assembly. Our new friend Desiree had a Bible student that was baptized at this assembly, she was the only one. Guess where she was baptized? The river!! Just like in Bible times, it was so interesting to watch. A group of about 80 followed her on the short hike down to the river. We all have tons of pictures of it. I mean really how often do you see somebody get baptized in a river?

After that we all had lunch, then awaited our turn to get on stage. I spent the majority of our break running what I was supposed to say through my head over and over again. For some reason the more I did it, the less I would seem to remember. We went to the back of the stage to wait our turn. One of the brothers who did the sound said that if I didnt walk he would make sure to push me up the stairs, he thought it was very funny. I however didnt, but he knew that. Once our que was said to walk on stage I dont remember very much of it. I remember getting up there and thinking wow this brother made me get up there and just sit for a very long time. We did it, and nobody messed up. However unfortunately for Abi, she lost her voice the night before....but she got through it wonderfully.

The rest of the assembly went really well. Afterwards the cleaning happened again. It was very short,m everybody helped out and things went really smoothly. We met two young girls that could recite word for word stories out of the Bible Story Book. It was the cutest thing ever. Sister Hinds and I were sitting there with a Bible Story Book following along seeing if they missed any words. They didnt miss so much as a the, it was amazing to see. The people that I met there have the best stories and experiences of any people that I have met in Guyana.

After we all went home we got ready to go and meet some people at the Brazilian restaurant. Oh I will miss that place so much. Who doesnt love a good barbeque? Especially with beans and rice on the side. At that dinner we got to hear the stories of some of the brothers in the Lethem congregation. I will spare everyone the story, its long and complicated and I will very possibly mess it up and not do them justice. One of them really quickly is named Kevin Prince, he is Guyanese and served as a special pioneer in Lethem for 6 years. Now he is in Georgetown, he came to visit for the assembly, we have made friends all over the place. Ok well I will talk about our preaching trips in the next blog. It has been long enough:)