some scenes from last wk

the people are friendly, but u do need to be careful.... they will rip u off.... they are very poor. there is no welfare system ..... so they will do anything for their next dollar....

apart from that, they are genuinely friendly. they will say 'buenas dias' as you pass them in the streets...a common greeting here is just 'buenas'...when we visit homes in the territory, we call out 'buenas' at their door or gate. the householder will invite u in, get a seat for u and then we'll sit and discuss the purpose of our visit.

this group of brothers and sisters are waiting for the bus to take us out to the bush where our territory was for the morning, the group on this morning was at 6.30am.....

on the bus....the road became a dirt road and because it had been raining, it was very muddy, i thought we gona get stuck for sure and we'd all have to get out and push but nah....all gud....about 10 of us got the bus, and two cars came out as well.  A brother with his wife in their jeep/truck and another family of 5 who were visiting from the states came out in their van type car....

group foto before we started our territory which was doing the houses along the road from where we got off the bus. The morning started off sort of dry, but it started raining and the road became muddy.

you cant really tell, but the road is really muddy. . . wish i'd had gumboots . . .

This is Suleika (waving) my partner for the morning. She and her hubby are specials who have been assigned to the cong here. They also substitute CO's. we were invited into every house we came to. at one home the lady expressed a desire for a bible, Suilaika gave her the bible she had . . . it didnt have her name in it and looked new . . .the lady contributed for it  .  . . made me feel like I could carry with me a bible for placing as the people here really love and respect it and enjoy reading it with you if they have the time . . .

I took these px with my fone, but by the middle of the morning it was flat....aarrrghhh....which was such a shame because we saw some monkeys in the trees ....heaps of them...... guess to the brothers here it's not unusual to see them, but for me, i could have watched them for the rest of the morning....

when it was time to leave the territory we all piled into the 2 vehicles that had come out. 17 of us in 2 vehicles....that was my 1st day out in the ministry with the cong .....

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the lifestyle of the people is casual. to me they seem pretty laid back....it is common to see people carrying their goods around calling out to people to buy them, they come to your door offering their wares.  goods can range from food that they've prepared to sunglasses, pottery items, jewellery, cold drinks, water, pots & pan , produce...this lady just came to our home selling remote controls ....we didn't need one, as Paul had brought one previously. 

Many of the homes are painted in bright colors.

                   

 this blue house with the motorbike outside is where I live with MC & Paul Hunter. we live on the bottom level and another witness whanau from Australia live upstairs with their 2 pre-school children.



our kingdom hall is about a 6min walk from where i live. It serves the Spanish cong and the English group.

Alot of the homes are not painted so brightly, will post px of some pronto . . . .

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Another day in ministry i had the privilege of working with a group on the stand. It was saturday so many of the children from the cong were out. The sis with hat on is reg pio Gabriella and the children are Pedro & Marianita. They are brother & sister. The zeal of these kids is encouraging.  while someone stayed with the cart others would preach to those on the beach or along the road. i was on stand briefly and spoke to a guy who took a couple of books that he remembered seeing when he was young. he also wanted a bible, but we had no more by then, but we encouraged him to approached the stand next time and hopefully he would receive a bible . . . .

by the end of the morning most of the literature was gone. we refilled the cart with books from our bags. another cart was out this morning also, situated at the park in town . .

amanda 13 is in this shot, she is cousin to the other 2 children

another day in field . . .on our way to our territory