Happy Father's Day!

Now that our time at Diego Martin Mennonite Church has come to an end, we are taking the opportunity to visit several of the other churches here that we haven't had a chance to attend since December or earlier. Today, we worshiped at Hope Mennonite Church. I had been invited to preach there. Since it was Father's Day, there were gifts presented to each of the fathers in attendance. The worship leader invited various children to come up, one at a time, and present a gift (a bottle of cologne provided by the church) to their father. We will be spending more time at Hope in a few weeks when we will be helping out with Vacation Bible School, but today is probably the last time that we'll attend on a Sunday morning.
~Richard

For most of the time we've been here, we've been meeting with the Pasea (pronounced Pajay) cell group every 3rd Tuesday of the month. It is a small group of people mostly from the Mennonite Church of Chaguanas, although there are some who switched to Hope Mennonite Church, who meet every Tuesday for a Bible study. We met with them for the last time last Tuesday and got a second set of souvenirs. At church in Diego Martin last week, we got a wall hanging of an area in Port of Spain, a Trinidad&Tobago bottle opener and 2 Trinidad&Tobago spoons. In addition to that, on Tuesday my dad got a shirt with a T&T flag, my mom got oven mitts saying "A true Trini loves sweet pan music" (referring to the steel pan, the national instrument) and Roxy and I each got a Trinidad&Tobago bag. We might not have to buy any souvenirs ourselves!
~Olivia

We have written before about the celebrations people here have to commemorate important events. Hindus have prayers, Muslims have readings and Christians have thanksgivings. Each group begins with a time of religious observance - each in their own traditions - after which there is a time of feasting. We have been to prayers once and to many thanksgivings. We decided that it would only be right to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary with a thanksgiving. So, with our other duties reduced, we are devoting our time last week and in the week to come to getting things ready for that. We concluded that for us to try to make the traditional Trini food would be scary. Although we love it and are learning to cook many delicious foods, our level of expertise compared to our guests would be like that of a typical first grader trying to read from a Dickens novel. So, instead, we have committed to an American Thanksgiving meal. On Friday Richard and I went to the Trini version of Sam's Club and bought 15 turkey breasts, 14 loaves of bread for stuffing, two spray bottles of whipped cream, 6 cases of soda or water, 20 aluminum roasting pans and 200 paper plates. We expect to have closer to 100 than 200 guests, but they sell things in bulk there. On Saturday we baked about 14 dozen rolls. Now my nightmares begin in which we either find that no one has shown up or that so many have come that we have not got enough food. Yikes!
~Barb

Yesterday afternoon (Saturday), there was a meeting downstairs in the church, and so Olivia and I decided to go also. There were youth from Carlsenfield Mennonite Church and Sangre Grande Mennonite Church who were there for a puppet seminar. Carlsenfield has already done some with puppets, and so they're very interested in a puppet ministry. A man named Anton was in charge of the seminar. For a while he talked about how a puppet ministry is a way of spreading God's love, and then he instructed how to use puppets and also what not to do with puppets. Then he handed out puppets to everyone and we all practiced using them, giving them voices and having them say something. At the end they had refreshments, but Olivia and I just came upstairs and ate supper!
~Roxy