We started today by getting ready for church and doing our best to dress up while also anticipating sitting in the church building on one of the hottest days here. We arrived to the church and met Alma and his wife who are also missionaries. We all entered the church and were quickly separated into boys on one side of the church, girls on the other. The atmosphere was hard to comprehend and access at first. There was no need for opening music, microphones, or loud conversation to start the service. All was quiet and my friends that I had been working beside all week, sat in their Sunday best in prayer. When the service started, I noticed, there was a relationship to the way we worship, they started in song which was enthusiastically signed by the deaf community. The hymns would be translated to us, but they had to be translated from a French\Creole hymnal into English and then Sign Language to English so most of the time there was a silence that was filled with the verbalizations every now and then from our deaf friends, the clap of the hand, or the cry of a baby that Tony said was an orphan that was being taken care of by the pastor of the church. There was also announcements just like we have at our church. One of the announcements was that the pastor had just finished a camp for deaf people and it turns out that at this camp several guys that we had met with that week had just recently accepted Jesus into their hearts at this camp. How exciting! The leader Emile invited us on stage and we all introduced ourselves in sign language. Butch needed some guidance, but he got through. After we introduced ourselves, I sang "I love you, Lord" with signs that I had practiced all week. On the second round, I invited the whole church to sing and that was a great moment because it was the only time that everyone was signing together during the service through voice or sign. Jim preached this morning and it was a beautiful message based in the scripture of the good seed vs the weeds and how we can stay in God's garden. He made the word accessible to all and really brought a wonderful message to the people there. Now here is my favorite part, Silda, who was interpreting said that the Pastor and the men that attended the camp had prepared a special song for us. I am not sure what this song was called, but it was so beautiful! Boy, was it amazing watching young men sing praise to God! There was one man who would sing "Delivered? Delivered?" And another leader would respond "Yes, I am set free from my sins forever" and they repeated this chorus until we could sing/sign with them! I could hear and see the gospel influence in their expressions and I just loved their enthusiasm for the Lord. After greeting everyone after the service, we went back to SEED to rest for afternoon and have our lunch. I even got to take a nap.
In the late afternoon we were taken on a special adventure, we visited the Cayes Botanical Gardens! I really enjoy flowers and gardens so I was very excited about this. When we arrived there was a steep incline down to a river without a bridge and we were a little hesitant at first. Our botanical guide lead us through each rock to step on and we managed to make in through. I was about to slip down the incline, but Butch caught me. We went to different sections of nicely maintained gardens with herbs and medicinal plants. It made me very hopeful and proud of what Cayes has done and it was a really nice area. The only shady part was a stray dog that refused to leave our side the whole time and would give us close shaves of touching him which was not desired AT ALL.
When we got back to SEED, we invited Carlo, Minush with the gold tooth, Tony, and Donna up for food. We ate a delicious casserole and we enjoyed sharing a meal with our new friends. We got to see Donna's video she was sending back to Her church in Jamaica about being a missionary. She is truly a wonderful gal. After dinner it was time for ICE CREAM! Our journey to downtown was simply to go to Mushi's Ice Cream. My favorite part of this was on the way for ice cream we had a conversation with a man who had his wife and three kids on a motorcycle. We also saw a man with a whole refrigerator on his motorcycle and he jut smiled with pride as we pointed in astonishment. The ice cream was super sweet and we were happy to share each other's company with that special treat. Once we returned we enjoyed playing charades as a huge storm came through and moseyed off to sleep after a great day off in Cayes.
~Abigail