Last evening we went to the Salem Church in New Green, which is basically a suburb of Mandeville, for the watch night service. The program started with a time of praise songs and testimonies. The song leader was a man in his fifties that had more energy than anyone that age has a right to have. He had a good voice and he can really DANCE! The testimonies were also great. Most of them were presented with a lot of excitement and it made you just want to applaud.

After about an hour it was our turn. The quartet sang Glory Train that went much better because Sharon had a useable keyboard this time. The quartet has given Kirby the job of “playing” the train whistle so he was up on stage too. After that Kristy did her clown routine. This time the kids just wouldn’t respond to her very well. I’m not sure if it was because it was 10 PM or if they are just a stricter church and the kids are reserved but we had fun watching poor Kristy trying to get even a smile out of them. After Kristy was done we sang a few songs and then handed the service back to them. The next part was when the people of the church formed groups to give specials. The idea was to form new groups and to write original songs if possible. Some of them were very good. The bass player was also quite good and he was one of the masons who helped us at the work site so we felt so0me good unity with him.

They knew that we had been working hard all week so they arranged for us to return early. We got back around 11:45 but we heard the service went on until 1:30. Back at our dorm we waited until the New Year came and then headed off to bed.

This morning we had another great breakfast of cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs. Thank God for Francis! We only worked half a day today so we finished building a few more “cages”, did some more plastering, painted, move stone into position for mixing and mixed mortar. We got a lot accomplished but as usual we wish we could have done more. The women of the church provided lunch again and this time we had jerk chicken, rice and peas, dumplings, and slaw. It was very good.

After lunch we returned to the dorm for a quick shower and then went on a sight seeing trip. We went about an hour away to Malvern where the Jamaica Conference has it’s campground. The camp was started back when my dad was superintendent down here in the 1960’s. There is a very old British Colonial style building there and then some new buildings that a lot of other work teams have worked on.

From Malvern we drove another 10 miles to Lover’s Leap. It is basically an observation point at the top of a large drop off that goes down about 1,700 feet to the ocean on the south coast of Jamaica. It was beautiful and it was good to get out of Mandeville a little bit. We got back just before 7 PM.

Supper consisted of rice with a bean soup on top, slaw, cassava & fried sweet potatoes. I’m not sure what the bean soup actually was but it was delicious. Thank God for Francis! We followed supper with devotions and we are now packing for our departure.

We leave at 7 AM in the morning for Montego Bay. We should get there around 10 –11 AM and then we can kind of relax for the rest of the day in Mobay. Then we head on home on Saturday morning. We miss you all and can’t wait to see you.