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Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Guyana pictures

Above: our group on the boat
Below: Patrick and I after "playing" Pahgwah



Above: the house where we stayed
Below: a typical house in Guyana...up on stilts with a stream that runs in front of the house

Above: Part of our group in the "black water"
Below: where the boys slept on the porch

Above: a Guyanese woman
Below: Our group minus Alan Winter 

Above: berries at the market
Below: Patrick and I on the front of the boat

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Home from Guyana

We are home from Guyana! What an incredible trip we had. God is so good and faithful all the time.


Some highlights of the trip include:

  • all 14 members of the team staying in one pastor's house
  • eating extravagant amounts of East Indian food (lots of curry)
  • trying countless new fruits none of us had ever heard of
  • seeing over 240 instant miracles!!!
  • lots of Guyanese came to know the Lord
  • we "celebrated" Pahgwah with the natives (a Hindu holiday)
  • the boys slept in hammocks on the upstairs porch
  • we took a boat across the Demerara river and then up a long winding tributary with a picnic of bbq chicken, macaroni and cheese, rice, vegetables, a homemade heart-shaped lemon cake with icing, and a cooler full of water, sprite and coke
  • we visited an Amer-Indian Reservation accessible only by boat
  • we swam in "black water"- it gets its name due to the large amount of tanic acid in it that comes up from the ground
  • we all preached and led at least one service a piece
  • we saw the largest wooden structure in the world (an old church in Georgetown, the capital)
  • getting well acquainted with all sorts of bugs that bit- I had over 40 bites and a rash that made parts of my arms and legs swell up pretty bad
  • we rode on a horse carriage/buggy one afternoon
  • learned how to play cricket with a nationally known cricket umpire
  • ate lunch with one of the highest ranked military officials of Guyana
  • learned about the different forms of Hinduism
  • spent several days at Save-R-Kids Children's Home and had a chance to pray over and give words to every single child individually
  • then the children put on a singing/dancing program for us
  • had lemon shandy- a low alcohol content beer that is a very popular drink in Guyana
  • got up at 4am in order to get to the airport in time and to start our 18+ hours of travel

Although this isn't an exhaustive list, it still gives you an idea of some of the things we got to do. The list of spiritual things that happened and that we learned would take up an entire set of encyclopedias. We saw God show up in some strange and crazy and awesome ways. I'd love to share if you want to hear more! Shoot me an email at maryhwest@gmail.com or call me. Pictures are up on facebook, but I'll post some here as soon as I can. Thanks to everyone who gave generously to this trip! It really was remarkable.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion- to bestow on them beauty instead of ashes, oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of dispair. The will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor. Is. 61:1-3

Listen to "Desert Song" by Hillsong on youtube...I listened to this a lot.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Guyana


Tomorrow I leave for Guyana and I couldn't be more excited. The coolest thing to me is that we're the first mission team being sent out from Bethel Atlanta. Last night at school we had a chance to be prayed over and get words from everyone for our trip. That definitely revved me up like crazy. I feel like our whole class is getting to travel with us. We've become such a tightly knit group that one person's victory is everyone else's victory. So I know that we're going to advance the Kingdom and re-claim territory for more than just us. 


Guyana has a really unique mixture of people. It's one of the only non-Spanish speaking countries in Latin America and most of it's residents come from either Hindu and Muslim influence.  I've been fortunate enough to do lots of different mission trips before, but this is one trip that will be completely new and different and challenging to me. I'm excited to learn about the Guyanese culture and to really  be stretched. 


I've been reading the Happy Intercessor by Beni Johnson and it has revolutionized the way I pray for different things. It's all about how to get strategies from heaven on how to pray. What's been cool is that I've been digging into this book before our mission trip so its been neat to see some different things in God's heart for Guyana. I'll be excited to get down there and  see what I have heard clearly from God and what I haven't. It's so important that we keep checking ourselves and fine tuning our Spirit so that we can start to hear more clearly and act more effectively. God is so good and wants to show up in big ways in Guyana. I can't wait to see what happens!


Love you guys!