2009 Cat Island Trip Update : June 26-July 3, 2009

This summer I had the pleasure of returning to Cat Island, Bahamas to lead a women’s mission trip. Our team of five women worked in conjunction with the Bahamas Methodist Habitat and with Great Bethel Methodist Church in Orange Creek, Cat Island. We did work that I feel was extremely beneficial to the members of the church we worked with. The congregation consists mainly of elderly women and small children who need help from volunteers to upkeep their homes and the church.. Some of the projects included scraping and painting the youth building, grouting the floor for a new bathroom at the church and painting the walls for the bathrooms, painting the manse bathroom where we stayed, and we were able to scrape and paint the den and part of the kitchen for Ms. Eula, an elderly member of the congregation. We also filled in parts of the wall at Ms. Eula’s house and the youth building that were crumbling with cement.

The people of Cat Island are sweet, gracious people. We almost always could catch a ride with someone whether it was in the back of a pickup truck or with a family heading down the road. There is just one main road so you see just about everyone at some point. And if you were really special you got a honk and a wave. The way of life is so much slower than we are used to and I think that is a great thing to experience and learn from. We rush through life and take the little things for granted but being in Orange Creek makes you thankful for the blessing of your everyday life. God is good is a phrase I heard over and over again last year and this year it was Praise the Lord. It is wonderful for Christians to be reminded that God is good and that we should praise Him more.

For most of the women this was their first time to serve on a mission trip and everyone did a great job. When we finished our work days we would go down to the sea. By the end of the week we had a crew of children with us. We even had a few of the ladies teach one little boy how to swim! I have lots of great memories but one I keep thinking of is walking to church on Sunday morning and hearing the older women and small children singing, praising God with traditional hymns that they all knew by heart. The kids even knew the songs by heart. One little boy shook a tambourine and even though it wasn’t in tempo it sounded perfect. When one song stopped another one began until it was time for the service to start.

I think we all were able to learn patience and flexibility, things that definitely needed on a small island and in our everyday lives. --Trip Leader, Lori King