My New Place

These are all the before pictures that I took before the AWESOME Leo team came in scraped, cleaned, sanded, painted, and helped me move in. What a great Group!

The new big kitchen

Mold on the walls in the kitchen

Fungus coming out of the electrical sockets
The Big living room
The tiny bedroom

The extra room where I will probably put my dresser and things that don't fit into the bedroom.

The big bathroom

Today the team is enjoying their free day and HOPEFULLY tomorrow we can get the big things moved ex: table, couch, dressers... then once I am all set up I will post the after pictures of my new place! Have a great day I love you.

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

Michael W. Smith

So a few weeks ago Michael W. Smith was on a cruise ship and they stopped in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. At his concert he helped raise money for CCCD, and we were able to set up a little booth to inform the people attending what we do. Here is a link if you follow it and scroll down to day 6 (Jamaica) you will get to see some of who I work with here at CCCD and different places around the island and then it has pictures of the concert where around $7500 was raised and donated to CCCD. Praise God for these fun surprises he blesses us with along the way.

Have a great day.

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

http://www.michaelwsmith.com/news-detail.php?newsid=1785

Hands In Praise.... Thank You

This is what makes it all worth it. I love watching them sing this song everyweek for the teams it makes me cry evertime and praise God for the Amazing opportunity He has blessed me with down here. Have a great one. I love you.

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

Praise the Lord!

So Yesterday Chad, Kirk and I made yet another trip to Kingston to try and finish up this paper work process that we have been working on for the past year + and I am happy to say WE'RE DONE! We had a moment of sincere prayer when we started as the first lady we encountered (to actually get into the immigration building) would not let us go in. Kirk and Chad tried explaining our situation but she didn't really care she just kept saying what does your paper say for pick up times (2-4 on Fridays was the designated pick up times. During their debate I was praying as hard as I could). Finally she picked up the phone and asked Michelle (our contact person) if it was okay if we went up to collect our passports early, and it was so up we went. It took about a half hour and we all walked out with our passports (our visas inside). Then it was off to the ministry of labor building to hand over our passports and collect our work permits. We sat for another hour then we were all able to walk out with both our passports (visas) and work permits! Praise the Lord this process is done and we are able to stay no problem I am stamped until Feb 17 2010. Thank you for you prayers. I pray that you have a great weekend.

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

Meet the groups of the week

I have two groups here with me at KP this week. Perry P.C.A. who splits up and goes out to 3 different churches to do VBS in the morning then come back in the afternoon to work here at KP. Then I have Trinity P.C.A. Who works in the morning then goes out after lunch to do a VBS. They are a terrific group, and lots of fun. Great to work with, they like to challenge me, they keep me on my toes, and they keep me laughing:)

The Trinity Team from St. Louis
Perry P.C.A From Perry GA

The Entire Gang

Rachel, Betsy, and I.

Rachel and Betsy are summer interns here at CCCD, and come to KP every once in a while to hang out with me and teams. They have become true blessings, and I praise God for the opportunities He has given me to get to know these two ladies!
Have a great week I love you.

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

The Dusted Lizard

If you look close you can see the lizard trying to hide from the dust rag

FYI

Before you get ready to dust your house the next time I just wanted to give you the heads up that lizards do not like to be dusted! This I found out today as I was cleaning off and dusting my book shelf I started to dust a lizard then it freaked me out when it shot out from its hiding place and away from the dust rag. I have learned I will now have to look more closely before dusting!

Today I am stuck inside because of the tropical storms sending crazy weather our way. It took a nice long while this morning before I could motivate my self to go out into the bruising rain and blow me over wind. Its crazy how the weather went from awful hot (constantly sitting in your own sweat) to cold and yucky that I have to get into full winter gear (sweat pants, hoodie, socks, umbrella). I am happy to say I am all ready for the team arriving today now I just pray this rain and wind stops so they can get out and work ( getting more done on my apt would be nice so I could hopefully move in one day!) and not be stuck in the dorms all week!

I also got to start driving yesterday! YAY! It was a great feeling, and I am happy to say I kept the mini bus on the road and didn't hit any one or anything. It was a little odd feeling at first because I am on the opposite side of the van on the opposite side of the road so its going to take some adjusting. Chad was a great driving instructor (this was his first time at that job) and he only had to instruct me once in his very kind way saying you are plenty close to this side (aka... Erin you need to start driving closer to the middle or you are going to start taking out pedestrians!) Please pray for safety and guidance and I continue to learn and start driving on my own. God is good all the time. All the time God is good. I love you

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin

Ginup

A week or so ago some kids gave me this little green fruit and told me to eat it. They could not tell me what it was and because I didn't know it if was truly edible or if they were just "troubling" me this little green fruit sat on my table until I eventually threw it away. Then yesterday on the way home from Kingston we bought some off the side of road and I tried this new fruit called ginup

you break open the thin green skin and pop the inside fruit into your mouth. There is actually very little fruit around a very large seed. at first it felt like a big piece of fat was placed in my mouth. But then I got a taste of the great juice inside that you have to suck out. It was great and I now love them!
I could not get a good picture of the inside of the fruit but you can kinda see it here it looks like...fat!, But tastes O' so very good.
Have a great Week.
Be blessed and be blessing
Erin

My day of sitting

Yesterday I had the opportunity to wake up and then sit in a van for a few hours as we drove to Kingston, Then We went into the visa/passport office and sat. I waited for Kirk and Chad to get there passports processed so they could get their visas. We then got back in the van and drove over to the ministry of labor to sit while they looked into getting us our work permits. We then actually saw our work permits, BUT were told to come back next week to pick them up:). We then got back into the van to sit for a few more hours as we drove back to Mandaville. One the way back to Mandaville we got a call that our mini bus (aka van) was ready to be picked up so we went to the dealership to SURPRISE wait, So we sit for a while then get thirsty so we walk over to Juci to sit and drink a juice box. then walk back over to the dealership to sit. 11 sitting hours after leaving this morning We get to drive our new van home. Keri and I were so excited (to soon start our driving lessons) I got in the van and drove it down the hill (from the offices to the school) then I unloaded my groceries, then Keri drove it back up the hill. Keri and I are both excited with the new automatic van so we can hopefully soon have a little more freedom.

The Front of the new van

The side view of the van

Deaf Camp

This past week was Deaf Camp here at CCCD KP. We had deaf from all over the islands of Jamaica, Granada, and St. Vincent. We had a group from Deaf Harvest Bible College here from the states to host camp. And also a team from Zion Family Ministries to help out as well. It was a great week full of fun, fellowship, and great spiritual growth. This years Deaf Camp theme was guarding the treasure of your heart. I am very thankful I got to be involved and learned so much from everyone who was here this past week.

The Big Tree
Everyone with their sticks ready to cook bread

Even at cookouts their is ALWAYS a dominoes table and game going

Cooking the bread over the fire

The bread cooking

Chris Southerland preaching nightly devotions

The Deaf Harvest Bible Team performing at nightly devotions. They came down to host deaf camp this year.

Graduation

I was not able to be at my kids graduation because of somethings that came up with our paper work process, but I left a camera with some of my girls so they could capture the day for me. Here are a few pictures...

The 2008 Knockpatrick graduating class
Graduating Hands in Praise team

The Knockpatrick teachers singing for the graduates

Laura White handing out diplomas

My graduating girls who I will miss dearly

Diane, Letricia, Trishana, Sashania, Sabreke

Trishana Josepths and Dennis Gorden

last years head boy and head girl

A week in MoBay with my siblings

This past week God blessed me with the opportunity to spend a week in MoBay with my siblings. It was a fun week of relaxing. We went to the hip strip to do the "tourist" thing. I introduced them to Jamaican patties, and ting, and we enjoyed the Jamaican sun!

Enjoying the beach daily

participating in the nightly activities

Kristen and I

Ryan and I

Kristen, Ryan and I

The view from my room

Thursday we took a tour of the "haunted" Rose Hall Great House. The house was very cool to tour it was one of the few remaining great houses on the island.

Ryan, Kristen, Nicole and I all doing our scared faces as we toured the great house. Adam didn't have a scared face to show:)

Have a great week! I love you!

Be blessed and be a blessing

Erin