This was Christmas Day spent with the Singhs. We had a very good time talking with them and ate some really good food. We also had opportunities to talk with them about spiritual things, and a relationship with Christ, which was good. NEIL- this is me with a cebu! I'm sorry, I didn't get on him, hopefully before I leave Guyana, I will get on a cebu and Ellen can take a picture, but this one didn't seem tame enough, and we had just gotten home from church, so I was dressed too nice. This was a mama, and she had 3 babies with her.

This is Ravini- she's the girl that I teach piano to. She's also Moti's daughter. I so enjoy her.

This is a panoramic picture of the church in Corriverton, also our home. The truck is the church's, and we take that thing and pile people in for special events or church. They can fit SO MANY people into vehicles here, its crazy! We live in the right side of this building, so the white part. There are gates around everyone's homes here, and they lock everything because of the dangers of theft.

This is Diane! She's our housekeeper, and also a member of the church. She is such a sweet, genuine lady, and I love her! The coconut she is chopping came from her tree, and she had her husband get it down for me because I was fascinated by them. Drinking coconut "water" as they call it, is not what I had expected, but I do like it.

Today we went to town. Actually, in Guyana, there is one big long road that makes up the country. Everything revolves around this road. So, all the stores and gas stations, etc, are on this road. So we drove to the bank, and stopped at a couple stores, got our keyboard repaired, and ate lunch at Yang's. I was struck once again, by the animals that are everywhere here. There are dogs running around everywhere I look, and if I stick my hand out the window, I can nearly touch a cow or a cebu sometimes. One time we were coming home from a youth meeting at night, and there was a herd of 5 cows in the middle of the road, 3 of them were sitting down. So, we put on our flashers, and went into the other lane to get around them. This is a normal occurrence here. By the way, the dogs here are pretty ugly, not like the ones back home. And they are not celebrated- you will never see a dog in someone's house here. Yes!

I spent around 3 hours practicing piano today in the church (the church is connected to our house), we got our keyboard fixed, so I can now play without the entire keyboard freaking out and making loud buzzing noises and then shutting off. While I was playing, our housekeeper, Diane, came in and started singing with me- she LOVES music, and loves to sing hymns.

Earlier today, I asked Diane what Guyanese think of a woman marrying a man that is shorter than herself. She screwed up her face and said NO! O BOY, NO! She said here in Guyana, if a woman marries a man shorter than herself, they say "she could eat soup on his head." So I gathered, that that's weird here.

I spent time getting Hemdath's lesson ready today, and reading the bible, we never know when we're going to be asked to speak, and I want to have some study done and ready to go in case. Please pray that I would have wisdom as they want me to teach Access to the faculty at Roadside Skills Training Center. I feel very incapable, I've hardly touched Access since graduation in May, and I need God to help me! Also we had an awesome chance to talk with 2 women from the Corriverton church on New Year's Eve while taking them home, and I am so excited. Their names are Emily and Meena, and they were expressing how difficult it is for them to feel like they can express their sin, and that they feel so unworthy, and like God can't really forgive them. Emily is especially burdened about her soul, and as Pastor John preached on the 2nd coming of Christ that night, she was telling us that she's not really sure where she will go, and that scares her. There is much confusion in the minds of people here, and I think they have a very legalistic view of Christianity- if I go to church, abstain from sex, wear the right clothes, and don't drink alcohol, I will go to heaven. They think that once you are a christian, you live perfectly, and so they feel they will never be a christian because they mess up all the time. Pray that we will continue to have opportunities to share Christ with these women especially and that God will continue to stir their hearts.

So there's another day's experiences in Guyana.