Mortgage Burning

This has been another great day!! The service this morning was very special in three different ways: 1) a baby dedication 2) the Church Mortgage Burning and 3) the new Cross Dedication. Here are some pictures of the Church Mortgage Burning Ceremony.

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The man on the left is our Church Treasurer who was reading

Dennis and the former Pastor reading together

When Dennis went to light this paper the lighter wouldn't work at first. It was funny!

Finally, the Mortgage papers burning!!

Our treasurer expressing the load that is lifted off of him knowing the $400,000 that was borrowed to build the new Church four years ago after Hurricane Ivan went through is so relieved not to have that concern anymore!!! What a very, very happy moment for everyone!!

Dedication Of The New Cross

Do you remember from one of the posts last Sunday that I mentioned the new Cross in the Sanctuary? Well, this morning they a had dedication service for it. The man third from the right crafted the Cross himself. It was dedicated in loving memory of their father and in honor of their mother. The five men and lady on the left end are brothers and sister. All of them but one live here on the Island. The other one was here visiting because their mother who in a nursing home and has Alhemizer's celebrated her birthday yesterday. So, it was appropriate to do this ceremony while they were all here together! Dennis and the former Pastor performing the ceremony
Part of the liturgy

The beautiful Cross

"Aunt Julia"

This past Monday, this dear saint affectionately known to so many here as Miss/Aunt Julia, celebrated her 101st birthday. She is a member of our Church and attends whenever possible!! She is quite spry for her age and gets around so good. Might I add that her mind is amazing and maybe better than mind :o) On Friday night, the locals had a Gospel Concert here at our Church. The Blackwood Brothers and the Chuck Wagon Gang were asked to come, but for some unforeseen reason it didn't work out. So, they decided to go ahead with the concert and several locals performed instead to celebrate the long life of "Aunt Julia". She is simply just amazing!! Someone told me that she plays her drum, the washboard and spoons. I said I wish she would play them at the concert. Soon after the concert started I heard this little beat of her drum!! It brought tears to my eyes to see her playing it. I was going to take my camera but didn't think I would use it. Was I ever mistaken!!!! I kept saying to Dennis about running to the house to get it but again didn't! The concert went for about 2 hours. Near the end they took a chair up to the front of the Sanctuary and helped Aunt Julia up to it. She sat down with her drum and a niece or great niece was at the piano to accompany her while she sang. Once she started singing she didn't want to stop! It was so cute!! Well, I was so happy when this morning her niece (great niece) brought her out to the service! So, after Church I saw Dennis talking to her and I went over to say "hi". Dennis introduced me to her. What an honor to shake her hand. The three of us talked for a little then I asked her if I could take her picture. Here she is in all of her radiant beauty with Dennis. After I took the picture she looked at me and said, "Now don't get jealous!" I got so tickled and we all laughed and laughed!! I just had to share about "Aunt Julia"! Unfortunately, she blinked when I snapped the picture but it still turned out good!!

My First Piece Of Furniture Bought In Grand Cayman

When we came to interview in November, Dennis & I had talked about some changes that we would make in the house (aka the parsonage ~ Manse here in Cayman). One of those changes were that we definitely needed to do something in the living room since there was quite a bit of empty space. We've been looking around at different stores for some furniture but the prices are well a little more pricey than I'm used to in the States. On Friday afternoon, we decided to go out and see if we could find anything that wasn't totally out of sight price wise and yet something we liked. We really wanted to get a bigger bookcase or two smaller ones. Well, in the "looking" process Dennis found this beautiful case. So, I decided to take my Precious Moment figurines out of my china cabinet and put them in here instead. I think it turned out really nice. We ordered end tables and a coffee table to replace the one's that are here and we're hoping the new one's will match the case. But they won't arrive for at least three weeks!! So, in the meantime I'm enjoying this!!

I took this one this morning before going to Church

A Note On Texting

My big brother sent this to me & I just had to share!!

Beautiful, Beautiful Night

It looks like it may be Full Moon tonight!! And it's only 79 degrees out there at midnight!!

Come on down!!!

Look What I Found Today

A big coconut! I was walking to the cafeteria and looked over at a big, tall palm tree. I had noticed there were lots of coconuts hanging up at the top of the tree for some time! Well, this morning I was so excited when I saw one had fallen. I didn't take the time to walk over to get it, so this afternoon when I was walking to one of the class rooms I saw it laying by the sidewalk. Apparently the children saw it when they were out for recess and were kicking it around. I was talking to a native Caymanian about it and she said it is too ripe to eat the coconut meat. What they would do with this is break it open with a machete, take out the coconut meat and squeeze it to get the juice out of it and then use that to make a cake. Too much work :o))

Our National Heroes Day

This past Monday was a National holiday here on Cayman Islands. It was "National Heroes Day ~ Honouring Our Christian Heritage!" But on our way to the celebration/ceremony in downtown Georgetown, I, of course spotted the lone cruise ship that was in harbor. These mammoth ships just mesmerize me!! The huge banner on the side of a building! We sat under a tent/canopy and were a distance away from the main stage thus the poles, etc. in the picture.
I zoomed in on the cruise ship when I looked and saw it peering in on the celebration :o)

This was part of the Children's Choir which sang. There were several schools represented as well as ours!

The color guard which were the Detachment of the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service

A Detachment of the Fire Service ~ aka the firefighters

A Detachment of the Prison Service

A Detachment of the Cadet Corps

The new Governor from England inspecting those who were in the parade

The Governor approaching the main stage

Mr. Rudy Myles singing the National Anthem

"God save our gracious Queen,

Long live our noble Queen,

God save the Queen:

Send her victorious,

Happy and glorious,

Long to reign over us:
God save the Queen."

The Children's Choir singing "The National Song". It's too long to put on here now.

Our GREAT Honorable Premier, Mr. W. McKeeva Bush, OBE, JP, Hon. MSc.

The Prison Service again marching

Not sure which group this is. Look at the palm trees how they wrap them. They were beautiful!

The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service

The Detachment of the Fire Service

There were several Scout groups there and also Cadet Corps. Again, not sure who these are.

Honourable Deputy Premier, Ms. Juliana O'Connor-Connolly, JP. She's the Premier's Assistant!
"His Excellency the Governor, Mr. Duncan Taylor, CBE" giving his speech.

They had a huge Mass Choir that comprised of a lot of the local Churches. We had several from our Church who joined in the singing. The two songs they sang were "A Mighty Fortress" and "The Church's One Foundation." Near the end they sang a medley of choruses. It's just amazing to now live in country were they openly and publicly speak about God and even say His Name and pray in His Name!!!

Our beautiful Caymanian flag flying in the breeze!!

The man between the Premier and Governor whose name is Ed is from our Church. He was honored for his Christian leadership and civic duties. He helped found Cayman Youth for Christ and has served as Executive Director for 27 years!!

The lady in the pink color suit is the Premier's wife, Kerry. She was laying a wreath at one of the statues there at Heroes Square.

For some reason, I can't get this picture to move down. After we came home from the National Heroes Day Celebration we had a houseful of company for dinner. The gentleman a the end of the table is our good friend, Rev. Christi, who flew in from Antigua for Dennis' Installation Service on Sunday, on the right next to him are our wonderful friends The Case's. And, yes, he is a case!!! It was her birthday that's why we had a big dinner. Next to them is their daughter~in~law and son, then Dennis who looks like he's about to fall out of his chair (haha!). On the other side of the table are the Case's grandson and granddaughter. Last is Rev. Case's sister and her husband. We had a great evening together!!

A Very Exciting Sunday

Wow!! What an exciting day we had on Sunday!!! I wanted to post this before now, but I've been soooooooooooo busy. Our service started at 10:00 am and when we got home afterward it was almost 1:00 pm!! BUT the time went very swiftly. The service was awesome!! It was so great that they had an Installation Service for Dennis coming in here as the new Pastor.

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This is the former Pastor that retired after ministering here for 16 or 17 years. He & his wife have been our right hand! What a big help they've been to us. They are wonderful people & we wish they could retire here in Cayman instead of the States :o)) They'll be leaving here February 17th & we'll sure be sad to see them leave!

This is McKeeva, our wonderful leader & Premier of Cayman, leading the singing Sunday Morning.
This is Rev. Christi from Antigua. All I can say about this man is that he is a true gentleman!! He arrived here at our home Saturday morning and stayed until early (5:00 am) Tuesday morning when he flew to Jamaica & then on to Antigua. He is the Superintendent of the Caribbean Wesleyan Holiness Churches and made the trip to do the Installation Service. He was one of the easiest people to have in our home and to entertain. It sure was our honor to have him visit with us. He has a real sense of humor and also told us some very interesting stories of his growing up in Barbados and of how he's traveled pretty much all over the world! He is one of 14 children. Oh, my! We can't wait until he can come back to spend more time with us.

I didn't know if I was going to have to go up front with Dennis or not, so when he called me to go join Dennis, I went across the aisle and asked a man to take some pictures for me. He did very well, I think! So, the following are from the Installation Ceremony.

Our friend, Bro. Garfield, sharing some remarks.

The next three pictures are the choir singing. This was the first they sang since we came! They did really good!!

Dennis at the end of the service!

The Cross in some of the above pictures was just installed this past Saturday. A man whose parents attended the Church years ago made the Cross. The glass was shipped in three times and was broken each time. Finally, it arrived unbroken and they were able to put it up. It took some of the men several hours to do all the work!! I'm going to try to get some better pictures of it in the next couple of days so you can see it better. They're having a special dedication service for the Cross this Sunday!

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Now let's move on to our visit to the Premier's home for Sunday dinner. After the service was over he came up to Dennis and the other men who were going to be at his home and told them not to wear ties or suit jackets as he likes to relax after Church on Sunday's. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures. He doesn't live in a Presidential type home. He could but from what I understand he wants to live among the people here in West Bay. They are very, very common people and nothing about them is uppity!! We had ham, Caymanian made fish, a beef dish that was yummy, a salad, squash or pumpkin (not sure which), carrots and rice. Everything I tried was very, very good!! For dessert they had a fresh fruit salad and another salad with macaroni in it. BUT it was sweet with a brown sugar or carmel type dressing and meringue on the top. They, too were very good! We visited around the dinner table for quite awhile and then came home to rest after a very busy day. In the evening service, our guest Rev. Christi shared. All in all, we had a very exciting and great day on Sunday!!