Friday, October 2, 2009

Travel Diary - Day Twenty Seven

Day Twenty Seven – Cleaning up
Friday 25 Sep 09
My last day with the Haynes family and with the Sophia mission. We finally visited with the Ethnic Relations Commission and met the man in charge of the whole thing. Very charismatic and very controversial, with a lot of power and a lot of enemies. It was an interesting experience. He described the racial issues in Guyana as a lot like diabetes. His job wasn’t to get rid of it – he saw that as essentially impossible – his job was to attempt to administer the insulin so everything could keep moving along as easily as possible. To be honest, from what I have seen unless God works a miracle this country is in serious trouble. And the church is doing very little to stop that happening – the church is split down racial lines in exactly the same way the rest of society is split. At one level it is actually quite scary because the possible consequences are pretty grim.

Keith and I came back to the house and spent some time talking about issues in the church. In particular I talked with him about personal supervision and finding someone he trusted to hold him accountable and help him work through his roles as a minister, a teacher, a husband, a father. As far as I can tell there is really no concept of professional supervision here, at least in the church, and given the situation in the rest of the country I think it unlikely that anywhere else has it either. I have left him with some notes and contracts and a bit of other paperwork that should help him to some extent. It really needs an enormous amount of work but I don’t know where that is going to come from. I would come back here in a flash, but reality says that ain’t going to happen.

After that I sat down and prepared a proposal for Peter’s church in Boston outlining some background to the Sophia Church, the need for a generator, some costings that Keith and I had gathered up over the last few days, and a conclusion based on my experiences. I included some photos of the church and of the general area and different activities in which the church was engaged. It would be really cool if the church saw its way clear to support the congregation here in this particular way.

We were supposed to have a leaders meeting at 2pm but Keith was called away on Presbytery business and so when Patrick arrived he invited me to visit his home where we sat and talked for a little while. It’s just a little home, room for a bed, a tiny kitchen and attached shower stall and toilet. That was a nice experience. He treated me with two wrapped toffees and then took me out for a cold juice. He has no formal income so I was particularly blessed by the experience.

From there I met Felissa and we went into the market to find a gift for Keith. In the end I bought him a watch and her some small silver earrings. It was nice to find just the right something for each person in the family. I also gave Keith my New Zealand flag, a keyring and what was left of my CWM pocket money - $G10 000, about $NZ70 to go toward the water project for the church. I gave Felissa all the NZ pencils I had brought to use with the Sunday School. I haven’t quite gone through all my NZ supplies, but I don’t have much left.

I spent some time cleaning up my room and packing things back in my bag. I left some for the morning, but I got the worst of it out of the way so the morning would be a little more relaxed.

The rest of the evening passed most pleasantly.

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