July to September - Crazy Busy

September 16, 2013
We came back from Ramsay and Jenn's wedding and our fun stop in Trinidad to frantically work to get caught up and get PEF participants and our scholarship projects ready for the start of school in September.  Brother Acosta came in July and we met with Mr. Bovell from The Business School to start working on a Humanitarian/Education Project.  We arranged to provide a generator for The Business School in exchange for 21 scholarships.  Our priority was to help our return missionaries complete their Caribbean exams or take other business courses.  Branch Presidents recommended members for the scholarships and then our PEF Country Committee narrowed down the applicants.  We ended up with 16 members who are attending The Business School here in Georgetown, and 5 who are attending in Berbice at the New Amsterdam campus.  It has been a frustrating and rewarding project.  We kept hoping the project would be approved by the Area Presidency, and getting encouragement to keep working on the project.  Then we didn't hear anything for a couple weeks.  We had a meeting with all the recipients.  Mr. Bovell and his secretary came to help the students register.  President Sobers wrote up with  a contract for them to sign.  It was a wonderful meeting with great refreshments.  Everyone was excited.  The project was actually approved by then, but we had not received the news, so we had to temper the excitement with the message that the project was not approved as yet.  When we received the news of the approval we were calling, recipients were calling each other, it was on facebook, etc. etc.  
We have one recipient, Troy Narine, who is 16.  He is from Linden which is a couple hours away from Georgetown.  If you look back on the posts you will see his baptism which was held on the river where his family lives.  He had been a mini missionary here and just received word that he passed three CXC exams, but got 5's in math and English.  A five is not passing.  In order to be a missionary now, you need to complete your secondary education.  So he received a scholarship.  We gave him a ride home from his mini mission and now he is staying outside of Georgetown with a relative.  We hope he will get a job soon, but he has been helping us out so that he could earn some transportation money to get to school.

We didn't dare drive the Noah down the road to the river.

The neighbors on the river making straw brooms from coconut fronds.

Sister Johnson, Elder Beecher, Troy and his family.