St. Cuthbert's Mission with the Carters

January 4, 2014

St. Cuthbert's is an Amerindian Village somewhere between the Lindon Highway and Mahaicony on the East Coast of Guyana.  They have a big celebration there on an Amerindian holiday.  We missed that celebration with dancing, crafts, and food, but it was still an interesting place to visit.  We had talked about the fun time we had going there with Elder and Sister Bird, so Elder and Sister Carter invited us to make the trip with them.  There is barely a road to get there.  It is more like a wide trail.  On the fourth of January, during the rainy season, there were patches of the road covered with deep water.  Once we got going we decided to keep going because there was as much water behind us as ahead of us.
This was a momentous trip because we saw a black jaguar.  It quickly crossed the trail ahead of us and disappeared into the tall grass.
We had a fun time with Elder and Sister Carter and stocked up on hand woven grass baskets and crafts.

The water came 4 or 5 inches up on the bottom of the doors.  We prayed for dry weather for trip back out from the village!

Sister Beecher, three Amerindian Craft ladies, Sister Carter and Elder Carter

Beautiful orchids

The actual road is under water. We drove along side of the road for a short distance.

Elder and Sister Carter

Public Affairs Opportunities

January and February 2014
We made so many wonderful friends in the community.  We celebrated with them the good times and sad times. 
One of our friends is Cynthia Massey, director of the Ptolemy Reid Center for the Disabled.  We also loved her associate there, Mrs. Simmons, who loves to sing in a local choir.  They distribute many wheelchairs for the Church.  At Cynthia's facility, she has a boarding school for some of the students, and other students who just come there for school.  They had just completed a new building for classrooms for older students.  They even had a band room.  They have two men, Dewayne, and Dave, who make prosthetics and another fellow who makes hearing aids.  Cynthia is really an amazing woman.  We visited one day when they were having a Christmas Party and Santa was there giving gifts to at least 200 children and others.  On this day, we were there to represent the Church, for the dedication of the wonderful new school building

The Minister of Education

Students Performing

The head teacher

President Ramotar - President of Guyana

Cynthia Massey

January19th a nun unexpectedly died and a few days later we went to the funeral of Sister Mary Joselta M.C.  She was young, only about 47.  She was the best friend and assistant of Sister Leonice who is the Mother Superior of the 5 nuns who live at the Nunnery.  These two nuns worked together to build the care facility for the 20 elderly  ladies they took care of. They ran a dat care for about 40 young children and had an herb garden. They also had a day care center and were working on establishing a soup kitchen.  They did an amazing work.  We loved Sister Leonice, and went to the funeral to represent the Church and to give her support.  We had a few good friends in the congregation.  The funeral was very sweet.  At one point they sang a song about friends and everyone was shaking hands with those around them.   We were really impressed with the wonderful spirit.