We have frozen this blog as a historical, yet informational view at what life is like in the West Indies Mission for all those called to serve. This blog was designed for the families and friends of those missionaries serving in the West Indies Mission from July 2006 to July 2009. Every six weeks, photos taken at zone conference as well as a new slide show including every person baptized were posted on the blog. All of the slide shows are also available on our You Tube channel. The current West Indies Mission blog can be found here. Posts on our missionary experience can be found here and earlier. And finally, if you are a returned missionary who served in the West Indies, there is a current blog for you. Click here or visit westindiesrm@blogspot.com

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Getting to Church



Cars are not plentiful in the West Indies, so getting to church can be a challenge. Of course, this varies by country. I would say that a majority of members have cars in Guadeloupe and Martinique and very few have them in Guyana. The rest of the mission falls somewhere in between.

I have noticed one interesting phenomenon - even during our short three years here - as a branch grows and members commit to pay tithing, the parking lot fills up. Last Sunday we went to the Chaguanas branch and there was nowhere left for us to park in their little lot - and that's a good thing!

Here are a few pictures captured around the mission of members and missionaries on the road to church

Feet work just fine and many members walk a long ways to get to church





Bicycle power speeds up the journey



This sweet great-aunt in Suriname carries her niece to church on her bike every Sunday for many miles.




Missionaries have bikes only in Suriname. In the rest of the mission it's impossible to transport them from country to country.




Add a little motor power - and you can carry a whole family




Many members use taxis - they call them 'maxis' here in Trinidad







You can pack a lot of people into a maxi - or in this case the mission van




And for big events - like district conferences in Guyana - there's always a cane cutter's truck that can hold a whole branch.






Transportation is one of the biggest challenges in this mission.

Sometimes large families just just can't afford taxi fare every week and have to take turns going to church

Sometimes taxis don't run on Sundays

Sometimes it rains (often it rains)

However, that which appears impossible at first, seems to work out as the saints of the West Indies sacrifice and put their faith in the Lord.

3 comments:

Brad Neff said...

Beautiful post. I admire the Saints of the Caribbean as they joyfully keep the Sabbath holy.

Dave and Tauna said...

I love hearing about the people of the West Indies and the sacrifices they make.

Stan & Isabelle said...

I love love love it, what joy that now matter where we are, it is the sabbath, they are truly saints. Thank YOU!