Christmas in Jamaica 2010

Twas the week before Christmas and what a busy week. On Monday we attended a funeral for one of our recent converts, Clarence McDowe. He is the one I talked about in an earlier post that wrote the song, "I Want To Walk The Walk Jesus walked". Clarence and his wife Tommie were baptised the first part of September. He had been battling lung cancer and had seemed to be getting better when he started having head aches. They continued to come more frequent and more severe. Having a very limited income, he put off going to the doctor until the pain became unbearable. By the time he got in to see a specialist in Kingston, the previous cancer he had spread into the brain. Clarence was one of the most wonderful people we have ever met. I'm sure he is walking the walk Jesus walked. The funeral was held at the Salvation Army Church. It was a church his family chose because of convenience, and it was the church he and his wife belonged to before he was baptised. It was also located right by where they live. The service lasted three hours. It was really quite an experience. Elder Sorensen and I were the only branch members and white people in attendance. After the service he was buried on his property right behind the church next to his daughter who had passed away a year previous also of some kind of cancer. This is not uncommon here in Jamaica to bury your loved ones on your property if you live out in the country. Here is a picture where Clarence was buried next to his daughter.



On Tuesday we went to Falmouth to visit the inactive members there. We pick up Brother Lawrence to go visiting with us. He is kind of like our body gaurd. We can go places with him we wouldn't dare go alone. We usually take him to Jucci Patti to have lunch before we go visiting. On Tuesday he said that his kids were all out of school for Christmas break and had all wanted to come with him to have lunch. He has several children and thought it would be too much to ask us to get lunch for all of them, instead he was wondering if we could use the money we would have spent for lunch and buy some sodas and snacks for the kids. We asked him how many children and he said that he had four at home and maybe there would be a few neighbor children. So we picked up the sodas and snacks and headed to Brother Lawrence's very humble dwelling. When we arrived, there were several children to meet us. Brother Lawrence's four and every child in the neighborhood and they just kept coming. I thought there was no way we would have enough for everyone of them. It was kind of like the parable of the bread and fishes. There was enough for everyone and they just loved it. Elder Sorensen offered a prayer and blessing on the snacks. When he finished they said Haleluja Lord and amen. We sang Christmas carols and they answered questions about the birth of the Savior. It made this Christmas one of the best ever, because they were so grateful for something so small. I don't know how we all fit in the house either. See below.




Friday morning we drove to Kingston to celebrate Christmas with all the Missionaries on the
island. We left at 5:30 and arrived there around 10:00 AM. We took the two missionaries that are serving here in MoBay with us. We had lunch, a program with skits from each zone, a couple of movies, and a wonderful talk on the birth of the Savior from our mission president, President Hendricks. The missionaries all received the gifts that had been sent by their families to take home and open on Christmas. We left to come home about 4:00 PM. It was about 8:30 when we arrived home. What a long day.





On Christmas day we had dinner at our house for the missionaries and a couple of the members that didn't have any family to celebrate Christmas with. The missionaries were able to skype their families and of course we were able to talk or skype all our children and grandchildren. In Jamaica Christmas is all about food and family. So I guess we celebrated it in style.