Ministry Trip to Guadeloupe

The ministry trip to Guadeloupe was awesome. The Lord moved mightily among His people. The brothers and sisters were very kind and warm. Thank you so much for all your prayers, blessings and well wishes.

We were at Miracle Temple Baptist Church in Gosier:

My hubby rocked the French while he was preaching which was quite surprising to me because he's never been to Guadeloupe or had much experience with French countries.  It just confirmed to me that when someone yields themselves completely to the Holy Spirit, God will give utterance.  He also spoke a bit of the Haitian creole and the Dominican creole as well.

We had a funny incident that makes me laugh each time I think about it:  Hubby preached on Friday and Saturday night with no interpreter(like I said rocking the language) but on Sunday morning the pastor interpreted for him and on Sunday night one of the sisters interpreted for him as well.  So the joke is at different points in my hubby's message both in the morning and in the evening, he completely left the interpreters behind and started to speak in French.  Each time it happened we in the congregation burst out laughing.  Maybe the process of speaking English and then waiting for the interpreter was a bit too slow for him at times so he just spontaneously burst out in French.  Who knows? It just added to the whole great atmosphere.

The Lord's protection was definitely present. Thanks to all who prayed. I mention that specifically because there was a two day strike while we were there and nothing grave happened. The last time the people of Guadeloupe had a strike a few months ago the island was just about shut down for 44 days. Over 5000 lost their jobs and many businesses went out of business. There were fires and fighting and such. In fact we found that quite a few people left the island when the strike started this time for fear that the same thing would happen. But all praises be to the Almighty God whose hand is upon us nothing grave happened. Alleluia!

View of Guadeloupe's coastline from the boat:

Hubby and I on the boat:

I found Guadeloupe to be a nice place just too much graffiti on the buildings. Everywhere we went there was graffiti, even on some of the newer apartment buildings.

For an island that is small the network of highways surprised me.  It was explained to me that Guadeloupe is very flat and so that made it possible.  It reminded me of St. Thomas and the States.

We spent a night and most of the next day with my one of my hubby's sisters and her kids who live in Guadeloupe. We spent another night at a sister from Dominica's home and had lunch with her as well.  We had breakfast on one of the days at a newfound cousin of my hubby's dad. I never realized that there we had that many connections on Guadeloupe. One of the ladies that my hubby led to Christ here in Dominica lives and sells in Guadeloupe as well.

One of the highlights for me was the Carrefour mall in Destrehan.   It had been over 6yrs since I had been in a major mall.  It was amazing.  Escalators, elevators, stores galore inside and outside, courtyard, two story parking.  Brought back memories of when we lived in the States.  Of course hubby and I had to get into a car that was on display.

All in all it was a wonderful trip. We stayed a bit longer than the week and got to go to Pointe a Pitre on the Thursday before we left. We also had a grand time of fellowship and prayer with the pastor, a couple of sisters and our hosts on that final night.

Hubby just coming off the boat in Dominica:

We received many gifts while there and had the opportunity to seek out bargains. Overall the cost of living there is expensive but we found a few items that we couldn't find here in Dominica at a reasonable cost and found some items that were less expensive than in Dominica like olive oil.

Here's a pic of some of our blessings, please excuse the mess on the dining table in the background:

I'm not sure if you can see it but we taped the mouths of the bottles to prevent spillage on the clothes in the luggage.  With all the precaution though one of them did leak but praise God it was a bottle of dish-washing liquid so no harm done to the clothes.

We ate healthy while we were there.  After having to explain that we don't eat meat or dairy products we were fine.  We ate a salad at almost every meal and had fish throughout.

 
The only compromise that had to be made was a few instances of white bread because we did not want to offend some of those who we visited and that was all they had to serve us to accompany the rest of the meal.  We did eat quite a bit of wholewheat so it was not a total loss.  Given the relative excellence of our overall diet this short compromise which did not happen everyday is no big deal in the grand scheme of things.
 
I wish I had more pictures especially of the services but I only got use of the camera the last couple days of our trip.  This trip was really a blessing and hubby brought to my attention that God gave me a trip for my birthday which was the day after we arrived(Saturday Nov. 28).

Thanks again to all those who partnered with us in prayer.