A Week of Preparations

This week and last week have been very slow for us ministry wise. The National Board meeting was cancelled and rescheduled for this week and other than our Good News Club at Fig Tree, not much has happened.

Not that we are complaining. It’s been nice to relax a little before summer comes. Two mission teams have already purchased their tickets, a third is in the planning stages, an intern will be helping us for six weeks and Sean’s family is staying for a month… we know things will be crazy.

Not only will the summer be busy with mission teams doing 5 Day Clubs, but Sean is already getting calls for us to do them by ourselves. I think we will be very thankful to have an intern helping! That would give us three workers (Sean, myself and Nathan our summer intern) to teach the 5 Day Clubs when the mission teams aren’t here.

So, this week Sean is continuing to prepare for the mission teams, scheduling our summer and preparing for a Board training next month. I am busy getting our house ready for Saturday. Sean’s mother, two of his brothers and his sister fly in to visit us for the next month! Maddy is SO EXCITED to see her “Mimi”, “Unkee Micah”, “Unkee Wuke” and “Aunt Heder”. 🙂 Sean and I are excited to see our family and have visitors!

Other than a trip to Nevis tomorrow to deliver curriculum and a (hopeful) board meeting tomorrow evening, not much is happening. Hopefully we will be able to enjoy a calm week before things take off. Next week is already shaping up to be busy.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support!

Are you on instagram? We regularly take pictures about our time here in St. Kitts! Find Sean by searching for his username: seanianmiller and me at: MrsMandiM

Here is a picture we took out of Maddy’s window a few days ago!

Monkeys in our Yard

 

 

A Week of Ministry, Date Night, Bible Study and Holding Monkeys

We were a little worried about how we would adjust back to “normal” life in St. Kitts after our brief trip to Florida. We have been back for a little more than a week but it feels as if we never left! We basically came back and picked up right where we left off… Sean even says it felt like he was home. Obviously this is our home, but living here hasn’t always felt like “home” if you know what I mean. But I think it’s safe to say all three of us have adjusted nicely.

Fig Tree Good News Club

Last Monday Sean had to teach the entire club by himself but this Monday we were able to be more organized. The two locals we are teaching with not only came this Monday but did most of the teaching! It was the first time we had seen them in action and they were superb! They had energy, excitement and almost flawless lessons! It gives us GREAT confidence to see teachers here do such a wonderful job because it’s a glimpse at what could happen all over the island!

Fig Tree Collage

Preparing for Mission Teams

We have two confirmed teams coming this summer, one from Alabama and the other from Seattle! We have started the process to find the right housing for both teams… it’s so fun to look at different places on the island. Sometimes it feels like we are on House Hunters International! We are so excited these teams are coming. We have a lot of ministry planned for them including 5 Day Clubs and some service projects. Mission teams don’t typically come to St. Kitts and Nevis so their work here will make a huge impact.

Bible Studies

Outside of CEF ministry, Sean and I both started back in our Bible studies last week. (They were on break for a few weeks while the new semesters at Ross and the Medical School began). Sean is attending a mens study on Tuesday evenings as they learn about David. The ladies study is on Sunday nights and for the summer semester I will be leading it! We are doing 12 Extraordinary Women by John McArthur and I will be hosting the study at our house every other week. I haven’t led a Bible study in years so I’m nervous and excited all at the same time!

Mother’s Day

We had a fun and low-key Mother’s Day on Sunday. Sean and Maddy had a handmade card waiting for me when I woke up with lots of hugs and kisses and “You’re the best mom in the whole world” sayings from Maddy! In the afternoon the Graysons came over so the girls could play together. Maddy really missed Audri while we were gone! The best part of the day? I got to take a nap… which is probably the best present ever. 😉

Date Night

Sean and I realized we hadn’t been on a date since Valentine’s Day! Going on dates in St. Kitts is a lot more difficult because there really isn’t much to do and dinner is expensive even at the “normal” restaurants. However, the movie theater here is the nicest place on the island! And it’s really cheap too! We decided to go on Tuesday night, which is half price night, and got our tickets, two fountain cokes (haven’t seen fountain drinks ANYWHERE here), an extra large popcorn, a bag of Skittles and a bag of M&M’s for about $24 U.S. dollars! The theater was super clean and I even had to put a sweater on because it was so cold! Even the bathrooms were nice… they had automatic flush toilets and automatic hand dryers! For two hours we literally forgot we were in St. Kitts… it felt just like America! A trip to the movies will be our regular date night from now on!

More Repairs

We made pizza one night this week and heard strange noises coming from the oven while the pizza baked. Luckily we got to it in time, but the oven was trying to catch on fire! The wires were fried and a repairman came to fix it. Apparently, the wires somehow started touching each other and… well… boom. Unfortunately, something is wrong with the gas so now we have to wait for someone else to fix that problem before the repairman can fix the oven.

Coming Up

Sean has been working like crazy to finalize mission team plans, catch up on work from when we were gone, start on summer ministry and get ready for the National Board meeting. Next weekend (the 26th) Sean’s family will be coming to stay with us for a few weeks! We have already scheduled two speaking events at churches for June and then the team from Alabama will be here soon after! It feels like the summer is about to take off and it will be September before we know it!

And just for fun… we went to the port last week to buy gifts for my mother and Maddy found a guy with pet monkeys trying to make a few bucks. She insisted on holding the monkeys for nearly an hour. So we tracked the guy down but of course, when he put the monkeys on her she started screaming. So guess who ended up holding them instead?

Holding Monkeys in St. Kitts

So glad they had diapers on!

That about sums up our week! Thank you so much for your prayers and support!

Also, we got word this week that a dear friend and supporter from Montgomery had a heart attack and passed away today. We are very torn up about this and sad that we cannot be there during this time. Please keep this family (the Kemps) in your prayers. Thank you.

Click Here to view our recent prayer requests.

Our First Trip Back to America… and More Ministry

Well… in the last two weeks we have spent time in St. Kitts, Florida and The Bahamas! We are all experiencing “travel whiplash”. It’s hard to believe last week at this time we were only on day two of the CEF Regional Conference cruise… somewhere between Florida and the Bahamas. And yet, it feels like we’ve been “home” (in St. Kitts) for a while… it’s been two days.

The week before we left St. Kitts was one of the fullest and most stressful weeks yet. I don’t know if we really had more going on than usual or if knowing we would be in America at the end of the week made things feel crazier.

Nevis Informational Meeting

Sean was up early that Saturday morning to catch the ferry to Nevis. They held a very productive informational meeting. Lots of people attended… pastors, teachers, TCE trained workers, volunteers and others who wanted to know more about CEF. From the meeting there will be three schools adopted, Good News Clubs in two different community centers and another in a church! It is so exciting to see people “get it” and feel a burden to reach the children in their community!

On the ferry ride back Sean sat next to a Hindu doctor, in fact they were the only ones on the ferry! She was very interested in what Sean was doing in St. Kitts as a missionary and she had a lot of questions about Christianity. Sean was able to share his faith with her and she seemed very open. Pray for the Lord to continue revealing Himself to her!

Fig Tree Good News Club

So far we’ve had four weeks of Good News Club at Fig Tree! The second week went great! We had about 25 kids show up and we were able to share the teaching with two local TCE graduates! We had to miss the third week because we were in America but Sean was able to teach this week. We flew in on the same day of Good News Club so Maddy and I stayed home (our day started at 5am) thinking there would be two other teachers to help Sean. There are two things in St. Kitts that will cancel events, rain and holidays. If either one is happening you can guarantee nobody will show up to an event. Monday was rainy AND a holiday. However, 19 kids showed up! Unfortunately, the teachers didn’t… Sean had to teach by himself. We will need to get a little more organized in leading this club. 🙂

We Got our Visas!

After trying for two months we finally received our visas the day before we left! Talk about waiting until the last minute! We were not allowed to be here with CEF but were told we need a church to cover us. Thankfully, getting a church to endorse was not an issue. Our visas say we are here with Cayon Church of God but what’s important is that we are here legally for the next two years! When we came back into the country on Monday we went through the “Residents” line, our passports were stamped, no questions were asked and we went through without any issues. It was the smoothest entry we’ve had yet!

Our Trip to America

We left on a Friday afternoon and had a smooth flight into Miami. By the time we made it through passport control, customs and got our rental we were wiped. However, that didn’t stop us from going to the first Chick-Fil-A we could find! It tastes even better when you haven’t had it for so long… trust me.

We spent the weekend in Ft. Pierce, Florida… we ate a lot of food we can’t get in St. Kitts… in fact we ate Mexican food three times! (You can’t even find tacos in St. Kitts!) And of course McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks. We went to Target, the Mall and Publix! It was amazing! And so clean! The Pennell’s made us dinner one night and we got to stay in their sister’s condo! Maddy enjoyed watching Nick Jr (we don’t have it here) and we enjoyed the central air conditioning! It was such a blessing to stay there!

CEF Regional Conference

The next Monday we drove to Cape Canaveral, Florida and boarded the Monarch of the Seas (Royal Caribbean) to attend the CEF Regional Conference. A cruise may seem a little extravagant but it’s was actually cheaper than having the conference at a center in the States somewhere. We were able to meet and spend time with missionaries all over the Caribbean… national workers AND people like us! It was refreshing! Being on an island can make us feel isolated sometimes, so it was encouraging to spend time with others who are working in the region, hearing about their ministries and just relating to each other’s hardships.

Monarch of the Seas Royal Caribbean

It was a four night cruise with only two stops, one in Nassau, Bahamas and the other in Cocoa Cay, Bahamas. In Nassau we split up into groups and went to different primary schools to teach mini Good News Clubs! Nassau reminded us of St. Kitts just on a much bigger scale. (They have over 250,000 people). Because we were doing ministry in Nassau we didn’t get a chance to see much of the city but CEF of the Bahamas did make us a fabulous lunch full of local food including conch fritters! One thing Nassau has that St. Kitts doesn’t is a Starbucks which we of course, stopped at before getting back on the ship. 🙂

Classrom in Nassau

Sean Teaching in Nassau

Cocoa Cay was our beach day… it is Royal Caribbean’s private island. It was gorgeous… white sand, crystal clear water, cool breezes. But to be honest, Sean and I left thinking St. Kitts was way better. To us, the sand was too “rocky” and hurt our feet, there were so many people in the water that the sand was all churned up so you couldn’t see anything and the water was C-O-L-D! It was nice, but I think we are a little spoiled when it comes to nice beaches!

In Cocoa Cay with our Sunglasses

Maddy Just Relaxing

The conference and cruise was wonderful… the food was great too! Sean ate steak every night because we don’t really have beef in St. Kitts! Maddy enjoyed eating ice cream every night! But our favorite part was being with our CEF Caribbean family.

Back to St. Kitts

We returned from the conference on Friday and headed back to the condo. We rested and went for ice cream with Marshall and Kim Pennell. We spent the weekend stocking up on things for St. Kitts, eating more of the food we have missed and hanging out with our friends. We were up at 5am Monday morning and driving off by 6am for Miami.

Sean was ready to get back, Maddy was excited to ride on an “AA” plane (that’s what she calls American Airlines… she gets a lot of giggles from people) and I wanted to stay! I mean, I was ready to get back because I know this is what the Lord has for us, and I like being here, but I had forgotten how much I love life in America. I think our trip, as good as it was, made me a little more homesick. But it was worth it.

What We Are Doing Now

Sean is doing a lot of work on the computer, expense reports, support raising, emailing… “glamorous” missionary work… but it has to be done. We are starting the process of finding a place for mission teams to stay… our first team will be here in just two months! And Sunday our Ladies Bible Study starts again. We will be doing 12 Extraordinary Women by John McArthur and I’m leading it! Most of the time we will be getting ready for the summer and the 5 Day Club ministry!

So that about sums up the last two weeks for us!

Easter, Spiritual Warfare and Our Good News Club

It has been just under three months since we moved to St. Kitts and the last two weeks were the craziest yet.

Easter

Easter was the first big holiday we spent without our family and friends… and away from our church home. We really enjoy working in St. Kitts but holidays seem to make us homesick. Regardless, we still had a wonderful weekend celebrating the Death and Resurrection of our Lord with our new friends and church here. On Good Friday the church we attend hosted a service at the beach. We sang a few songs and two of our new friends were baptized! Maddy calls it “bathtized”. 🙂

On Easter we went to Caribbean Christian Fellowship and had our missionary friends, the Graysons and Joneses, over for lunch. Although we couldn’t find any ham, we were still able to have all the normal Easter lunch dishes!

We also took Maddy’s Easter pictures at the beach! We think they turned out amazing!

Maddy Easter in St. Kitts

Sean was invited to give the Bible Lesson at an Easter rally in Sandy Point to over 300 kids! He was supposed to speak at 3:30 but didn’t even start until 5:30. Then, during his lesson a parade drove by and got the kids severely distracted. When he was finally done, he was barely out of Sandy Point before he got behind the same parade! There is only one main road around the island so it took him an hour and a half to get home! It’s an Easter we won’t soon forget!

On The Radio and Television

Last Saturday we had an informational meeting for all of St. Kitts. To get the word out, the Board set up Sean with a radio interview and an interview on their local news. Sean has been on television before but never in a formal interview! Maddy and I made sure we watched… I thought he did a great job but Maddy kept saying he was silly. I guess it was strange for her to see her Daddy on TV!

Sean's TV Interview

The event wasn’t as big as we had hoped but those who did turn out were all very serious about starting Good News Clubs. We were hoping to have four schools adopted from the meeting and it seems we will have five! So even though the attendance was low… the meeting was still a huge success!

Fig Tree Good News Club

Monday evening began the first Good News Club Sean and I are teaching in Fig Tree. We are partnering with two other TCE graduates for this club. Fig Tree is a small village outside of Sandy Point. The Graysons and Joneses have a Bible Study there on Monday nights and many people are attending regularly. While they are teaching the adults, we are now teaching the children!

This Club has brought some definite spiritual attacks. In the three weeks of planning, one of the teacher’s daughters became so ill she had to be hospitalized for a few days, the other teacher’s daughter randomly fell off the bus and had to be hopsitalized (both girls are doing fine by the way) and Sean, Maddy and I all got the flu… the worst flu I’ve ever had, and I usually catch it every year. (Plus, Maddy and I got head lice too). Mavis, one of the teachers, said ever since we decided to have the club it’s been one thing after another… big things… and she knows exactly why. In her words, “God is reviving Fig Tree and satan doesn’t like it”.

She’s right. The adult Bible Study is very popular and the Good News Club may prove to be the same. We were planning for 15 kids on Monday evening and ended up with 29!  We have never really been part of something like this and it’s exciting to see what God is doing!

It’s also Maddy’s first club to be part of on a regular basis… and she really seems to enjoy it!

Fig Tree Good News Club

Kids at the Fig Tree Good News Club

Sean Teaching at Fig Tree Good News Club

Maddy Doing Verse Motions

All Listening at Good News Club

Coming Up

This Saturday Sean will be going to Nevis for their informational meeting and to observe an Easter Party Club. We are praying for not only more Good News Clubs in Nevis but some additional board members as well.

On Sunday Sean is teaching at a church in Basseterre and next Friday we fly back to the States for the CEF Regional Conference! We will be gone nine days and unfortunately won’t have time to see any family. But we are excited just to be back in our own country! I think Maddy is most excited about Chick-Fil-A!

Prayer Requests

We are still recovering from the Flu… well, actually just me really. I went to the doctor and am on a few different prescriptions because I have a sinus infection from my flu. So please pray for us all to be healthy.

Please pray about our visas. We still don’t have them and we need them before we leave next Friday. Otherwise, getting back into the country may be a hairy issue.

Pray for everyone involved in the Fig Tree Good News Club.

Thank you so much for your partnership with us! We are so grateful for everyone who prays for us, supports us and encourages us!

Pig Snout and Hitchhiking

There is so much to post about, that Mandi and I have planned to split this post in half, first half today and then second half later this week. I don’t write posts often but wanted to fully document the weekend before last.

Fig Tree

As you may remember from the previous blog post, Mandi and I will be starting a Good News Club in Fig Tree April 16. I had the privilege of visiting Fig Tree on Saturday March 31 to meet people in that village. I also helped clear brush out of the back of the church area, as the goal is for that space to be used by everyone in the village as a common gathering place. This visit reinforced the burden to begin a Good News Club there, and I was able to meet children from the Fig Tree Village.

 Steven and Terone

These are my new friends Terone and Steven! They both had a toy called a “zoom-zoom” which is a string and a flattened bottlecap. It turns into a yo yo of sorts!

 Sean and Terone

Terone and I, he helped clear the back area!

This whole day was such a different St. Kitts experience. Fig Tree is near Sandy Point, which is about a 30 minute drive away from our house. Fig Tree is a small village, and I found out while we were cleaning the brush away that some of the locals are very scared of frogs! Everyone was backing away and pointing at the frog but I simply picked it up and threw it over the fence, to the surprise of the locals! As I talked with Mavis, the TCE graduate who helps coordinate the cleaning and ministry in Fig Tree, she said the locals are scared of “secretions that the frogs will spit on you, that will make you very sick”.

 Fig Tree

View from the church in Fig Tree, wherever you are in St. Kitts the Caribbean is beautiful!

They also served traditional “cook-up” for me, which is filled with a variety of different things (rice, beans, etc..), specifically pig snout and pig tail!

 Preaching in Nevis

That afternoon I called the pastor of a church I was to speak at the next morning. I found out then, at 4pm, I was actually speaking at a church in Nevis, and I was to preach the sermon! I quickly had to figure out ferry times that would work, and prepare a sermon!

All of Sunday was a testimony to God’s sovereignty and His sense of humor as well. I took the 9:30 ferry and decided at the last minute NOT to take the van across, but to simply ride the ferry by myself. The pastor said someone was to meet me at the port, so I assumed I would ride with them.

I was expecting at some point to pay the ferry fee but the man who was taking the manifest told me “you look like a preacher, are you preaching today?” Which was funny to me, I simply had a suit on and my Bible, but no tie. I said yes I was preaching today so he let me ride for free, but he told me “you pray for me this morning, will you pray for me?” I said I would be glad to, and he said “when you come back on the ferry, I want to talk to you”.

Hitchhiking!

I got off the ferry, and met the man who was to take me to the church. We began walking away, passed the cars and to the main road. I wondered what we were doing and he said his car was in the shop and we were going to “catch a ride” to the church. After about 5-10 minutes of attempting to flag down a car, a taxi bus came by, and he asked him to be a Good Samaritan to take us to the church, and the taxi man said “40EC”. The man said, “that is too much, we will wait on a nicer taximan”. So now we were “late” for service (which that word doesn’t seem to exist down here). Thankfully the Lord sent a church family in a tiny SUV, and we somehow squeezed all in there and drove to the church.

After church was over there were only two cars in the parking lot but everyone was still there! How were we all in the church going to get home? Easy, 30-40 people, including children, pile in the church bus! The church bus took us to a restaurant, and the pastor, the pastor’s daughter, and the man who hitchhiked with me ate a great local lunch. It was almost time for me to catch the ferry back to St. Kitts but we could not leave yet, because a church member brought me a papaya as a gift for preaching. When the church member arrived I only had 15 minutes to spare before the ferry would leave. However, we had to hitchhike back to the port! We walk about 1/2 mile down the road to get to the main road to try and “catch a ride” again! Now there were four of us trying to get a ride so no one wanted to stop. After about 5-10 minutes, a car picked up the pastor and the pastor’s daughter, but me and Mr. Browne were still trying to hitch a ride the 3-4 miles back to the ferry terminal. We start walking down the road (which imagine with me two dressed up guys walking down the road and I am carrying my suit jacket, Bible, Coca-Cola, and a papaya), and a kind Indian family picked us up and took us to the ferry terminal. It was well past the time the ferry was supposed to leave at this point, but thankfully the ferry was VERY late too, and I was able to get on.

Finally Going Back

Part of me was thinking “man I really should have taken the van!”, but when I saw that the ferry was 100% full, I saw God’s grace that it was good it was just me! I met up with the man on the ferry, Denzil* (name changed), and had a great conversation with him, he opened up to me, sharing what was on his heart, and I prayed for him right then and there on the boat. He was so appreciative, and I hope the Lord continues to work in his heart.

God is good! All the time! Thank you for your prayers and support as we serve Him!