February 10, 2002

Wow, what a day!
We had such a fantastic day that we are ready to hit the pavement so to speak. Of course there is no pavement here so we will have to modify that a bit.
The beautiful beach was secluded and we had it all to ourselves. The water was warm and the color was breath taking beautiful. Three diving boats brought us to Michael's rock. Pastor Bugbee preformed the baptism after saying some encourageing words about the spiritual growth he was able to witness in Michael.
Ashley, Elise and Nancy sang “ Our God is an Awesome God” which is a favorite of Mikes, then his favorite scripture was read, Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose”. Then Michael Young was officially welcomed into the Berkshire Hills church by its members. It was a glorious day in deed.
Our group then proceeded with scuba diving, snorkeling, swimming and just plain resting. The diving was a thrill for all that did participated. And the snorklers really have some fantastic stories and memories to take home. Matt, Tredon, Max, Nick, John, Jenna and Todd, swam completely around the coral reef at Michaels Rock and came up on the beach on the other side! Almost everyone on our trip tried the snorkeling for at least a few minutes. A list of the sea inhabitants that were spotted will be posted at the end of this letter. After a picnic lunch, some of our group climbed high up into the mountains where there were magnificent waterfalls. There were a total of 5 falls and Todd, Max; Matt, Nick and Mark went up 4 of them. Here are a few statements from our youth that you will be interested in. Rachel said the sun here is excruciatingly hot. Oh, did I tell you that most of us are various shades of crimson red? Rachel put on 3 layers of sun block and still got burned. Jenna and Treden screamed at each other under water each time they spotted a new creature. Matt thinks the waterfalls are cool! Everyone loved the waterfalls that went on the hike.

Jordan Wagner just brought a little creature into my room for me to admire. It was nothing less than a 4-inch beetle. That was just his body size the legs were longer. One of the local people told us this wasn't a large one either. Oh he was a cute little thing! I asked Jordan to bring it to Eric to get a digital picture of it; we could put it on our web site to entice more people to come on these trips.

For those of you trying to figure out how the island areas are set up, here it is, Mangrove Bight, which is where we are staying, then one mile and a quarter is the EEC project, continue on a mile and a half and you will be in Savannah Bight, continue on and you will get to the East End. It took an hour to drive the 3-miles from Mangrove Bight to Savannah bight on Sabbath, which tells you how bad the road is.

Ok, now hold onto your seat, I am about to describe the day that our special construction crew had! Are you holding on? With the group I mentioned last night and aided by 5 local men, our team put up 761 blocks! That is phenomenal for that few people to be able to do. I certainly hope you are clapping for them because when it was announced tonight at meeting time, we all sent up a very hardy applause. In fact Bob Young was so impressed that he thought it might be wiser for the rest of us to go back to Michael's rock and leave the rest to this small team.
Brian said the back wall is now 17 blocks high and that out of the 7,650 he estimated they would need to lay, that we have put up 3,015 of them. You would just have to see this building yourself in order to appreciate the size of it. It just dwarfs everything on this little island. Dave Thompson had made a scaled to size replica of the duplex houses we built last year, then he built to scale, his own house, which was considerably larger, then he built to scale the EEC building, and you could of put 8 of his house in it.
Everyone worked so well together today. Paul Freed was wheel barrel man, delivering loads of mortar, Fred Nudd was busy grouting and Brian and several others were laying the block. Several others were back up people, making sure everything was moving and getting brought to the rest. Now that we are up so high the progress will slow down, as we have to climb scaffolding to pull up the blocks. Today they worked several hours past the usual time. These are faithful people. I am so proud to know and be part of them.

I pray that your day was as much of a blessing as ours was. Remember to P.U.S.H. (pray until something happens)
We miss you all very much. Please keep those e-mails coming to us, even though we cannot reply we are so greatly appreciative of the support, love and encouragement in your mail, so keep them coming. berkshiremission@aol.com <mailto:berkshiremission@aol.com>

A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. John 13:34,35

Smiling in Guanaja,

Jennifer young

. Star-fish, green eel, needle nose fish, jelly fish, blue & yellow fish, yellow tailed damselfish, sea urchin, purple fan coral, sting-ray, barracuda, sea snake, yellow kad wrass, hogfish, dusky squirrel fish, yellow tailed snapper, triggerfish, jackfish, cleaning goby, sea turtle and eggs, basslet, tobacco fish, beta fish, grunts, butterfly fish, angel fish, purple reef fish, parrot fish, urchin, bush coral, tree coral, smooth coral and brain corals.