Slightly Pale Green Thumb...

We have always tried to have a garden where ever we have lived.  Only 1 has ever turned out and given us a bounty of vegetables.  That was in Canada where the soil was rich and filled with huge night crawlers!

So when we arrived in St. Barths, it was natural for us to try another vegetable garden, especially when the prices of food is soooooo expensive here.  Our first garden that we tried (cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes) all died.  Yes, shriveled, wilted, and just plain died. 

So we tried again.  We bought bagged dirt because the soil here is hard as a rock, filled with rocks and resembles rocks.  We tilled the soil, used containers and even added fertilizer.  Wow, the plants took off !  We finally had a garden that seemed unstoppable! 

Then the iguana showed up and ate most of our tomatoes.  The green beans that weren't eaten by the iguana shriveled up & died.  The enormous cucumbers that had over 50 flowers, gave us 1 cucumber and then they all died.  All we have left are three cherry tomatoes plants, one regular tomato plant, 5 green pepper plants, and 3 eggplants that have dropped all their flowers.

Needless to say, we were excited when we harvested our first batch of cherry tomatoes!  Yes, all 3 of them...ok..."harvested" may not be the word to use here when there are only 3...

But 3 are better than none! 

 

So looking at our gardening thumbs, they are a slightly pale green!

Mission's Emphasis Month...

For the month of September, we are having a missionary emphasis presentation at our Sunday morning Bible studies.  Each Sunday, Joshua gives a presentation about a foreign country and a missionary family serving there.  This past Sunday we visited Kenya!

In honor of the Cormier family who work with the deaf in Kenya, Elisabeth sang a song along with sign language for our service...

Joshua made up placemats that decorated our table for our lunch.  After the service, we have a meal together made with recipes from that country.  The family in the upper right-hand corner is the Cormier family serving in Kenya.  They are a great family with a great testimony for our Lord Jesus Christ.  Please feel free to visit Mrs. Cormier's blog (listed below) to get aquainted with their family.  Please also be in prayer for their family as men forced their way into their home one night and tried to break down the door to their bedroom to get to their family.  You can read the details here: Mrs. Cormier's Blog

 

Our meal from Kenya consisted of Kachumbari (a Kenyan salad), Coconut Beans (oh so good!), and Pilau (A Flavorful Rice with meat).  You can find these recipes on Mrs. Cormier's Blog as well!  For dessert we ate Sweet Potato/Coconut pudding.  It was all great and definitely recipes were are going to make for our family again!

 

On Wednesdays, we have two ladies over for lunch and then we have a time for them to help in the ministry.  This is not only a time of fellowship, but also to teach them to have a part in reaching others.  In this picture above, they are working on lap-quilts (Les Couettes) that we will be giving as a Christmas gift to the elderly folks who live at the hospital.  We not only want to teach our children, but the ladies as well, that God wants you to use your talents to reach others for Him.  So, they are using their sewing talents to make a gift that hopefully will touch the hearts of others for Christ!

 

We also use our Wednesday time to fill our Door-Hanging bags as well.  In each bag we place a French Gospel Tract, French copy of John & Romans, and an invitation to our Sunday Bible study.  We have been placing these in the mailboxes on the island.  We have managed to distribute over 225 of these bags into mailboxes thus far! 

 

Continue to pray with us that we will soon see a family join our services and for a young man to accept Christ as his Saviour and to surrender his life to preach the Gospel.  We know that God will not force anyone to accept Him, we all have a free choice.  But we can pray with all our might for God to convict the hearts of the lost and to open their eyes to the truth. 

 

Until next time....

 

The Great-American Hotdog Fun Night !

Brenna and I were tasked with the responsibility of planning our Family Fun Night for this past Friday night.  So we decided to open a Hotdog shop that serves Hotdogs from around the U.S.!

We called our shop, Hotdog Island!  We even made ourselves some Deli hats!

 

Brenna took the orders from our menu's.  There were five hotdogs to choose from.  We listed the name of each hotdog with its picture but didn't list the items on the particular hotdogs so that they would be a surprise!

There was one unanimous favorite: The Puka Dog from Hawaii !  We all loved the flavor and it was a sellout!  It is actually a sausage and not an actual hotdog but the guava-mustard relish was amazing!

 

This is the Sonoma Hotdog from Arizona...

We also had Chicago's, New York Systems, & Slaw Dogs to choose from.

 

 

Here is Beth with the Slaw Dog...

 

 

Josh is eating the New York System...

 

 

and for dessert, we made coconut icecream sundaes in home-made waffle cones! 

 

They were amazing! 

We ate so many hotdogs, laughed and had a great time together as Brenna & I realized that working in a "restaurant" serving customers is not easy! (by the way...our family are lousy tippers!)  We finished the evening having a Hotdog Trivia Competition.  Each person got points for correctly answering questions like: What is the world's longest hotdog?   & What is the number 1 hotdog condiment in the U.S.?  (mustard...we all thought it was ketchup!)  It was a evening or true family fun!

 

We cherish our family time and are taking advantage of the time we have together to make great memories!

 

 

Mission's Emphasis Month....

Last year, during September 2011, we emphasized Mission's and reaching others with the Gospel during our Sunday morning Bible studies.  This past Sunday we started our mission's emphasis for September 2012 !

Joshua did a great job with a Power Point presentation of our first country, Canada.   He gave facts about Canada and presented the need for the Gospel there.  Then he introduced our Missionary Family of the week serving in Canada, The Jason Hamby family!

 

Bro. Hamby had also sent a letter for us to read in the Sunday Bible study time addressed to the folks here on St. Barths.  It was a great touch hearing from a family serving from a "foreign" mission field.  Come to think of it...a pastor from America would be someone serving on a "foreign" mission field to them as well!

After the service, we had a great lunch together.  Joshua made the Mission's placemats with our theme verse for this month, Marc 16:15.  On the placemats were also a map of Canada, the Canadian flag and a picture of the Hamby's.

This is Shepherd's Pie, a recipe from Canada that Kami made.  We also had one of our favorites, Poutine! (french fries covered with gravy and cheese)  Then we had Poor Man's Pudding for dessert.  It was a great time together and there was good fellowship as we tasted foods from another country.

 

For the evening service, we joined L'Église Baptiste de la Foi, in Trois Rivières, Canada.  This is where brother Hamby is pastor and is also one of our supporting churches.  We joined them via Skype for their services and had a question and answer time in French.  Wow, I still have a lot to learn in French!  It was great to see everyone there at the church and to be a part of their services.

 

We have also begun distributing our plastic bags that contain a French tract, a copy of John & Romans in French, and an invitation to our Sunday Bible Studies.  We began placing them in mailboxes here last week and ask you to pray that a young man will get saved and surrender his life to preach and for a family to start coming to our services. 

 

Until next time...