Greetings from Jamaica! The 2015 NYAC VIM Team is in action!

The United Methodist Church New York Annual Conference's Volunteers in Mission team is already hard at work in Jamaica! Rev. Joseph Ewoodzie, the Conference Mission Coordinator, is leading a mission team sponsored by Golden Hill United Methodist Church in Bridgeport, CT to help people in a mountain village. Some of the Golden Hill team grew up in Jamaica, and so this will be an opportunity to introduce their families and friends to their culture in a close and personal way. Please pray for the success and health of our VIM team, and for the people who they will be supporting and for those supporting them.

Maya writes:

We left for Jamaica this morning at about 2:30 am, which meant getting up at  about 1:30. Most of us didn’t have much sleep, but we were all ready and excited to be off. The group met at the Covenant church to load the suit cases and left relatively quickly after the Crosdales arrived and Bob found the key to the second van. Thankfully Sean got his passport yesterday so when we got to JFK airport we were able to check our bags and go through security without trouble. Sean said he made his passport in art class, but I guess he is a great artist because the airport security believed him… On the plane we pretty much all slept to make up for the time we had lost by getting up so early. The flight was 3.5 hours long, but it seemed to go by much faster. We arrived in Jamaica around lunch time with about 3,000 bags to check. Surprisingly we got through customs relatively quickly and we went to meet Jacqui, one of the mission organizers in Jamaica. A van was waiting for us to take us and our luggage up to Mt. Osborn, but first we went to get lunch. We went to an Island Grill, which had good food. A lot of people ordered the spicy “jerk” chicken but they all thought it was mild except John, who thought the opposite. I guess his taste buds are a wee bit more sensitive. After lunch, Jacqui went back to the airport without us to pick up the other two members of the group, Joseph and his wife, who were arriving on another flight. The rest of us went with some of the church members up into the mountains to go to our hotel.

On the coast near Montego Bay, many of the houses are fancy and there are more resorts and tourist
attractions, but as soon as you head into the mountains, the jungle swallows you and the poverty of the country becomes apparent. The road was winding but well kept up, and the view was fabulous. We stopped after a few hours in Santa Cruz to exchange money and to fix the phones. We also bought some fruit, which was way cheaper and way better than anything you could get in the United States. We tried nesberry, which was the sweetest thing I have ever tasted, and a type of apple that was more of a tart flavor and quite delicious. We also got three mangos for 100 Jamaican dollars, which is about USD$1.

After the market we arrived in the hotel in Santa Crest, which is very nice. Everyone was so tired that we crashed for an hour plus before we met to go up to the church. Mt. Osborn Methodist Church is on top of a giant hill, which is so steep that I wasn’t sure the bus was even going to make it up. Fortunately, it did. The church is very pretty, and we have lots of pictures of it. The people there to greet us were very friendly, and one man, who has a bunch of goats in the yard next to the church, brought Sean a bunch of mangos to share with us. Pauline likes, excuse me, loves mangos, and she taught John how to eat them the right way by pealing the skin off and then squeezing the fruit off with your teeth.

We had a reception at the church and we were pleasantly greeted by the members with prayers, songs, and food. I had some of the best pineapple I have ever eaten. It was altogether a very welcoming experience. Then we came back to the hotel and had a delicious dinner and met another group who is on a medical mission from Florida visiting another church. After dinner everyone went to be to rest for a long day of working tomorrow.

-Signing off, Maya- P.S. It is VERY hot here.