A loss, a school, a container, a race to the finish

We dedicate this blog to the memory of Sister Palmer from Mandeville and Brother Robinson from May Pen.  Both of these great people died suddenly and unexpectedly.  It appears that both had heart attacks.  Sister Palmer at her home and Brother Robinson in his car on Sunday traveling home to May Pen from Hopeton after church.  His wife responded quickly so the car accident was minor.  We wish the families the best and know testify of life after death and going home to a loving Father in Heaven.

The light at the end of our tunnel is getting very big, very fast - I think these last few weeks are on hyper-speed.  Last week found us at the west end of the island in Sav-la-Mar installing a 12 station computer lab and 6 computers in the new library.at Mt. Grace Junior High School   We did have a little time to take a dip into the ocean and on Saturday we rented jet skis and explored the area around 7-mile beach in Negril.

Installing computers in the lab.

The remodeled library - Sav Branch painting job and installing computers.

This teacher is so excited - well, she doesn't look it here, but she is absorbed.

This is the cover to a textbook - Fran pay attention to this and the next picture.

Can you read the evaluation section heading?

The computer lab will help the teachers encourage kids to read and will help them teach computer skills.  This school is located in the middle of sugar cane country.  Parents encourage their kids to start work in the cane fields early and forget about school.  The principal told us that there are about 40% of the students who read below grade level or are illiterate.  They are not encouraged to read at home and they really have very few books to read in the school library.  Our project included knocking a wall down between two rooms, putting new bookshelves all around the rooms, and installing 6 computer stations for the library use.   We were able to obtain many boxes of books from Food for the Poor and donate these to the library. The Sav Branch helped us paint the walls of the library.  It's a good project and we wish them well as they put these computers and this new library to good use.

Coming home, we started the week buying two more ncomputing modules for Pepper Primary School's computer lab, supervising the delivery of a 20' container for equipment storage on the Spanish Town farm, buying a dump truck load of gravel for Ewarton Primary School parking lot, delivering school kits to the Ochie Branch and buying paint and brushes for the St. Ann's Bay Hospital service project.  We are both preparing for presentations we have been asked to do at the Island wide YSA Conference on August 5 and 6.  In other words, we haven't had time to breath; Theron has spent 8 - 10 hours each day behind the wheel of the Toyota!  What we are trying to do is wrap up several projects before we leave so Whiteheads don't have so much to clean up.  We feel like this is a race to the end and the time is zipping past so fast that we can't believe it.  It is truly now a race to the finish.

Glad OSHA isn't on the job here.

We are the proud owners of a 20' container!

We have heard from the Springwood Ward at home that September 11 will be our homecoming.  Hope to see all of you who read the blog! :)

Sending our love and prayers to Brittney

One of the most difficult trials of a senior mission is leaving home and family.  We knew this going in and are grateful we chose this path, but we long to be home at times to lend our support and love.  This past week and yesterday was another poignant time when we long to be home.

Our dear daughter-in-law, Brittney, has been suffering for a time with nausea and general "not feeling well."  Marc has been keeping us up-to-date (somewhat) on what is happening and we have been doing the only thing we can do-- praying for her.  As a mother, I fully understand how difficult it is to be ill and have to continue to care for a nursing 4-month old and a hyper smart and active 2-year old.  You drag yourself around and just go through the motions of living.

Yesterday, she had surgery to remove her gallbladder.  This means some recovery time and we hope some time to catch up on rest.  Times like this try all senior missionaries -- we want so much to be home to help.  Brittney, we love you and send our prayers for your recovery and renewal of "mother/wife/sister/homemaker" strength.  People often say that they wish you a "quick" recovery.  Brittney, we wish you a complete, relaxing (yah right), and healthful recovery.   Take your time!

We have reflected of late hearing about Brittney's condition and knowing the frantic life she is keeping in being a mother with young children and marvel at our children's strength and endurance.  We are grateful that our son, Marc, is showing compassion and taking his fatherly responsibilities seriously of entertaining the children, changing diapers, and preparing meals.  We know from personal experiences that he can cook mac 'n cheese and chicken nuggets and he likes to eat them.  We understand that he is away most of the day at work and are thankful that when he is home, he is home.  Yesterday, we called several times and found him holding Ali, taking the kids for a milk shake at In and Out, and putting the children to bed so that they could have a sense of "normal" during this experience.

We are learning a new appreciation for "in-laws."  Cindy, Brittney's mother, is wonderful.  She is giving so much time and care that only a mother can give, but also giving so much to the two little one's who love Grandma Cindy.

Through trials come our blessings and we are seeing blessings come to our children.  We wish they didn't have to have trials, but that is the only way we are strengthened. 

Lest our Adrian and Curt feel left out, we love you and miss you, also.  We have smiled each time we see our children get together supporting each other.  We are grateful for family and the strength of family.

This week finds us traveling to the west of the island where we have limited Internet access.  Catch you for the update when we get back on Saturday.  Love and Kisses -- Mom and Dad

14 Jamaicans, 19 wheelchairs, 1 wheelchair training

Today we attended Fast and Testimony Meeting on the North side of the island at the Montego Bay Branch where we had been conducting a three day wheelchair technician training seminar.  This is the third (and final!) Wheelchair Training session we have conducted on the island.   The first two session were held last October in Kingston where we trained people from health care groups in the Kingston and Spanish Town region on how to properly select, assess, and teach wheelchair recipients about use of a wheelchair (yes it does take two days of training and yes the trainees have the same question). 

MoBay Wheelchair Training Class, July 2011

This last session was to provide training to health care workers from the resort communities of the North and the rural towns from the East and West sides of the island.  We held the training in MoBay and required that the 12 trainees provide their own transportation which involved several hours of travel for most of them.  Because of the distances involved we paid for them to stay three nights at the Holiday Inn resort and we provided daily shuttle service to our church in a 12 passenger bus.  There are a few facts that we have to explain so you get the right picture.  First, most of these individuals have never stayed in a hotel, let alone an all-inclusive resort.  Second, some of these people have never left the parish they live in, let alone travel all the way across Jamaica to the other side of the island.  Third, they never ride in a 12-passenger bus with only 12 people; it's usually 15-20 people in rub-a-dub-dub style (this refers to a rather suggestive dance move that is performed on the island).  It was fun to see them out enjoying the amenities of the resort including the all you can eat buffet, entertainment, pools, drinks (with little umbrellas) and hot showers!

These Jamaicans were all there to learn how to fit people properly into a wheelchair.  They attended two full days of training (Thursday and Friday) and Saturday they applied their skills and measured and assessed people who need wheelchairs.  As before, our hearts were touched with the results of this program.

This 14 year old young man would not stop smiling, literally would not stop smiling!  He said he could scoot around the house without a chair, but he needed the chair so his mother could help him outside and getting him to school. 

Marshal observing Marshal Jr's. evaluation

When calling to remind the recipients of the time and place we were told by one man that we had a wrong number, however sometimes we're given the phone number for a friend of the "mobility impaired" so we asked if he knew the person, or if he knew someone who needed a wheelchair.  He thought a moment and said that his nephew, Junior, needed a chair.  Thus by calling a wrong number, this second 14 year old boy is now very mobile in one of the out-door Ruff-Rider Chairs.

The training ended and the trainees returned home with some great memories of new experiences, new friends, new knowledge and abilities, and new resources to help their fellow countrymen.
 

Moving wheelchairs into the chapel in the rain.

This was a week of finalizing one more project.  We worked hard, we relished the new experiences of our Jamaican friends, and we witnessed service to the poor and needy.  We are now back in Kingston ready to resume a hectic schedule of buying material to build chicken coops. We wonder what it will be like to be home without a schedule, but we're sure that one of us will quickly start developing one!

Chickens -- Pride, Service and Missionary Work

Yesterday and today (June 21 and 22) were premier missionary days, at least premier humanitarian missionary days.  We will relate all of the things that happened when we see you in-person, but we want to relate some important lessons we have learned through the Lord's humanitarian work.

We delivered 216 baby chicks yesterday and 160 layers (hens) today.  The delivery of the chickens was the culmination of many hours of planning, preparation in the form of service and physical labor.  The work that it took to complete these first 8 chicken coops was certainly worth it.  Seeing the light in the eyes of those who received this blessing has shown us that every hour of service and all of the hours of worry are worth it.  We are seeing the gospel of service as it builds lives.  These coops and others that will follow are all built by families, branch members and others who freely give of their time and talents.  Just a couple of stories to help demonstrate what we are seeing happen in the lives of the recipients from the missionary service and involvement as they work together on these projects. 

Checking the health of the day-old chicks

A chick holding a hen

Mark Johnson, a less active member of the Church, whose wife signed up for this project, carefully put everything for his project together and beamed with pride at the workmanship of his own hands as he worked tirelessly on his own coop and spent hundreds of volunteer hours helping build five or six other coops, he even put a small radio in his coop for the chickens enjoyment!  He attended all of the training, he was there when we picked up the chicks and rode in the back of the truck so he could watch over them.  He could not stop smiling the entire day.    He has come back into full activity and faithfulness and has been enjoying the relationships with the other branch members as they worked along side each other.  There is nothing in the Lord's work that is temporal; it's all spiritual.

Mark Johnson's ear to ear grin as he caresses the first 50 chicks of his 100 chicks.

Location of the Johnson coop.  His house is on the left.

Eulalee Davis, a single mother,  has been selling eggs for years as one way of supporting her family.  However, she wasn't producing the eggs, she was buying them from others and selling them at a 5 cent per egg mark-up.  Having her own layers will greatly improve her ability to support her family.  The problemm is she lives in an inner city housing scheme which has about two feet of land around each side of her house.  The only spot available for a coop was on her roof.  Theron calls it, "a coop with a view".  She could not hammer, saw or staple, but she was always there, she was doing all the work she could and she was so appreciative.  How grateful she is for this project, how much hope this gives her and her family and how much she is beaming with pride and enthusiasm.

This is the width of the land around Eulalee's home.  The stairs to the roof (center of the picture) are less than 1 ft wide

Unloading the chickens (Elder and Sister Whitehead and Theron).

Eulalee loves her new chickens

The finished Coop on a Roof!  Extreme home makeover eat your heart out.

President Jason Piper, the Branch President of the LDS May Pen Branch doesn't have a job, his wife works for the post office.  The three of them live in the same house as his parents and his brother's family of 6.  Jason's family is the only member family in the household.  Jason and his brother were building a beautiful coop on their own prior to the food initiative and just needed a little assistance.  The food project funded their zinc roof, nesting boxes, mesh, and a few other things to get their coop finished.  As branch president, he knows the needs of all his people and he reminds us of President Monson in his early years when he was taking care of widows.  Pres. Piper worked one full-week, 10-15 hours a day, building Sister Woodburne and Sister Grant's coops -- both widows, and both in need.  They both had selected layer chickens and we needed these coops build rather quickly because the chickens were grown and ready for delivery.  These are the "chicks" we ordered 6-months ago.  What a great example of a leader and faithful priesthood holder. 'When you are in the service of "the widows in your midst" you are only in the service of your Lord.

Pres. Piper and his son with their first chickens.

For us, these eight finished coops confirm that this food project is at the right time, doing the right thing, and giving the right kind of hope and pride to the right kind of people.  We have so much more we could write about, but we'll just have to tell you in person one of these days.  Using chickens to build character, testimony, hearts of service and lives is certainly something we did not expect 16 months ago when we boarded the plane for Jamaica. 

These first coops were built to test the design, construction techniques, and "buildability" of our plans by untrained carpenters and masons.  Now we have just two months left to buy materials for the remaining 145 chicken coops in the project.   It's going to be a busy two months.

This picture says it all.  Sis. Woodburne's house is the structure in the foreground and we are working in the coop.

Dejavu - Chicken coops

This has been crunch week and we think we passed - the chickens are coming and we needed to get 8 coops ready by Tuesday. Saturday we spent the day with Elder Nelson and Elder Campbell in May Pen putting chicken wire around one coop while the branch members erected a second coop. Whiteheads help the members of the Boulevard branch finished the "coop-on-a-roof" coop, yup it resides on the roof of Sister Davis' house, while Flakes worked with the Constant Spring Branch to finished four broiler coops; they have been such stalwarts to see this through. Well, after Tuesday (the birthing day of the chickens) we will show you the delivery event.

We, the Whiteheads, and the Flakes are absolutely worn out, exhausted, and sunburned, and we all have realized that we are not "spring chicks"ourselves. We more closely resemble the "tough ole birds" category.

From our perspective a coop is not something much to look at, but in some of the locations it actually seems to improve the appearance of the place. It's wonderful to see the pride that the coop owners have in their coops and how proud they are of being able to help build them. They have certainly taken ownership in the projects by attending the training, assisting build their coop and helping with the construction of other coops as well. When the coops are built, there is pride in their eyes, a straightening of their back and excitement in their anticipation of receiving their chickens. We are seeing service freely given between the members which is something new to most of them. They are getting to know each other on an entirely new level and now have projects in common to discuss and to share experiences about. We are hearing of some that are planning to cooperatively help with slaughtering and they are bartering with each other for eggs and broilers.


Here are some pictures of our activities this week.

Sister Grant and Elder Campbell (in red stripe) are stapling netting, Elder Nelson (in green) and Theron in the Helping Hands shirt are attaching sway bracing.

In the foreground is Sister Woodburne's house and the chicken coop is back where the people are standing. 

Sister Woodbure inside with nesting boxes and hanging feeder and waterer

This is the road to the front of Eulalee Davis' house.

Here are the beginnings of the Coop-on-a-roof project.

Speaking of chickens, we were just given an itinerary that say we will "fly-the-coop" on September 1, 2011.  Our daughter says, it's a happy and sad day -- we want you home, but it means that summer in Utah will be over (if it ever gets there).

June 14, 1974

I'm sure that on June 14, 1974, we looked across the alter in the Salt Lake Temple and said to each other, 'on our 37th wedding anniversary let's go to a tropical island in the Caribbean and live, oh, and while we are there, let's build chicken coops.'

This is our classic anniversary picture.

It seems as if chicken coops are possessing our lives.  This week we started two news ones in May Pen and today we (mostly Theron - I kind of hold a board now and then and take some pictures) waited all day for the lumber delivery for one in Kingston.  The rush this week is that our "layer" chickens are coming June 21 and, other than our second bedroom, we have no coops for them.  You have to order layers 6 months in advance, thus in January we ordered 400 which is enough for 10 coops, but the rains came for two weeks and we will only have 4 coops ready so the order was decreased to 160.  We win some and we partially win some; there is no loss here because 4 families will be blessed and the other coops will "soon come".

We spent the evening of this anniversary watching a movie with Elder and Sister Flake.  It was only interrupted 12-20 times with phone calls.  Guess the best part of this anniversary is that we spent it together on a tropical Caribbean island.  The weather  37 years ago was extremely hot, just as it is today, but there wasn't nearly the humidity.  It is also significant in that we are serving a mission for the Lord; who would have thought we would be in this place at this time 37 years ago.

Theron and Elder Whitehead traveled to Linstead to start a coop.  Theron relates that Sister Davis' son knows how to lay block, but didn't know how to make it square (a skill that seems to be lacking in most of Jamaica).  A great teaching moment for Elder Whitehead who is a professional builder.  Great moment for a young man to learn a valuable lesson.  This is just one more experience we didn't anticipate 37 years ago

 Oh, the broiler chickens are coming to 4 projects next Tuesday and we will be transporting 40 of the full grown layers in the back of a pick-up; this should make for priceless pictures!

Elder Schaefermeyer and President Singh (Branch President) putting tarps on a roof during the big rains.

I can still throw sand around.  Sis. Whitehead and I loading sand at Sis. Grant's chicken project site.

Who's In Charge?

This blog ends with me telling you that we now know who the senior missionary couple is that will replace us, and the story begins last fall with our first contact with them.  But the interesting part is the story of how it all "came to pass" and the understanding of just how things work when the Lord is in charge.

Vince and Corliss Whitehead contacted us last fall after they had completed a Humanitarian Services (HS) Mission in Guyana, which, like Jamaica, is under the direction of the Caribbean Area Presidency.  Vince mentioned in an email that they had thoroughly enjoyed HS and were thinking about applying to be our replacements.  We, of course, were pleased that Jamaica wouldn't have another 9 month vacancy like the one that we filled.

We didn't hear much more from the Whiteheads until our supervisor in the Dominican Republic, Bennie Lilly, told us that the Whiteheads had been recruited to serve at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii and had sent-in their papers early this year.  We sent Vince an email calling them traitors, but we wished them well on their upcoming assignment. 

Shortly after their papers were submitted, Whiteheads received a phone call from the Missionary Department stating that "anyone could perform a mission at the Polynesian Cultural Center and would they accept a mission call outside the US."  They agreed and waited for a few weeks until their mission call arrived.

Okay, so you've already figured-out that when the packet arrived they were called to serve in the Jamaica Kingston Mission.  The part you don't know is that they were called as a re-activation couple and they would arrive some three and a half months before we complete our mission.

When Vince and Coreliss arrived in Kingston, mid-May, it was assumed that they would take-over the responsibilities of the Herberts who had recently returned to their home in Alaska.  However,  The president interviewed them and didn't immediately give them an assignment and when I quizzed him as to where he was going to send them he replied that he wasn't sure.

Well, that was all the encouragement that I needed.  I called Bennie Lilly and told him that the Whiteheads had arrived and that they had told us that they would still very much like to serve in HS.  In subsequent conversations with President Hendricks, Whiteheads had also told him of their interest. 

Now, it is possible to have a mission assignment changed, but there are two rather sensitive issues involved.  First, there is the issue of requesting the change from the area presidency (which is in effect telling them that the Missionary Department, i.e., the apostles, got it "wrong") and second, requesting that the mission president relinquish a desperately needed and hard to come-by senior couple.  Of course, in the Lord's work there is no such thing as "getting it wrong."

The short story here is that the change was granted, the paper-work completed, and Whiteheads are now officially Humanitarian Service Missionaries.

Whiteheads are seated in front.  Welcome to Jamaica! This was our May FHE group.

Now, speaking of "who's in charge" let me help you realize how perfect this chain of events actually has been.  As you know we have been busily involved in this food initiative, and at this time we are up to our giblets in chicken projects.  The logistics of evaluating the projects, purchasing materials, and following-up with each branch's welfare specialist has now become completely overwhelming.  The timing of Whiteheads arrival and reassignment was truly orchestrated to perfection!  Had Whiteheads continued with their original plans to be our replacements, they would have fallen into the HS mission call timing cycle that would have placed them in Jamaica just before we leave.   With the complexity of the food initiative it would have been impossible for us to keep up with the rigors of the work without help over the next 3 months during the implementation of the projects, and it would have been impossible to introduce the Whiteheads to the people and projects so that continuity could have been maintained.

We recognize the Lord's hand in all that transpires around us and hope that we can continue to be an effective instrument in helping move his work forward for we truly understand and know that it is He "who's in charge".