2-Its game time!

Hey everybody. I hope you’re all doing well. God is good and he is blessing us day by day by day. Our time so far has proved to be absolutely amazing! The last three days Ryan and I have gotten a grand ol tour of the city of Paramaribo and had some good bonding time with Charles, our supervisor and a lot of local people. Charles will only be here with us until the 18th, so he’s making the most of the time we have together. We’ve been going none stop, but its been incredible.

So….the wait is now over and tomorrow morning we are heading in on our first trip to the jungle (also called “the interior”). We will be leaving early in the morning and have a 2 hour drive across the country to the river, where we will then be boating down to Diitabiki, which is 225 miles down the river. The boat trip will take about 3 days and our crew consists not only of Ryan, Charles and I, but also Bioti and his son. I haven’t got to share a lot about Bioti yet, but he is going to be a huge part of our learning, language and culture study these next 6 months in the jungle. Bioti is a well respected believer at Diitabiki. He is going to be our “interior supervisor” and really help us with getting settled in. Please be praying about our relationship on this trip. It will be our first real bonding experience. We also got a chance to spend some time with another man who will be helping us in the city, Ted. He is a local businessman who does a lot of work with the jungle ministry as well.

As I shared in the email, we will be stopping at several villages on the way that Charles did flood relief at early on this year. We will get an opportunity to be introduced to some of the people there and have a chance to see some of the most beautiful parts of the country. We will be arriving sometime on Sunday and staying at Diitabiki until Wednesday. We will have a chance during this time to visit the radio station, which was another project that was started several years ago. The radio station has been a huge outreach among the people and a major way for the gospel to get into the villages.

We will fly out on Wednesday the 14th and Charles will continue helping us get prepared for our first trip back into the jungle without him. Ryan and I will spend a little time in the city after Charles leaves and then head back to the jungle for beginning of our language and culture studies.

We have really had a blast together this week driving all over the place, meeting American and Surinamese families and getting settled into our house in the city. The city has got to be one of the most culturally diverse places I have ever been. Just to give you an idea, over the past three days, we have eaten Indian, Indonesian and Chinese food, all ran by people of those cultures. We have seen a Hindu temple in the front yard of a home on the same street as a mosque. We have heard Dutch, English, Sranan Tongo, Aukan and Saramaccan languages, and sometimes all in a matter of 30 minutes of talking with a group in individuals, some of these languages were heard all in the same conversation. As for the countries, there are people here from West Africa, America, Holland, the Guianas, India, Indonesia and China to name a few. The city has really proved to be exciting, but I know that its not the main focus of my time here. I am absolutely pumped about getting to head into the jungle tomorrow.

Unfortunately, there are no pictures yet, but I hope to get some good ones on this trip in and post them upon return. I want to end with a few big prayer requests that I shared with a lot of folks before leaving and some from our first few days after arriving:
1-For the Lord to draw me closer to His heart each and every day!
2-For our team, which consist of more than just Ryan and I to grow united ,and that the Lord
use us to build his kingdom and bring glory to His name.
3-For the Lord to prepare the hearts of the people all along the river for our arrival over the
upcoming days.
4-That the Lord build a special bond between us and all our supervisors: Charles, Bioti and Ted
(Ted will be helping us a lot in the city between treks).
5-That we could quickly pic up the language so we can start communicating with the people and
sharing our hearts about our love for the Lord. And that our lives would speak volumes for us
even though our words cannot right now.
6-His will above all else!!!

Thanks again so much for the prayers. Take care and God bless.

Eternally His,
<+>< tAyLoR