Day 8: Rachel Whitbeck

Hello family and friends!! :) It was a challenging day for our team today. Our first outing today included meeting a worker from Food for the Poor. He visited Jamaica to observe a new home being built in the town of Auldayr. After visiting the foundation, we traveled to Gully Bank. As we were there, we spent our time with the youth jumping rope, coloring, blowing bubbles and taking pictures. After spending an hour with the children, we stopped in Sav-la-mar along the ocean to eat lunch. Then we traveled down the road to the Sav-la-mar general hospital where we had the opportunity to hand out hygiene products and stuffed animals for the children, newborn babies and mothers. After this, we drove to the infirmary. The infirmary is basically a nursing home, but from our observations the nurses don't exactly take care of the people. First our team visited the women's ward and we were able to pray, sing and speak with the women. For me, I enjoyed praying with the women and being able to encourage them even though they were in a hopeless situation. We also handed out hygiene products to the women and the men in the infirmary. After we visited the women, we walked through the men's ward which was eye opening for our team. The men were packed into a small building like sardines. Many of them were sleeping, but for the ones that were awake we were able to speak with them and pray with them. Rachel Conover and I prayed and spoke with a man named Logan. We also were able to read scripture to him including his favorite, Psalm 23. As I read it to him, he recited it. This was very encouraging for me to hear Logan recite Psalm 23 especially because we were in an such an emotional situation. If you have the time, I ask you to pray for these people. Prayer for the mothers and their new born babies at the hospital, for the children left at the hospital, and for the men and women at the infirmary to have peace and encouragement as they lie in their beds with what it seems to be no hope. Tomorrow we are looking forward to a day at YS falls before traveling back home to the U.S. :) thank you all for your prayer!