St. Thomas

The week Cullen and I spent in St. Thomas was an awesome time.  Cullen flew out on Saturday morning with the rest of the group and after our respective weddings Brother Ken and I flew out Sunday morning.  We left Pontotoc about 3 and made it to St. Thomas about 3 that afternoon.  We met Pastor Turnbull at the airport and then headed to the church which is also where we stayed.  I went to meet with the group at Magen's Bay.

After we left the beach we came to the church, showered and got ready for Sunday night church.  That particular night they were recognizing their graduates and they also recognized our seniors and teachers. We sang all their songs along with the National Anthem, the Virgin Islands National Anthem, and the Black National Anthem.

On Monday our group headed to St. John for our touristy day out and about.  This is our group right off the ferry, before the hike in the National Park, before the hike to the beach, before we were exhausted.

On our hike down the Cinnamon Bay Trail to the beach we were able to see the British Virgin Islands.

We also stopped to take a lot of group shots.

Our main goal there was not to enjoy the beaches...that was a highlight.  Our goal was to share about Jesus and we did each and every nights.  We averaged about 60 kids each night.  The kids were from a lot of different churches and they sat in Bible Study groups led by our team before they broke into age groups for basketball camp.  Of our group 16 kids were saved.  It was awesome and inspiring and life changing and all those things and more.

The following picture shows just what we dealt with all week.  J.T. was my group leader partner.  This picture displays the total exhaustion we felt after a week of no air conditioning day and night.  We were so excited to be at the beach the last morning....it was what saved us from our sweating sleep and refreshed us just before our flight home.  What this is a real picture of is J.T. acting like a beached whale.  Yeah he wanted to know what it was like to be beached, then he flopped and floundered until is wife drug him back off the shore...Yep, that was our entertainment.

This was the final shot of the beach I got.  It was beautiful and wonderful and made us all stop and think...that the God that created this tropical locale is the God that created Pontotoc.  The God that touched the lives of those sweet faced boys and girls in St. Thomas is the same God we know and love.

How great is the love the Father lavishes upon us, that we should be called children of the Lord.  And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us, is because it did not know Him.  1 John 1:3