Next we visited Shahieb who is an investigator. Shahieb is 17 and when we arrived, his Aunt and four of his cousins were waiting. There were 6 of them and 4 of us in this tiny little house. The elders taught the restoration lesson. It was wonderful.

Our last visit was with Stuart. He was very nervous about having us come into his humble home. Humble is a kind word for a tiny room with a roof on it. There is no kitchen, no bathroom, just a room with a hammock and a mattress leaning against the wall. He warmed up about half way through the lesson. The elders were starting at the beginning because this was his first lesson. We don’t know Dutch so most of what went on, we were clueless about. Elder Riding said that they taught Stuart in a different language. It is a street language that is part Dutch, part Portuguese, a little Spanish and a lot of slang. It is even more primitive than Talky Talky which is the slang Dutch most Surinamese use.

Thursday, October 16

The elders were having planning meetings, so we spent the day reading and planning ourselves. We had an appointment with President Kabenda in Uitkijk and so we drove out there to see if we remembered how to get there. We made the same mistake we made the first time we went, going through a banana plantation. But we wrote down the correct route on the map. We met with President Kabenda at 6. He had arranged with three students to go with us. They knew where their friends lived. We visited nine young people. These are the kids who went with us.

Friday, October 17

We spent the morning reading and then exploring. Wayne wanted to see the ocean. This beautiful road led us nowhere, but we enjoyed the ride.

We found a road on the map that looked like it went to the ocean and drove down it. It led to a big Hindu shrine. Men were busy building a statue of a Hindu god out of concrete.

The tide was out so the shore looked pretty ugly.

Saturday, October 18

We got up at 4am and were on the road by 4:45. The hotel gave us breakfast in a bag, but it was more like lunch. The Dutch eat sandwiches for breakfast – so we saved it for lunch. We didn’t have much of a problem driving the bad part of the road. The light was coming on and they have repaired it so that the giant craters are gone. We got to the ferry two hours before it sailed. I tried my Guyana phone to see if the Tanners got home safely. They did, but upon returning, they were invited to a couples dinner at New Thrivings. Elder Hyde’s parents came to pick him up and wanted to meet some of the couples. Tanners had enough time to unload the car, take a shower and go. They opened their bedroom window to let some air in. While they were at the restaurant, a burglar got into their apartment and stole, both of their computers and their router. They got some cash money, but left Sister Tanner’s wallet with her credit card and driver’s license behind. They stole backpacks to get the stuff out. They were devastated. Sister Tanner had all of her pictures of her kids and grandkids and mission on the hard drive. They also took all of their CDs, so everything she backed up was gone too. They have five projects that were awaiting approval from Santo Domingo before they could be sent in, those are gone and they have to redo them. The break-in did not have anything to do with the trip to Suriname. The thieves were watching for an opportunity to get into their apartment. They can’t get in to ours. The window they used is the only window in the building that does not have iron bars on it. No one thought anyone could get into that window, since it is over the carport. These pictures are of our house. Our front door faces the carport. The thief left dirty footprints all over the wall.