"New Songs" for South Caicos

This is what the children's visuals for Kids' Club looked like in South Caicos after the hurricane.

Piles of ruined children's visuals--like the ruined hopes of missionary, kids, and nationals alike
when they came out of hiding after the hurricane and discovered the church destroyed--along with the piano, the hymnals, the children's visuals,

the keyboard, everything!

Little did I know the special job God had in store for me to do in my spare time after arriving in South Caicos!
I kept pretty busy the first day helping unpack and working in the kitchen while Missionary Marilyn Marchant ran around like a chicken with her head cut off trying to keep up with whatever the guys needed--running for ice and water and tools and materials and whatever.
I tried to help keep the pitcher filled with ice from the cooler and water. 

Hauling it out to the guys.

Meanwhile, I was slowly getting to know these two sisters whose home was destroyed by an earlier hurricane 10 years ago. They had been living in Sis. Marilyn's home ever since. They both have part time jobs, and Judy, the one in the blue top, also works at a Christian School on the island.  I noticed that when they were home, they didn't seem to have much heart and were shy of our big team.
It was easy to see that the ladies had been very discouraged.
With Sis. Marilyn quite efficient with the meals, I didn't feel all that useful and soon I was also feeling a little dismayed. Should I have stayed home with my kids this time?
The second or third morning, I went to my room and prayed about what the Lord would have me to do.
I reminded Him of the promise He gave me at the hotel the first night, "Fear not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed."
I was feeling dismayed and He had said not to be dismayed. So I prayed about it and went back out. 
And very shortly, I began to feel that these dear ladies and their needs were for me to care about.
I believe it was that very morning, a box was delivered full of Sunday School papers and quarterlies from a church which had sent them months ago.

I sat down with the happy Judy, and we talked about Sunday School--and Kids Club--and songs and choruses.
Before the hurricane, Judy used to have Kids Club, and she also taught Sunday School. We talked about choruses and stories, and Judy sang me some choruses I didn't know but really liked. I started copying down ones that had new words to old tunes. One chorus Judy herself had written.

Since the hurricane, they have tried to have a little service in Marilyn's livingroom, but they had little to work with. Marilyn had been able to get new hymnals half price, but we talked about songs and visuals. 
Judy went out to the Sunday School rooms and brought in a pile of ruined visuals. We picked through them. This is what they looked like.

I wanted to try to make a few new ones while I was there, but I had nothing to work with either! The ladies did not think you could get poster board on the island. Plus Judy thought her writing was poor. I told her that my lettering skills were terrible, too, but that I had learned some techniques in Bible College and could teach her how to measure and letter neatly. 

Was there anything at all that we could work with? I wracked my brain.

The only thing I could find was a few pieces of cardboard.

However, when cardboard is all you have, you use cardboard.
When Sis. Marilyn saw what we were doing, she got on board and went out and found another big old box in which a new toilet had been packed,  and cut down the sides with a big butcher knife!

I tell ya, where there is a will, there's a way!
So there beside the big old tin laundry tub with rain water from the gutters are more pieces of cardboard.

And we let the guys know to save any significant cardboard they might find in the container
So right away I got busy measuring and lettering a couple songs at the table out in the porch-turned-dining room that the hurricane had wrecked in September but had gotten pieced back together by an earlier team. 

It wasn't much, but it was a start.

Friday or Saturday I was out sweeping up piles of sawdust and scraps and dirt under the new trusses, when I heard something beautiful.

It was a bird, but it wasn't singing just one song! It was singing all sorts of songs!
Probably some praise songs, and choruses and hymns and spiritual songs--making melody in its heart to the Lord!
I was in awe!
One of the guys said it was a mockingbird.

I was more excited than usual, because I was thinking about the verse I had read in Isaiah talking about singing in the islands!

"Sing unto the Lord a new song, and His praise from the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea...the isles, and the inhabitants thereof."

I had felt God had spoken to me through this and other verses in Isaiah about islands and the end of the earth and singing, and about new songs!

Maybe the bird was the fulfillment of the singing verses. 

But was that all? 

No, it wasn't!

Saturday evening, Jonathan took this picture of the guys cleaning up again in the sanctuary after the roof was on, getting ready for service on Sunday while Judy and I were indoors after supper dishes had been done.

 We were measuring and lettering more children's choruses on cardboard.

We were also practicing singing, because Judy and Mae would sing for me choruses they remembered and liked, and I loved them, and I loved the ladies' voices. I told them they had lovely voices and the choruses were wonderful, and I watched big, bright, wide smiles take the place of discouragement on these two dear ladies' faces. 

In fact, I suggested that we three ladies try singing something together, and we did! I opened the hymnal and the first song I saw was, "Now I Belong to Jesus."

We tried singing it, and after the first couple verses, we were getting onto singing parts together. 

I was totally delighted, and suggested that since the guys on the team hadn't seemed very excited about singing a special, as suggested by myself and Marilyn,  maybe we ladies should!

Sunday morning Judy led the singing while Marilyn played the keyboard--which they had salvaged from the wreckage.

After the hurricane, Marilyn had found the keyboard under a pile of sopping wet drywall. She had pulled it out and watched the water drain out of it. 

She let the keyboard dry a few days after the hurricane,  and then turned it on and miracle of miracles,  it worked! Sometimes it plays something weird on its own, but overall, it sort of works, if it has a mind to.

So Sunday morning we sang "To God Be the Glory!" and praised God and every last team member shared a greeting and testimony and a couple ladies from the church also shared.

"Let them give glory unto the Lord, and declare His praise in the islands," I had read in Isaiah, and that is exactly what we did!

You don't know how blessed I felt to be this little white lady between these two dear black ladies on South Caicos Island--singing "Now I Belong to Jesus" in a little church that had finally been reroofed after the hurricane.

Yes, a few notes were off, but the fact was, we were singing on the islands praise to our God.

And the Scripture God had given me was being fulfilled beautifully and literally!

Well, I don't remember which day it was, but I was needing colored markers to make the poor, cardboard visuals look a bit more attractive, and I also needed glue to glue on some pictures, as the flour and water paste we tried at first wouldn't really last. So we stopped at a couple shops one day and at this little shop named "Surely Goodness Variety Store," I finally found a package of 10 markers priced at $6.50 and a bottle of white Elmers glue for $3,
but I got them because I was determined to have some visuals ready for Judy before I left.

I asked Judy to pick out the ones she wanted most, and this was one of the first she picked.
I know--it's kind of sad-looking cardboard, but when you have nothing, you use what you have.

Here was another ruined favorite.

I know this below was just cardboard, but it is sure an improvement over the damaged one above!

Judy looked through her old Sunday School material and found little pictures to paste on different songs. 

 

By Tuesday evening, we had a whole bunch of songs done.

We cut these seven hearts out for the song, "In My Heart There Rings a Melody." and Judy colored over my lettering with different colors.

And I decided to not waste the backs, so I lettered more songs on the back.

"In My Heart, Lord, Be Glorified," and "Into My Heart." So we had a 3-in-1 song.

This is one that I want to teach my own children.

Mae (right) and Judy (left) with her gorgeous smile.

I had discovered a 4-year-old bird calendar sitting in the room where we stayed, and asked if we could use pictures from it. 

As soon as I saw the picture of the eagle, I wanted to make this visual, and I did.
I know, it's just a song made from trash, but it reminds us that God can turn trash into treasure. 

 

When it was finished, I set this trash-turned-treasure on the freezer, and we four ladies sang it together.
The three-part harmony sounded so wonderful, and the words were so meaningful, that we sang it again.
For just a moment we were lost in God. 
Mae told about a time when she was singing this song at a time when she was needing a job.
Right while she was singing about waiting on the Lord, a knock came on the door. It was someone who was leaving the island, if I remember correctly, and they wanted Mae to have the job they were leaving behind!
So this song is very special to Mae.

Judy was so happy to now have something to begin Kids Club again. She told me she would have her first Kids Club on Saturday.

That is today. So I called this evening, and she said it went well. For her first Kids Club after the hurricane, she had five children.

Others had said they would come but did not, but I thought five was a great start!
Pray for these dear ladies as they hold the ropes while Sis. Marilyn is back in the States.
(Sis. Marilyn flew back to the States the day we did, in fact, on our same flight.) So these ladies are the ones doing the ministry there right now.
Well, it has been a busy day, cleaning animal pens, cleaning, emptying and reorganizing freezers, laundry, ironing, doing dishes for children who were gone or busy with other things, cutting boys' hair, getting Sunday food prepared.
So I have been blogging, and now there is still so much more to write about our trip, but I will save it for next time!
Good night!