matthews ridge build progresses

before coming to lethem we served in the north west of Guyana in places like mabaruma , port kaituma and part of our territory was Matthews ridge where we helped start a newish group , i say newish because 20 yrs ago there was a Cong of Jehovah's witnesses there but disbanded . we used to visit the place from time to time with the newtons Jim and Terri and saw much potential for a group.so we would take our turns going up and staying for the weekend and having mtgs where anywhere from 40-60 would attend .eventually a team of young bros came Stephan Johnson (now serving in the ridge )Richard Cruz,Douglas warren and Ben went there for a few months and had great success . while there they received a $100 from someone back home so we suggested it was kept and put toward a fund for building a meeting place and accommodations for need greaters . the $100 turned in to $20,000 in a year and a build was arranged by our main man builder Mitch muick a 6ft 2in monster worker (only joking there Mitch )lots of planning went on in the time we were back in Ireland with Mitch an experienced builder living in San Fransisco area . we got back in Sept and started to accumulate materiel's for the build ,some all the way from Georgetown and some from mabaruma (2 truckloads of finished wood)and the rest would be cut in the Matthews ridge area .it was not easy as nothing goes too smooth when cutting wood directly from the rainforest's and have to transport it out to site . our date for starting was originally Feb 1st but when Mitch arrived in late DEC and saw the site we had to change from a 2 story to a one story so much of the planning went out the window and we had to make an on the spot decision as to what we would do !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????????we rectified it and told everyone coming to put their plans forward to Jan 1st !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!which many were not able to do . however as it all turned out Jehovah had his hand in it all and everyone arrived just at the right time . first a partner for Mitch was Kalli Carmichael a rugged young builder with past experience of foreign builds having worked on many builds abroad of the states , this proved vital and helped Mitch in the time they were there alone before others arrived .during that time sinead and myself were keeping kaituma mtgs going while making many trips to the ridge with materiel's for the build so all was almost ready when Mitch arrived .before long our chef arrived in the form of Dave Jackson , his wife had just arrived so this was just what he needed and more so what we needed as we found out he had other talents been brought up on a farm could drive a tractor that we needed for bringing the wood from Doris,s (the only one left from old ridge Cong )house to the site . soon others started to arrive Ben's brother and friends from Colorado Chuck and Kaile young from same place , mike Mitch,s right hand man in the states and I'm missing other names oh Jim and Terri Compton Sherwin Lowe in all 21 workers turned out and was a sweet success . when we got to the roof and half of zinc was on my time was up , i was in between moving to lethem so left Feb 2nd with kallai and headed south some 500 miles to where we are now lethem .the last we heard there are now 8 pub 3 of them baptized and they have around anywhere from 60-80 at Sunday meetings so Jehovah knew he had people there . i will do a blog on mabaruma,s early days later .

this is a site for our ministry in the rupununis in the deep south of guyana lets start by showing you some pix of the area a wild cat on our ministry in a place called surariwai that had not been worked for well a long time maybe never ????????????????????this is kemmo from d states down for a while working the deaf territory and she met quite a few in this area although she was living on the coast . also bethany and sinead enjoyed holding the little blighter , they wanted us to buy it for $20.00 wow almost took it .