Friday, July 3rd

Dick, Craig, Todd building the gate






Our entire group, with Lyn, her son Vincent, and teacher Gary, in front of the school



















Emily, Alisa, Kathryn sanding
















Dick and Ellen in front of the school

A.J. with the coconut he finally cracked open showing the group.








Hi from Nassau, everyone!

The past two days have been a fantastic blur of activity! And all of us have pretty much loved nearly every minute.

Wednesday afternoon, Ellen and I left the rest of the crew early, around 3 pm, to take the 20 minute ferry ride with Lyn, the school director, over to Elbow Cay, where Hopetown is located. She went home with her boys, and Ellen and I walked the quiet, sleepy residential town, enjoying all the pastel Cape Cod style homes there. Shops closed at 4 and 5 pm, so walking was about all we got to do until we caught the 6:30 ferry back to Marsh Harbour where Todd and Dick figured out where to find it after a couple misturns. :)

Meanwhile, the others had returned to our church home, and after the hot, sticky day, none of them could wait to jump into the water just outside. However, this time while they were all taking turns snorkeling again with Craig and Emily's equipment, with the snorkelers swimming off to some rocks to see amazing fish, and the rest staying close to the rocky coast of our church, Alisa, who was right in the middle of 4 or 5 others, was stung by jellyfish on both of her arms. Somehow, the others who were a foot away from her, fortunately escaped. She had a rough hour or so, and when Todd picked us up from the ferry, his first words after I buckled my seatbelt were, "I need to tell you something about Alisa, but first you need to know that she is going to be fine." All of you parents out there know exactly how quick those words stopped my heart! And she is fine. We heard later that jellyfish (and these were little ones, because the snorkelers had seen them where they were, right up against their goggles) tend to come out after storms. I wish we had known that Wednesday.

Anyway, by the time we got back to the church, the A-squad of Kathryn, Derek, and A.J., with back-up from Emily and Alisa, had "brinner" almost done--what a feast! French toast, bacon, sausage, fresh fruit salad. We ate and ate and ate. After they cleaned up, we had our nightly meeting to recap Wednesday and plan Thursday, and then broke out the snacks and cards.

Thursday we finished up our work in the morning. Dick, Todd, and Craig made a super sturdy gate to put at the top of the stairs in one of the buildings, the girls finished painting and then sanded the bookshelves from the day before, Derek continued working with the drywaller in the other building, A.J. mowed the knee-high (no exaggeration) grass in the never ending yard, and Ellen cleaned up behind all of us. We finished and said our good-byes and thank yous and exchanged contact information with all that we had made connections with--always a tough thing to do. We arrived back at the church right around noon, to inhale lunch, change into our swimsuits and sunscreen, and then hop into Pastor Campbell's bus to make the 40 minute drive to Treasure Cay. It was an unbelievably beautiful place--white fine sand going on for miles, and we literally saw only 3 other people there. If this is the 2nd most beautiful beach in the world, we can't even imagine how the first place one can beat it. None of us have ever seen anything this incredible!

We arrived home by 5 pm, showered while Dick grilled us hotdogs and pulled out every possible leftover we had--another amazing feast. Then we spent an hour and a half or so cleaning up after ourselves to leave the church a better place, as we always try to do. We met for a while, agreed we'd made some wonderful new friendships, both in Marsh Harbour and on our team, and then played Hearts. But the morning was coming early--we needed to get up at 5 a.m. to catch our 7:20 flight to Nassau--so we ended a bit earlier than usual.

And now I sit here at a computer kiosk in the Sheraton we're staying at for the weekend. They generously allowed all of us to check in at 9 a.m. this morning when we got here, so we dropped stuff off and then pretty much scattered to the winds after that. Some went snorkeling, some went into town to see the shops, and Alisa and I hit the beach to just veg for the afternoon. We watched a thunder and lightning storm out at sea that was incredible, but it never came into shore.

The R&R time at the end of each GROW trip is a good transition--we all talked about how the work we've done really takes us out of our natural environment and creates something "euphoric" was Kathryn's word for it. The work we do is important, the people we've met have created something really special, and the location is unforgettable. None of us is ready to go back to our "ordinary" lives. The weekend will help get us ready. And we hope you are ready to put up with our stories over and over and look at the million pictures we've collectively taken. :) Next year you'll have to come with us!!!