The Newton Church of the Way Impact Team share their experiences from day two in Abaco. During the day, they focus on looking for “God sightings” as they work and learn.
Our day started with a wonderful devotion on the topic of surrender. The conversation led to sharing, where we talked about being mindful of our God sightings during our week in Abaco.
During our morning community tour, we stopped by First Assembly of God Church and heard the story of Pastor Ryan Forbes’ survival during the hurricane. We heard several instances of God’s divine work in his story. We later stopped by the International Gospel Mission and met pastor Tim Bower. He shared his testimony of missions, first serving in Haiti and now in Abaco.
Our group had two missions today. One was to help paint at the community center at Marsh Harbour. We started at the community center, where we all had lunch together, which was a time of conversation and getting to know each other better. We later broke up, and some of the group stayed at the community center to start painting, and 7 of us left to travel to the CAPS, Central Abaco Primary School.
At the school, each of us had the opportunity to read to children with the books we brought to donate to their library. We were blessed to have a rare opportunity to meet with eager 2nd graders. They were polite and respectful and overall very excited to see us. The smiles on their faces were heartwarming and brought us so much joy. The school had not had a library in over nine years. Many Hands and their missionaries collected over 2,000 books for the school. The students were inquisitive and open to telling their own stories. It was fun to see them check out a new book and begin reading. Some even enjoyed reading to us.
There was some great team bonding at the community center, painting the walls and ceiling. This center was formerly a library in Marsh Harbour but is now being made into a multipurpose facility. We actually all had a blast getting to know each other better, making paint tattoos, and mistakingly painting the corner of the ceiling with the wrong color of paint. This soon was halted by the boss! Haha! It felt so good to serve with our hands and know that this space will be greatly appreciated and used by many.
God was evident throughout our day as we served at the school and painted at the community center. There were many impactful conversations we had with each other and those living on the island. These conversations were later shared during our impact fellowship time as we reflected on our day. We shared our moments of joy.
