Day five in Abaco by Alayna Van Kooten, a student with Pella Christian’s team.
This morning we finally got to sleep in a little bit, as in 8am, which was still a blessing after yesterday being so eventful and exhausting. We got ready for church and loaded up at 9:30 and made our way to Kirk of the Pines Church which was right down the road from where we had been working all week. Turns out that this Church was one of the very few buildings to survive the hurricane relatively unscathed, thanks to the young age of the building. We started the service with lots of songs which I definitely appreciated, one of my favorite being Living Hope. The sermon was given by Pastor Barrett who dissected the second chapter of Genesis piece by piece for us and it was full of God’s true meaning for his people.
Afterwards, we went to an amazing sea side restaurant called Colors by the Sea. We explored the dock as we waited for our food and took in the scenery, some of it being still sunken boats from hurricane Dorian. Anyways, I ordered the grilled local lobster tail. This whole trip I have been dying to try as many new and authentic things as possible so this quickly went to the top of my list, I will leave the burgers to other people. As the food came out it smelled delicious and I couldn’t wait for my own. Miss Lisa also suggested trying the fried plantains, giant bananas, and they were really good and tasted like bananas and sweet potatoes! The lobster was really good, it had a very smoky taste from the grill and I had no idea how to eat it but I am really glad for the experience.
Day five in Abaco by Annika Van Dyke, a student with Pella Christian’s team.
Around 3pm we loaded up our vans and headed out to Tracy and Glen Kelly’s farm to hang out with a bunch of members of the community. The farm is south of Camp Abaco so it was the first time that we got to drive in that direction and something that was really cool to see was the distinct line between the trees that were affected by Hurricane Dorian. Behind us were all the cracked, scarce toothpick looking trees but in front of us were the lush green pine trees. It was very interesting to see how the hurricane had wiped out all the trees to the north, but further south, it almost seemed like there was no damage. After driving a little bit we arrived at the farm and there were a lot of people there and a few that we recognized from church. Barrett and Carrie Hendrickson along with their 3 kids were there and Barrett is the pastor of the church that we went to this morning. We also met the Kelly’s this morning because they attend the church that we went to. At the farm, there were tons of palm trees and plants that they had grown which was super fun to see, and they had games like spikeball, can jam, ping pong and a sand volleyball court in their yard. When we got up to the house we all split up into groups of 6-7 for a volleyball tournament. We ended up with 2 teams of people from the US, 2 teams of the locals and then a team of some of us and some of them. The tournament was super fun to watch because there was a lot of tough competition and it was also a super nice night to be hanging out outside. The team of locals got first place in the tournament and the runner up was the team of both Bahameians and Americans. It was a fun night of meeting new people and making new relationships and they were all so kind to us. The Kelly’s were super hospitable and made a super yummy dinner for us all and opened their house for us to go in and out of. I’m super thankful for the opportunity to hang out with new people, talk to them, play some competitive games and have a little fun the last night that we’re in Abaco.
