What color are you wearing?

Oh what a wonderful Sunday morning.  I went to Barbados Grace Fellowship this morning and the worship service was awesome!  God speaks to people in many different ways - mostly based on how that individual person is built and how they can best listen - but, today the worship service was totally music and it spoke to me - it was awesome!  They introduced me to a group called Jesus Culture?  I am going to have to download their music from iTunes.  I loved their songs - King of Glory, Can't Hold My Praise back from you - are a few that I heard this morning.

On my drive back home, I noticed so many different things about the island.  It is alive and well today.  You could just see it around - everywhere.  First, I passed a bus stand - and there was a guy just sitting there playing his guitar and singing away to his heart's content.  Man, I wish I could have parked my car and listened to him - I bet it was good!  Then, I noticed a young man carrying his young lady friend on the handle bars of his bike.  She had such an expression of pure joy!  Men say they can't understand women - but, this guy had it right.  She was being doted over and carried on his bike for the whole world to see!  He had her at Hello!  :-)

Many, many people were out and about on the streets - good day!  I am the type person that has never noticed many of the physical attributes around me in my world.  I have always felt bad about this - like I was deformed or something.  Like, not noticing what color shirt a person was wearing was a bad thing.  But, I am reading a book right now called "Eat, Pray, Love" - and in there the author comments that she has never been one to notice things about her physical surroundings.  That her sister came to her apartment that she had been renting for about 2 months in Italy - and immediately noticed the details of her bathroom - down to the pink tile - and that she had not even noticed these details in her whole time staying there.  I identified with this author!  I am that way!  But, she did not cut herself down - she viewed it as one of her unique attributes in comparison to others/her sister.  I started to think about this, and realized - I shouldn't be thinking that I had a deficiency in my personality/being - because that is just who I am!  Celebrate who I am!  Yes!  For example, I can not tell you what the young lady or young man on the bicycle were wearing today - but, I can describe for you in great detail the emotions that they were exhibiting.  So, if you feel down and out - that you are not good enough in some way - forget about it!  You are special, you are good, you have some unique qualities that this world needs.  Love yourself and your life!

And why are you here?

Here we have lived in this apartment for a year and a half, and only when Alisha visits us - do we get this honor of a visitor to our veranda.  Why are you here, my friend?  Are you watching after one of God's chosen ones?  You are so beautiful and graceful.

Sweetness

There are a lot of bad things that I see go on in the ocean water, but then are also a lot of beautiful, sweet things that happen there.  This is a picture that I took of the cutest little girl - she was so full of life and happiness.  She was being doted over by many, many family members.  The water was so still on Wednesday - this family all came out to enjoy it while it lasted.  The father, mother, 2 daughters, daughters friends, this little one, a son and probably an aunt and uncle.  They enjoyed their time together - and everyone took turns loving on this cute one!  She is a very lucky little girl!

Windsurfing

Time goes so fast.  I am trying to relish every moment that I have with Alisha.  I know I have only one more week with her here on the island.  What can I do to make a positive impact on her life?  How can I show her how much I love her?  Anyway, she has been taking windsurfing lessons from Rusty.  She is doing much better.  On Wednesday, she was able to turn the board around and head back inland.  We are hoping that the wind conditions will be good today - so that she can practice on her new skill.

Alisha and I have discovered a new reef on the west coast.  It is very alive and has many fish.  We are both very cautious about this reef though - we have seen many snake eels and other things on the ocean floor that look dangerous.  Alisha was told yesterday by a local Bajan that there are also reef sharks on further out from where we were snorkeling!  But, we do enjoy this area so much and there are so many different fish to view.  We also enjoy the shoreline - it is full of shells.  We are trying to collect enough shells for Alisha to make some jewelry from.  She really loves the sea glass and the green color is her favorite.  Here is her first bracelet with the green sea glass.

The Sun and the Moon

Have you ever been able to witness the sun setting and the moon setting - both in the time span of 3 hours?  We did - yesterday.  Gary, Alisha and myself were playing gin rummy out on the veranda - and we watched the beautiful sky turn different shades of pink and blue as the sun was setting over the ocean's horizon.  Then, to our amazement - we watched for the first time ever - the moon setting over the ocean's horizon.  It was fantastic - because as the moon was just touching the water's edge - it turned the colour of red.  You can not walk away from this sight - or you will miss it.  Once the sun and moon get to the water's edge - they travel very quickly on over to the other side!

Bajan Fisherman throwing out the nets

This is a video that I took this morning of a sight that I haven't seen until today.  It involved 3 boats and around 17 men!  One boat was flat and didn't have a motor attached to it.  A second boat was used to string the rope/net out to start off with. The third boat was larger and only had one man aboard - it was there to pull the first boat in.  This was so fascinating to watch.  It took probably about an hour to complete.  I know all of these men were really tired upon completion.  

What were they doing?  They were fishing!  They had this huge net that they separated and strung out between two boats to begin with - and then the majority of the men had on their scuba masks and were navigating one end of the rope back to the flat boat.  Eventually, this rope had made a full circle - thereby, capturing all the fish inside.  The guys inside the flat boat were busy pulling the net and rope back into the boat.  The guys in the water would ever so often, slap their arms onto the water.  (If you got back to the video, you will see some slapping the water.)  I feel like this was to keep the fish inside the net - until they had time to get the net full circle enclosed.

After the net was full circle - I would have thought the guys in the water would have been finished with their part of the job, but they were not!  They were constantly working the net from all sides.  My guess is that they were keeping the net from getting snagged on coral and such, but also - they were probably culling out undesirables from the net - such as turtles.

I was hoping to get a good look at what they caught at the end - but, it happened very quickly.  In a blink of the eye, the final part of the net was tossed inside the flat boat.  My guess is that they caught enough fish to fill a small pickup truck's bed.  I would have loved to seen what came out of that net.  

After the net was inside the boat, most of the men also got back into the boat - and then the larger boat came up and threw a large yellow rope to them - and started pulling them back to the shore.  

These were the guys inside the boat that were pulling the rope and net into the flat boat.

These were the guys in the water that were constantly diving underneath the water working the net from below and also keeping the fish inside the net that they wanted and culling out what they didn't want.

This picture was taken just moments before the net was completely tossed inside the boat.  It happened much quicker than I thought it would.  See how much smaller the circle had gotten towards the end of this fishing endeavor.