Grenada Marching Bands and Sports

Training and planning for sports days seems to have been a major focus for the past month. MacDonald College has a Marching Band which performs at different community events and they practice after school. It is sometimes a challenge to hear people if I am on a Zoom call! I was invited to the Secondary School Sports Day on 1st April and the Primary School Sports Day on 6th April and both were far longer than I had thought. It is a whole community event and feels like they spread it out so more people can come into the early evening - MacDonald not finishing until 9pm!

I was able to do two Easter Assemblies at the Primary School, one where we shouted Hosanna as Jesus came into the Church on his donkey (following the donkey puppet). The second Assembly we had the Last Supper and Washing of Feet acted out. I was then able to pull it all together with 6 bases in front the School Pasture visited by all the children as I told the Easter Story.

Our Church hall is in a bad way and the architect who was involved in the rebuild of the St Georges Church (following its destruction by hurricane Ivan in 2004) came over to look at our needs. I have since put together a brief of what we want to use the building for and this will have school use through the day, with Church and community use in evenings and weekends. Once we have plans and costings we can look at fundraising and I plan to walk around the island over several days. So start saving your sponsor money!

I have now taken the service at the Belair Church on three occasions. It is a bit of a rush from there to Samaritan for the 11.30am service, but manageable. It is good the Church is open again after two years, we have had about 16 people and they seem enthusiastic. Rev James is due to take the other two weeks.

You may be eager to know how my Lunchtime Club went at the Primary School and the Faith Journey Club at Secondary School. At the Primary we did 3 weeks out of 5 and with different children, which was not my plan, but I think those who took part learnt something and had some fun. The Faith Journey Club did not happen. I tried but each week a school event I was not told about got in the way. A few young people expressed interest and I will keep trying in the new term.

I am still walking a lot but my left knee has been giving me a little challenge. As I have got busier time to walk and read has become less, but I do it when I can and my two lengths of swimming in the sea still happens a couple of times a week.

It is a real privilege to speak to 350+ teenagers at the school assembly. I have a 5 minute slot and the noise level can be a challenge, but clearly people are listening and I have had a few positive comments. As less people engage with Church our only way of encouraging and reaching young people is in schools, in the community and outside of Church.

I continue to do a few lessons, when this is possible, and have delivered a few more on Anger and Bullying which I hope has been useful. I only did one of the two sessions on Easter to 3 classes in the first year. It seems that RE is only taught in the first year. Maybe this is something I can work on?

There are now more kites and I understand there is a big competition over the Easter weekend. I asked the children what Easter is all about and they said, “Kites, Easter Eggs, and Bunnies”. I hope they now remember it is about Jesus!

I value your prayers. This is a lovely place to be, but there are challenges and the motivation to do somethings is an uphill struggle.

Have a blessed Easter. I’m available for Zoom or What App chats. Have enjoyed that over this past month. Great to hear your news

Email: pastornigel19@yahoo.co.uk           WhatApp’s: +1 473 458 1932

Also check out my Facebook pictures

God bless,

Nigel Lindsay