We arrived bright and early (!) on Thursday, January 12th. There is a two hour ride from the Kingston airport to Annotto Bay, we thought the team would be sleeping (since we arrived at 3:00 AM) but most people were talking to each other about books they’ve read, the shows they have watched, and what they were excited about for the upcoming mission.
Thursday, January 12, 2023
We had a rainy morning on Thursday. If you can imagine a Caribbean rainy morning: the rain cleanses everything, there is a sweet smell of refresh-ness in the air (yes rain has a smell), then the sun comes out and it’s almost as if it didn’t rain at all. During the morning we made a missionary assembly to pack up all the kits that we would need for the upcoming Youth Day and school evangelization. Ten missionaries had traveled with a variety of snacks in their suitcases: cheese-its, chips ahoy, oreos, fruit snacks, airheads, and granola bars. We packed 175 snack bags!
In the afternoon we went to Pleasant Cove. It was a beautiful little spot where the team had a chance to dip into the ocean, have fun on a tree swing, and eat delicious fry chicken and curry goat.
Friday, January 14, 2023
We visited Mount St. Joseph School on Friday. It was so good to see the students again! The school has children from first to fifth grade. As soon as the bed truck entered the school’s property, the children came out of their classrooms and were outside to welcome us. They were singing beautiful songs about Jesus, God’s strength, and His love. Wow! What a special “hello”! In turn we taught them the chorus (and dance moves) to our theme song. We all sang our hearts to the chorus: “I believe you are the way, the truth, the life”. That was an appropriate song to sing because then the team interacted with them and spoke about how Jesus is the way, the truth, the life. For many on the mission team this was their first experience on evangelizing and purposely speaking about Jesus to others outside their family back home. It’s humbling and honorable to go out and spread the Good News. We followed this with a game of soccer, frisbee, jump-rope, and tug-a-war. These kids are very competitive!
One of the work projects we fundraised for was to paint the chapel at Mount St. Joseph. We carried the paint and brushes and got to work. We will admit that this was the first time some of us painted, but the missionaries were very willing and happy to be taught. Two of our local friends, Sedrick and Roy, even jumped in to paint with us too! We successfully did one coat to the entire exterior of the building and the interior of the chapel. We’ll have to go back on Monday to finish up, so we will have more to tell you about our painting adventures on the next update.
Saturday, January 15, 2023
Praise be to God for such a great Youth Day! God is doing great work in Annotto Bay, so much so that people outside of St. Theresa parish and Annotto Bay are witnessing what is going on here. We invited all the Youth in Annotto Bay, from both the Catholic mission schools and the public High School (We actually woke up super early on Friday to go to the high school and say hello to the youth as they were arriving at school). During our missionary meetings we were building up this day because it is so important to reach out to the youth, to get them engaged, to remind them that they are beloved and made in the image of God.
The theme of the day was CIA: Christ is Alive. Christ is alive in all of us. He is always there working in ways that we do not know, nor might be able to comprehend. He works in mysterious ways. Father Herald Brock, CFR in his talk mentioned that Jesus works kind of like a secret agent. We don’t know he’s there but we can be certain that he is and he is situating all things for the greater good. Jesus also calls us to work with him: for us to go out into the world and share him with everyone we encounter. So we can be secret agents for Christ! Each youth received a tie and sunglasses to really make the “secret agent for Christ” stand out. A tender moment as we were beginning the day was to see Joseph (who also came with us to Jamaica in 2022) and Jake (first time in Jamaica) show the young boys how to tie their ties.
The team did amazing skits on Jesus being the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus responds to our deepest desires: Jesus, the Way to joy; Jesus the Truth that sets us free (freedom); Jesus the Life that makes us fully alive and at peace. This is such an important message to share with young people. They need to be reminded of how important they are, that they matter, and that God absolutely loves them.
Before we end this update, we want to give a special thanks to C Factor Praise. They are a young adult music ministry who helped us out on Saturday. They guided us through a time of amazing music, praise and worship. There is so much thanks to give to God for all the people he has placed together for this mission.We will update you soon on how the rest of the trip goes.
God bless you!Verso l’alto!
Jamaica 2023 Mission Team
Frassati Missions 