We had the awesome privilege of hearing Governing Body member, Gerrit Lösch, on Sunday. He was visiting the Central American Branch (Mexico) and a special meeting was organized. It was held all in Spanish (yes he speaks Spanish too!) so we were able to arrange for a brother to translate into English for us. A wonderful spiritual meal. His theme was 'Keep Growing in Love' and covered a wide variety of topics - dangers of higher education, pornography, association, and how all avenues of our service should be motivated primarily by our love for Jehovah. The number one way to grow in love for Jehovah is to read our Bibles EVERY DAY! Brother Lösch said if we love Jehovah we will read the Bible daily because we will make time for what we love.
He told about a man that suffered from a form of OCD, washing his hands 100s times each day, he became very depressed. So he bought a gun, put it in his mouth and fired! Unbelievably, he survived and the bullet lodged in the part of his brain responsible for the OCD - curing him and he went on to live a normal life! Now - would you recommend this as a course of treatment for anyone? Of course not! But many people will use the example a few brothers and sisters that 'survived' higher education as an excuse to go themselves, but the risk isn't worth it and it isn't enough for us just to 'survive' with some spirituality intact. The investment in higher education isn't worth the risk in these last days! Powerful illustration!
Today (Monday) we took Liam to the airport to go home. We had a great visit with him! To get to the airport, we took the bus - a first for us! For a few extra dollars we took the express bus which has fewer stops so is much faster. On the bus we met six other witnesses from various parts of the country. One that stood out is a sister from Virginia that's been here for 2 years by herself with no plans to go back....she is 81 years old!! She said "I'm a young person stuck in a old body!" Just goes to show, we are never to old to extend ourselves and give our best to Jehovah!
The next few weeks will be very exciting and busy. We are really excited to see how many will attend the Memorial this year, then Dana gives our special talk. After that we may be going on a bush service trip to visit remote areas near the Guatemala border for 3-4 days - camping Belize style! Then we will be assisting our Maya Mopan group for several weeks as their only elder goes to the States for some annual work.
I'll keep you posted. I better sign off here, we are currently on the bus home and are driving through my favorite part of the trip - mountains, jungle and oranges!
Love to you all,
Carlee
