FAQs

How are you going to ship your belongings to Jamaica?

 

 

Big question that stymied me for a long time!  Shipping our things on a real ship would have been extraordinarily expensive and difficult.  We ended up finding very kind people who were willing to check our boxes and bins as extra baggage, and bit by bit our things made it to Robin's Nest.  We had extra baggage fees, but didn't have to pay customs fees.  The Lord made a good way! 

Our belongings were taken from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and South Dakota by Amy, Denise, Joy, Michelle, Rob, and Tina and their various family and team members.  They took on the added stress of getting our things through customs, and we are very grateful to them.  The last load arrived with a team on the same day we moved here - perfect timing - and we were able to start settling in right away. 

After being unpacked, our bins are serving new purposes:

Water storage:  saving water from the dehumidifier for laundry and toilet when the water tanks are empty

Laundry basket

Bed-side table:  color-coordinated with our bedspread!

Desk:  propping up the coffee table until we can get wood to build a desk  (Bruce's ingenious idea!)

 Hooray for Rubbermaid!



The Hardest Goodbye

When we moved, I said goodbye to many great friends and a lot of family members:  brothers Chuck and Tip and families, nephew Chris and family, stepmother Dawn, stepbrother Jeff and family, stepsister Joan and family, the Potter cousins, more cousins, more family, and our kids Erin, Ben, and Andy.  Difficult to say goodbye to each of them, in different ways. 

But here is my sister, Susan.  Susan is the oldest of us four Speier kids, I'm the youngest, and of course there's a running commentary about how hard it is for the oldest child and how spoiled the youngest is. 

The truth is, Susan really did do a lot as we were growing up.  Because our mom was a single mom, many responsibilities fell to Susan.  She babysat us, did a lot of the chores, witnessed the most family upheaval.  She made sure our mom received Mother's Day gifts, and sewed Barbie doll clothes for me.  

Susan has a great sense of humor, is an artist, loves country music and dancing, helps me with the Sunday crossword puzzle, loves her two grandchildren like crazy, she makes the world's best spaghetti and the world's best chocolate-chip cookies, and is a cancer survivor.

Now she's facing another illness that has limited her activities, won't be able to visit Jamaica, and saying goodbye to her was heart-wrenching.  I love and miss her, I'm grateful for her, and I'm praying for God's gracious, miraculous intervention and healing in her life.       

Bruce's Blog

 

 

"And these signs will accompany those who believe...they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”   Mark 16:17-18

On Thursday I was helping one of our workers.  He had welded some bars onto a window grate.  We moved the grate off to the side and he asked me to do some finish work on it.  Not thinking, I grabbed a part of the grate that was still hot.  It burned my hand.  He told me how to take care of the burn and we both prayed over it.  I was done working for the day.  One hour later, before supper, two of the small children asked me about the burn marks on my hand.  I asked each one to touch the marks with their fingers and to say "Jesus make it better."  Later that evening the wounds were much better and, by morning, were almost non-existent.  "If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move."  Matthew 17:20

Full Circle

This is no ordinary clothesline! 

Three years ago, Bruce and I brought a team of friends to Robin's Nest.  We mowed, painted, did electrical work, sang, painted some more, picked chicken skin off chicken feet, learned how long it takes to buy things at a hardware store here, and Dave and Nick installed this clothesline for the current directors. 

And now our clothes are on this line!  I get to think about our friends every time I hang clothes.  How fun is that? 

I'm grateful for a washing machine, sunshine, the clothesline, and the friends who have prayed for us every step of this journey.