July 5

Saturday afternoon and evening, July 4, After logging in earlier today, 7/4, we met a guy named Andrew Summers. He seemed to have knowledge of the Bible and was interested in Jewish customs and songs. Andrew said he was from Chatham which is the community we were in for the library. He said he was homeless but he had a friend that had a tattoo parlor in Newcastle and he just hung out at Tim Hortons at night. He had an ITouch so I couldn’t make much of his homeless situation. We had to go get Loren at 2:30 and it was 2:15 so he walked off but I did give him a PWT before he left.
Going to the car there was a guy sitting using the WiFi near our car. I told him there was a plug on the porch and he might get better reception there as well. I introduced myself and he said his name but I cannot begin to guess how to pronounce it, let alone spell it. He is from Kenya and he is a believer. He attends the Anglican Church up the hill in sight from the library. He came here to go to school and has been here ever since. He received a PWT and we encouraged one another as believers should do.
We went on around the street to Middle Island. The history of the island is interesting. Durning the potato famine in Ireland, boatloads of immigrants came into the Miramichi River. Whenever the boats arrived, all sick passengers were offloaded onto this island and left there. They were not allowed to go to the mainland. Thousands of immigrants are buried on this island. Since then, the government has made it a memorial and built a causeway out to the island from the mainland.
When we arrived, we could see Loren and Herman off in the distance. We climbed a replica of the first lighthouse built on the island. It’s quite different. We went inside the restaurant and freshened up as best we could. Fred was in the restaurant having coffee and we heard him talking about a guy paddling in to the Middle Island from Burnt Church. We introduced ourselves and told him of our being a part of that plan. Fred had several interesting stories of his travels while Biking for Bibles. There were several workers in the kitchen so we gave them 4 PWTs. John gave a PWT to a groundskeeper sitting in his truck. I had a chance to talk to him later. He was raking some grass and I complemented him on how nice the park is kept up. I asked him if he had a personal relationship with Jesus and if he thought about where he would spend eternity. He said he never thought about that much and so I told him now is the time to think about it by reading that Bible he was given earlier and he walked away without so much as a word.
We loaded Loren and Herman's kayak and they were off to their next put in at Eel Ground. Sounds like a happy place. We have the key and the code to the church so we ate lunch at the restaurant. Just as we sat down to eat the door opened and who should walk in but Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson is the man we met at Shippigan last week after our second night. He was very happy, and perhaps a bit shocked to see us. He said that he still is reading that little Bible we gave him and he will continue to read it and think of us every time. How awesome a confirmation is that?
We went back to the church and dropped off all our stuff and got clean. How neat is that? Mark arrived to get some things ready for Sunday’s after church dinner on the grounds. He was sent as a blessing because he volunteered to take our clothes home and wash them. I bent his ear telling him of several accounts of sharing the gospel with people along the way and how God had sent people into our path to help us. I told him that he is now a link in that chain of faith.
We took the boys to a playground at Newcastle called Rocky Wharf. It had zip lines, lots of ups and downs and John said this was the best vacation from our vacation yet. We met Fred and his daughter at the park. They were there for the music. There was a bunch of older folks cutting a rug to live music.
After visiting and getting very cold we had to leave to go pick up Loren. We drove to Eel Ground, took a guess at where Loren would be. Herman was there but Loren wasn’t. After a bit of directions and redirecting from Herman to Loren over the phone we coordinated a pick up under a bridge up river.
No problems. Misty and the boys picked some wild strawberries while Loren and I loaded his gear and kayak. We all went back to the church and settled in for the evening. I made a run to Sobey’s grocery store and gave a PWT to Miranda the cashier. She was closing her register so she was rather short and not interested in chit-chat.
It rained hard last night so we were thankful to be clean and dry.

We got up and got ready. Hey, we’re the first ones to church! We slept in the church last night. The church is Soverign Community Church. It was good after 3 days to get showers, clean clothes and freshly dressed. There were no beds so we slept on the pews.

As the people arrived they were bringing in more food and making preparations for the worship service. We met more and more people. Loren had to leave and go visit another church several miles away. The pastor here is Jeff Kerr. He is serving here short term for the summer and he and his wife will return to St. Louis to continue in seminary this fall. We talked for a while after service and we encouraged one another and I invited he and his wife to come to Mississippi for a break and a recharge at Cleary.
Another believer and pastor from Moncton invited us to be a part of a worship service next Sunday evening where they go to a park to share the gospel. Sounds like our cup of tea.