SUBJECT: Betsy's Letter #9

AUTHOR: Betsy Burgdorf, her husband Ted, and three girls - Heidi, Kristen, and Kara, work with her sister Becky Gates and family in Guyana.

DATE: Feb 5,, 1997

Dear Family and Friends,

Another busy week has passed, since my last letter. I thought I was going to miss the plane last week. We heard it and took off running up the hill to the airstrip. We sent all the letters with Kara, since she can run faster. Once the plane lands, it's usually on the ground only long enough to unload what stays and reload what's going - about 10 minutes! It takes 10 min. to get there from our house, if we hurry. So we like to be there waiting for it and not wait till we hear it.

Last Sabbath was very exciting, since we saw our first "baboons" (actually howler monkeys) in the wild. They were up by the church, and Ted spotted them with his monocular. They looked like shaggy bears. There were 3 of them sleeping in a tree. Ted had a long line of kids taking turns looking through his monocular to see them. We hear them all the time. They are very loud!

On Sunday morning (Feb. 2nd) we had scheduled a "Trash-a-thon" for the Pathfinders, to clean up Kaikan before the important guests arrived. They love doing things very early here, so they set the time at 6:00 AM. At 6:00 it's barely starting to get light! I set my alarm for 5:40 AM. That would give me 10 min. to get dressed and 10 min. to get up to the school. At 4:50 AM we were awakened by someone running up the path and shouting loudly. I told Ted, "Some people are so inconsiderate!" I thought it was a drunk. He replied, "He's saying, 'Pathfinders, wake up!'" Oh, my! Well, soon the shouting was gone, and we went back to sleep. I figured I could sleep for another 50 min. Wrong! At 5:20 we heard shouting again, "Pathfinders, wake up!" This time there were 5 or 6 of them shouting, running up and down the path. The director ended up doing exercises with them for about half an hour before the trash-a-thon began at 6:00. It was still dark when I got up there, but by the time we passed out the bags and gave the instructions, it was light enough to see. I've never seen Pathfinders so enthusiastic about picking up trash, especially at 6:00 in the morning! We picked up an amazing amount of trash, and I got a picture of everyone with all the trash. The bigger boys dug a hole and buried it all.

That afternoon at Pathfinders, everyone began working on nature honors. Immediately after Pathfinders is our health class. We finished Body Systems, so we started on First Aid now. We

Ted and I teaching Health class

will do First Aid for 4 Sundays. Ted did CPR, I did the Heimlich Maneuver, and Becky did Wounds and Bleeding. At each class, we divide the topics up, and each of us covers a certain topic. That way one person doesn't have to talk for 2 hours.

Let me go back to Thursday, Jan. 30. That was Lina's 15th birthday. We had planned to hike up to the savannah on top of the mountain, but Becky had had a bad attack of arthritis, and she didn't think she could make it. It probably would have been a 5-6 hr. hike, there and back. So we planned a surprise picnic for Lina instead. We had potato salad (without any of the good stuff like pickles or olives, etc.) and tomato and cheese sandwiches (we kept picking hair out of the cheese, but we paid too much for it to throw it away!). Also Kool-Aid and birthday cake. We told the kids to bring Lina home from school at lunch on a different trail. We found a pretty place under a tree and were waiting with the picnic ready when they walked by. She was surprised! It was a delicious meal (in spite of hair in the cheese!) and lots of fun. A big black bird flew right over our heads and landed in the tree, just a few feet away from us. He sat there a long time, watching us. Finally Ted got a piece of potato and slowly held it up. He came and ate it out of his hand! (We found out later he was someone's pet.) We were also serenaded by 2 toucans in some nearby trees.

On Monday (Feb. 3) many of the church members came to work on the mission property. It's amazing to watch these people "mow the lawn" with their machetes. Things had grown up a bit since we arrived, and they all worked hard, clearing the land around the 2 houses. We have cut several trails through the grass: One from my house to Becky's house, from my house to the outdoor kitchen, from my house to the outhouse, and from Becky's house to the outhouse. Between my house and the outhouse is a sweet potato patch, with several edos. These plants have big green leaves like elephant ears. It's very pretty. There are also several young papaya trees. We put logs around this area, and some rocks. The trail is along one border, and we lined the trail with rocks. Everything is so pretty, it looks like a park! Also, last week they started working on Becky's house again, finally. They got the outside walls done on the upstairs. Before that they had just temporarily nailed up boards, about waist high. They were waiting for the boards to dry before permanently nailing them up. Now they actually have windows, instead of the whole thing being open. They also got some of the inside walls done, but haven't finished yet. We'll see if they finish the house now, or if all work will come to a halt again now that the important guests have come and gone.

While they were clearing land, one of the men came across a rat's next with 3 baby rats in it. They have some hair, but their eyes are still closed. Well, you know me! I am now painstakingly feeding 3 baby rats with an eye dropper every few hours. Becky thinks I've lost my marbles! I'm

VIPs land at Kaikan

hoping I'll have better luck with these than I did with the baby mice in Chowchilla. They've survived 2 nights now. They are so cute!

Well, yesterday was the BIG DAY. Preparations have been going on for days to give these people an even greater reception than they gave us. The plane landed at 9:30 AM and out stepped David and the pilot with 6 VIP's. They Were: 1) The president of the Guyana Conference - Pastor Gudge. 2) the youth director of the Guyana Conference (don't remember his name). 3) The president of the Caribbean Union - Peter Prime. 4) The president of the Inter-American Division - Pastor Leito. 5) The ADRA director for the Inter-American Division - Mr. Amundson. 6) An ADRA director for the General Conference - Mr. Monsalve. Wow! I think almost the whole village was there at the airstrip to greet them. The first event was the welcome and garlands put about their necks. Next event was our fancy drill team - led by Lina. This drill

Pathfinders perform drill for VIPs

team has only had about 1 week to practice, but they did fine. Heidi, Kristen, Kara, and Katrina were part of the drill team. There were about 12 people on the drill team. They all wore black skirts or pants and white tops, along with their Pathfinder scarves, which we got on last Wednesday's flight. Everyone was impressed with their performance.

Next the drill team led the VIP's and the whole group to the church. Again, the path between the airstrip and the church was lined with leaves and flowers and poles, very beautiful and impressive. In the sand at the bottom of the church steps was written, with little red seeds: "Welcome. We love you." The church was painted last week. They did all the white, but unfortunately ran out of brown paint for the doors and shutters. It still looked nice. The inside of

Members escort VIPS to church

the church was decorated with leaves and flowers also. In the front they had made a heart of a palm frond.

The guests were led to the front of the church, and the program began. The church was packed, and people were standing outside. The Pathfinders sang, "We Are His Hands." Then there were several acrostics where one child would hold a letter for each letter of their name, and say something to go with each letter. It was really cute! Then, of course, each of the VIP's had to say something. The Division President gave a little "sermon" and sang a song. The choir sang a song to end the program. Then everyone walked down to the mission property, where we had cookies and juice. Ted has skinned several snakes, and he put the skins on the wall in our house to impress the visitors. The largest skin was the Fer-de-Lance, 6'8" long. Quite impressive!

Our houses, of course, were spotlessly clean. Even the outhouse was fixed up. We all brainstormed, and Lina did the actual painting on the door of the outhouse. It says, "Tourist Office. <>Listen to the relaxing sound of a waterfall. <>Hear coconuts dropping. <>See the floor'ah and fauna. <>Free papers inside!!!" On the inside of the door it says, "Please come again soon."

At 11:30 PM the plane took off again. We had been told they would only be here 1 hour, but we managed to keep them for 2. They had 3 other stops to make to little villages in the interior with Adventist churches. We were glad they came here first!

David had brought us some real live pizza from Trinidad, along with some other goodies like peanut butter, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, things we can't get here. The broccoli tasted delicious, even though it was starting to turn yellow.

We were thankful for the nice weather yesterday so the plane could come. We've had lots of rain lately. Things are back to normal again. The house is a mess once more, the kids are back in school (they skipped Tues. and Wed. cause of the big event) and I'm frantically writing before the plane comes. David brought 29 pages of e-mail for us, along with other mail! We read letters all afternoon. Enjoyed the letters from everyone! Must run, plane's coming.

Love to all, Betsy

You may write to Betsy at: gates@andrews.edu

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Last Updated: May 13, 1997

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