news from trinidad

I felt I truly owed you a letter of thanks for your great support in sending the Bibles to Trinidad so well in advance. Just a little synopsis of what transpired: We spent two very busy weeks with all the ecclesias in Trinidad and the one in Tobago. But the highlight was the special Youth Weekend intended to focus on "Tips and Tools" for Bible study. In addition to the Bibles that you forwarded, we also hauled close to 300 lbs of concordances and additional resources to support the special weekend. Bro. Sam Edwards arranged for us to use a country community centre that was able to house close to 80 Brothers and Sisters and young people for the weekend. On the Saturday we were able to use a spacious upper hall with tables and benches, which was perfect for the kind of Bible study we had planned. The CAT Bibles were distributed to all the youth from 14 up to 25 that did not have one and the concordances were given out on the same basis. We then had four study sessions, learning to use the centre margin references, using Strong's concordance, and doing some simple Bible marking using the wide margins available. I can't tell you how thrilled both students and parents were during the day. We hope and pray it will be a useful catalyst for further follow-up at the CYC and Sunday School levels. So, as I had mentioned many times, many thanks for your distant, but valuable help.

I have nearby on my desk some of the communications that you sent some months back regarding Bro. George Constantine. I wanted to let you know that I requested to visit him during the trip and it was very rewarding. I was accompanied by the same head guard as was with me last summer and he remarked about our previous meeting. He was very complimentary about Bro. George's conduct and affirmed that he was viewed that way by all the other guards that deal with him. When I had my one-to-one with George I asked him whether his spiritual and material needs were being adequately met and he assured me that they were. He is very thankful for the various subscriptions that he has and the kind letters of support. Likely you will know this, but in case not: this spring there is supposed to be a kind of test case run through the courts that will be related to a number of questions that impinge on bro. George's own situation on ‘death row’. If the test case has a positive result, it may result in bro. George's sentence being commuted to ‘life’, or perhaps, something more positive. Bro. Sam Edwards alerted me to the fact that George is concerned about receiving the necessary financial support for an attorney, if he requires one - pending a successful outcome of the test case. So when I visited bro. George I raised this point and gave him complete assurance that such support would be available when and if. He seemed quite relieved and was very appreciative. I did feel that he looked in good spirits and good physical health and he assured me that such was the case. Marcus, I just wanted you to know this, given your commitment to Bro. George. If you get wind of anything pertinent to this and would like to share it, would be very welcome.
Colin Badger