In January, a group of seven from Asbury United Methodist Church traveled to Browns Town, Jamaica, as part of a weeklong Outreach Team mission trip. The trip continued the Asbury tradition of committing to helping others—in our community, in our region and around the world—through mission trip work.
The group flew from Minneapolis to Montego Bay and immediately had its first experience driving through the Dry Harbour Mountains of north-central Jamaica. Meeting vehicles coming in the other direction on the narrow, winding roads was anxiety-producing for all of the new arrivals from Duluth.
The Asbury group stayed at a manse, or parsonage, where Rev. Earl and June Harrison were their hosts. They shared two rooms, each of which had its own bathroom and shower. On the first full day, group members went to Dunns River Falls at Ocho Rios and held hands as they walked through the waterfall.
The next day, the group attended a choir concert at a church about an hour away that is one of Pastor Earl’s nine parishes.
The work of the week was to paint the outside of the manse and the inside of a sunroom, including the metal grates on the windows. The team also spent parts of three days planting avocado trees on the side of a steep hill.
“We carried the trees up the hill, looking for a stick to mark a hole that Tucker, a Jamaican worker, had prepared with his pick ax,” said Rev. Cindy Rasmussen, Asbury’s pastor and one of the mission trip members. “It was not an easy task!”
She added: “We had to wear long sleeves and long pants, hats and gloves. It was very hot. But we were all excited to be a part of Earl’s vision of an avocado field and an eventual processing plant.”
Each day, two women named June and Lisa prepared the group’s delicious Jamaican breakfasts, lunches and dinners.
After a week in rural Jamaica, the Asbury team bid their new friends goodbye and departed back down the mountain. They stayed in Montego Bay, with time for the beach and shopping, before their flight home to Minnesota.
“The trip was a real immersion into Jamaican culture,” Pastor Cindy said. “We enjoyed having time to converse with and get to know the people of Jamaica. Even though the cultures are different, we are not different in how we think and care about the essential concerns of life such as family, faith, friends and fun. The Jamaicans’ saying. ‘Out of many are one,’ describes their commitment to unity in diversity. It is a special place and a special people.”
For more information about Asbury’s Outreach Team and mission trip work, please contact the church office, 218-624-0061, or Outreach Team Co-Chair Barbara Little, 218-879-0514.