I found a small pink notebook and inside I had written about my La Petite Boulangerie (My small bakery). We were living on an island in the Caribbean, a French territory called Saint Barthelemy (St. Bart), about 15 miles from St. Martin (a Dutch and French island). My little notebook recorded on 11/25/1990 that I began baking and selling my goods on that day.
Ron was trying to start a new congregation but to meet people, he rented a small plane and several days a week, he flew to other islands to pick up fruits and vegetables to bring back to St. Bart to sell to restaurants and to the public. He rented a small building not far from our rental house, added some refrigerators, placed tables around the room and displayed the many things be brought back from other islands in the Caribbean. He opened it to the public from 12:00 to 3:00 P.M. several days a week. At 4:00 he loaded up our van and took orders to restaurants all over the island. He brought back conch and other specific items as requested by the restaurant owners. It was a little income for us but mostly it was a way to get to know the people on the island in hopes of teaching some of them the gospel. It was a Catholic island and French people, many speaking a creole French, so it was difficult for Americans to be accepted by the locals. Our small business helped a lot in that way but we did not convert anyone in the 2-l/2 years we lived there. We mostly had tourists attending our services.
My little bakery began to give me something to do and items to sell at Ron's little market each day. I started baking right after breakfast each morning (7:30 a.m. and baked until noon). I covered flat boxes with contact paper and filled it with small loaf-size cellophane wrapped loaves of bread and cakes, zip-lock bags of cookies, fried pies and muffins. I labeled what each was and the price on small sticker-type labels. Everything was sold each day. I began to get requests for special cakes and I baked those extra items and put the person's name on the item so it would not be sold to anyone else.
I got special orders for pizzas, which was surprising because there were some really good pizza restaurants on the island. People came by the house to pick them up as they were just out of the oven so they would be fresh and hot. It was usually a family heading to the beach and wanted a pizza for lunch. A couple of guys (homosexuals) from New York had a rental house close to us and they came by the house often to pick up sacks of muffins that I baked special at their requests. They owned a Hermes shop in New York (so they told me) and if you know of that designer of scarves and accessories, you know what an expensive shop they owned. They were really friendly and nice. It was a safe island with no crime and I was never afraid there.
I continued my small bakery until we began to pack to leave the island to go to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. My last entry in the book is dated June 4, 1991. Converting the income from the French franc to U.S. dollars, I recorded:
November - December $939.00
January $999.00
February $1,166.00
March $807.00
April $100.00
May $472.00
Also, 50 pizzas baked in 6 months (50 x $10).
Total amount sold, excluding pizzas was $4,513 (we considered l/2 profit after buying the ingredients).
The remarkable thing about this small business endeavor is that I was coming down with an autoimmune disease unknown to me and most others, including doctors. It is called Sjogren's Syndrome. My first symptom was dry eyes. I have no moisture/tears to this day. My eyes were hurting so badly that the baking was my way to keep my mind off my pain for at least l/2 of each day. It is a very long story to explain the progress of the disease and what I went through for several more years. It is the reason we left St. Barts and went to Canada. I needed testing, medications and doctors to relieve my pain. Ron had an opportunity to work with a church that needed us badly so we made the decision to move. We lived in Montreal for the next seven years (1991 - 1998) and worked with people speaking five different languages in this one congregation. We moved to Nashville, TN and began the
mission work in China in 1998.
I just thought I would reminisce about what was happening with me 30 years ago tomorrow. God has blessed our years and work and we have many things to be thankful for on this special day to reflect on past and present blessings.
Wishing all a happy Thanksgiving. Thank you again for following our work. God bless you!
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