DEVON and Juliet Baker have been so busy trying to make a living from their farm that they haven’t been on a date for the past 10 years.

But last month, the couple from Lime Edge District, just above Golden Spring in St Andrew, received a pleasant surprise when they walked into the LIME Carlton store on Half-Way-Tree Road. They had bought a laptop computer for one of their daughters and were in the process of applying for Internet service when they were approached by two female representatives of the telecoms firm.

“I was surprised; two ladies just come and said, ‘When was the last time you’ve been to a movie?’ So I say, ’10 years’,” Devon recalled.

One of the women, he said, asked whether he would like to go to a movie, to which he responded: ‘Of course.’

“She say ‘Would you like to go now?’ and I say, ‘Yes, or even tomorrow’,” Devon laughed as he recalled the experience.

The ladies, he said, then presented him and his wife with movie gift cards which gave them the option of watching a movie of their choice.

“Is long time I never get a gift from anybody,” Devon added. The cinema, he said, looked a lot different than it did the last time they went, but the experience was just as enjoyable.

“It was fantastic, we appreciate it many, many times,” Devon said, adding that he and his wife watched Tower Heist.

The movie gift was the first presented in the LIME Christmas Lifetime Moment promotion which has already rewarded more than 10,000 persons across the island with free and discounted meals, movie tickets, bus rides and petrol.

The evening out gave the couple a welcome respite from their daily struggle to care for their six children. It also served to ease the pain, if only for a few hours, of the stabbing death of their 16-year-old son at a community fair in Golden Spring in August.

The date also reminded them of earlier times when they would go to the movies with the children.

Devon, 49, admitted that he’s a big movie fan who likes to watch the occasional romance, but often prefers action flicks, even though they sometimes keep him awake at nights.

But as their children grew older, the Bakers have had to make sacrifices in order to give them a better shot at life. “Is long time I never get to go to a theatre, you know,” he said. “Around 10 years ago, when the kids were much smaller, we usually go to the movies, but since they have grown up we don’t have the money; we have to school them with the little money we find. We really couldn’t take that money fi go do no movie thing.”

So far, they have done a fine job. The eldest son works as a bus conductor, while one of their three daughters is a nurse at Kingston Public Hospital. Another graduated from high school recently, and the third is still in high school.

The couple has a working arrangement that takes away much of the stress of doing business. Basically Juliet, 48, sells the crops Devon grows at markets in Cross Roads, Half-Way-Tree and sometimes in downtown Kingston. From the sales they cover their everyday living expenses.

Juliet once worked on a coffee farm, but these days she spends her time as a housewife because, as she puts it, “nothing not going on right now”.

But their love and unique chemistry have kept them together. “Sometimes things are very thin, and why I love her is that no care what problem we have, or we no have no food inna di house, she never really cry out. Anything we have she always satisfy. That is one of the reasons I always stick to her and married to her,” Devon said.

Despite the hard times, Juliet has always been focused on her children’s welfare. “It’s very, very hard. Sometimes we have no food to give them,” she said. “Sometimes we just buy a pound a chicken back and we give them the meat and we eat the gravy.”

She also said that sometimes her children come home from school hungry, as all she could afford to give them was $200, which is really bus fare.

However, she said she tells them not to watch what other people are eating, “just try to learn something”.

The couple became friends while they were students at St Theresa’s All-Age in Mount Friendship.

“Me see her and like her and say this girl could be my wife, yu nuh,” Devon recalled laughing. “And me always a tell her and she say ‘eeeh, it naw go work’.”

But he persisted, expressing his love for her and telling her that she would one day be his.

They expressed gratitude to LIME, which they said provides great service in their community.

And now that they are equipped with their LIME landline and Internet service, the Bakers said they plan on being LIME customers for a long time.