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The last day in Belize! We had to be up and ready at 6:45. Nice and early! We took a water taxi to Caye Caulker. The water taxi was cool for awhile. But it took 45 minutes and it was really hot. Right when we got to the Caye we went snorkeling. It was my first time and I was super nervous, but I did it! Robbin chickened our right away though but I stuck with Stephanie. It was surprising how much fun I had and enough courage to go out there. It is sure a memory I won’t forget!
After snorkeling we came back to clean up and then go explore the island and eat lunch. I ate at the Happy Lobster and got some yummy pasta with shrimp. Then it was time to go souvenir shopping and I got some great stuff! We decided that it was time for ice-cream. I got this cookie sandwich thing. It was good but melted fast.
We came back to the hotel and Stephanie and I took a nap for 2 hours! Man did that feel good! Then we had our evening meeting when we got to reflect on our whole trip. Then we to dinner somewhere but I don’t really remember what it was called. The trip was so awesome and it was cool to see how everyone changed!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!
Today was our last day of VBS. It was hard because we all got so attached to the kids so it was hard to say good bye to them all. Overall VBS was awesome! I believe that each of the kids were touched somehow, through something we did throughout it all. Again Kevin was the one that I clicked with. He was a little 12 year old boy and today was the day we got to really hang out!
Kevin came with us to lunch and I played cards with him and decided he need them more than me so I gave them to him. You could see his eyes light up. We then did a sports ministry with all the kids around so Kevin and I went to go and play some soccer. I enjoyed getting to know him and hang out with him. He was a pretty good soccer player! Then we headed over with everyone else to go and play basketball. And of course our team won! ; ) Since it was humid I got hot real quickly. We went inside of the church to cool down. And there attached to my hip was Kevin. He was like “Let’s take a picture together.” He loved the camera!
The next thing to do was more visitations. We were on the bus and the next thing I knew Kevin was there too. The first house we went to was this lady named Burnadette. She had a broken foot and looked in a lot of pain. The sad part was a few days before she broke her foot, her niece had died. She was in pain physically and in her heart. We got to pray for her and pray that the pain would go away. After her house we walked to the next house. While we were walking I was teasing Kevin asking him if he had a girlfriend, then he said “Your my girlfriend.” That was cute. After the last visitation we headed back to Bermudia Landing, to eat some scrumptious dinner. The awful part was we had to say our good byes to everyone!
Saying good bye was so hard! While I was hugging Abigail she was crying which didn’t help because I started crying too! Then came the worst part when I had to say goodbye to Kevin. : ( I gave him my address and he gave me his. I am going to miss that little guy! I am hoping that we can keep in touch! I was so sad to say good bye but at the same time happy to come home.
The 3rd day of VBS and it was my day to teach during story time. I taught about the walls of Jericho and how they came down. I called on volunteers to help me act out the story and it seemed that they all enjoyed themselves. We were done a little early so we played a game were you put a ball on a blanket and people are holding a blanket the see how high you can get it. The kids loved that a lot!
One of the kids that I hung out with a lot was Kevin and all of his little friends. They were all pretty funny. They loved playing basketball with Jon everyday. It was cute seeing them all out there everyday!
Then to lunch we headed again. Afterwards we went to the Bamboon Sanctuary and that was really cool. We got to see howler monkeys and some people fed them but to be honest I was a little frightened by them. I did feel bad for Ashley though. One of the monkeys attacked her, it bit and scratched her. ouch! She took it like a man. she was tough!
Our next stop was the Mayan Ruins. I liked that a lot. It was beautiful and it was interesting to learn all of the history. After the tour we were able to go to the shops and by souvenirs for the people back home. For dinner we ate at a a restaurant that was close by. The food was good except for the co-slaw. I’ve never liked co-slaw. At the restaurant we all had to change and get ready for church. Back on the bus we got and headed to Sister Dahlia’s and Pastor Floyd’s church.
Church service was fun! I was able to help lead worship with Stephanie, Ashley, and Cathryn. During the service I got the opportunity to share my testimony. Katelyn, Stephanie, Anneke and Josh shared their testimonies too. The best part of the service was Pastor Floyd’s message. There was two things that really spoke to me. One was that once people get back from a trip like this we relax and we can’t do that. We have to keep diving into God’s word and keep learning about him and sharing it with others. You have to keep the fire burning! The other thing was he said there are some people who need to drop some friends because they are holding us back from what God wants us to do. I think the message spoke to all of us! It was awesome!! I am really thankful that I got to be apart of it!
Today was our first day for VBS. I was so excited, I couldn’t wait to play with the kids. We had about 300 kids come and each and everyone of them were so cute! All of us went around and put name-tags on them and separated into different groups. Kaylin, Ben, Brandon and myself were apart of the story team.
When our first group came we got off to a rocky start. There wasn’t much interaction and many of the children’s faces looked bored. Finally by the last group they all were having fun, there was a lot of interaction and all of us started to feel comfortable around each other.
I met these brothers named Roman and Joshua. Roman was the older of the two and I had a lot of fun with him. Their eyes caught sight of my camera and they loved taking picture, after picture, after picture. It put a smile on my face to see how happy and the fun they were having. Luckily I was able to ride the bus back to their home after VBS was over. The bus was pretty crazy with all the kids but it was great to be able to spend more time with them and get to know them all.
After all the kids all got dropped off, we headed back to the village for lunch. Once all our tummies were full I went and played soccer with Pastor’s daughter Miracle. She was real cute. Then I went to play basketball with all the boys. The only down side was it was humid and i am pretty sure that I was smelly and gross. Ew. It was raining off and on though so I was able to cool down every-once in awhile. ; )
Pastor and his family were moving into a house next to their church but needed some finishing touches on it first. That’s were we all were able to help out. We helped him paint his ceiling, was always fun to see the paint drip down on people. It happened to me a couple of times but that was part of the fun. After we finished we hurried to the hotel to clean up some and then go eat.
The restaurant we went to was right next to the Caribbean Sea (I think) It was really cool because it was right when the sun was going down, so we got to see the sunset and it was cool and breezy. The food was pretty good, my favorite part of the meal was the mashed potatoes..yum! Today was an awesome day!
One thing I noticed today is how spoiled all of us Americans are. In the U.S. we all just keep wanting more, more and more! Here in Belize they have less than we do and are so happy with what they have. I love the people here, all of them are so welcoming and kind. It is going to be tough when we have to say goodbye to them! : (
Today was Sunday so we were able to go to the church we are helping out all week. It was a small, cute church and a very small congregation, but all were are fire for God. During the morning service 4 or 5 of us were able to share our devotionals and a few others shared their testimonies. It was awesome to hear them all and to see everyone in the church learning from them.
After the service we went across the street to a place called The Baboon Sanctuary. That is were we would be eating lunch everyday. Some of the ladies in the village prepared lunch for us everyday. For our first meal we had a Belizian meal. It was rice, beans, potato salad and chicken. All of it was very yummy. The potato salad was my favorite.
Off to the hotel we went. We were able to have free time which was nice so I went and took a nap; it was so refreshing. An hour later we had a mission training meeting. We learned how to have a conversation with people that is great to use when we evangelize. It was cool though because we had different actions that represented different things, that way we would remember all the questions better. After that all of us were starving and we got pizza to eat! It was pretty good!
The same church we went to in the morning had a night service too. We loaded back onto the bus and headed back to the church. On our way there I was very nervous because I was going to share my testimony. All of us students put together the service and it was cool because they hardly knew us but wanted us to run the service. So that night Brandon was also able to speak to everyone. He did an awesome job and talked about how we were suppose to be there and it really spoke home to a bunch of us. Then we shared testimonies and I loved sharing mine. It was just awesome to be able to tell them what God has been doing in my life and even how I struggle times.
I loved seeing how God worked through all of us and I was ready for VBS the next day! = ]
We arrived at DIA around 6:30 am. Our plane to Dallas Fort Worth was delayed. Around 9:30 we were able to board. when we got to Dallas we thought we would have an hour for lunch, but since our plane was delayed no lunch for us. = [ We were in the Dallas airport for about 5 secs. and we had to go straight to out connecting flight. Then we finally arrived in Belize a little after 3 pm. Right when they opened the doors of the airplane, I could feel the humidity! Man I was not looking forward to that intense heat. After getting off the plane the airport didn't look like what I was expecting. It was a lot smaller and a little crazy. One of the funny parts was we had to keep a tight grip on our bags. In the airport there would be some men that would come up to take your bags and carry them out to your car. What they didn't tell you was that they charge $2 per bag. Lucky for me I had no one come up to me and I made it safely outside.
When we got outside that is when we met two of our leaders from Praying Pelican named Jennie and Burton. Burton is actually from Belize, that was pretty cool and him and Jennie seemed super nice straight of the bat. The bus then arrived ready to take us to out hotel called Global Village Hotel. Right when we got to our hotel it was go go go!! Another leader from Praying Pelican name Toddy gave us our room assignments quickly, so we ran up to our rooms set out luggage down, went back downstairs and loaded on the bus again to head to an orphanage.
Jennie then knew we didn't have dinner so she was nice enough to provide us with some snacks on the way to the orphanage. = ]
On the way to the orphanage I was feeling really tired, hot and I just felt like resting and taking a nap. As soon as I walked into the orphanage all of my tiredness, being hot, and worries went away the moment I saw all the kids. The kids came up to us and gave us huge hugs and just wanted to be loved on. A little girl named Sonya who was 6 yrs old was my pal and attached herself to my hip. She was the cutest thing ever. Unfortunately we weren’t aloud to bring camera’s in to take pictures for privacy reasons but I still have an image of all them in my mind. All of the kids in there were just so precious and it was fun to be able to play with them and just love on them. Eventually we had to leave and I didn’t want to go. Before we left we gave them little stuffed bears that the kids at VBS at the church made for them. A few volunteers went up and told all the kids we came to hang out with them and tell them that Jesus love them very much and died on the cross for our sins. And as soon as we gave them a bear you could see all of there faces light up. It was so awesome to see!
Well that was our only day at the orphanage, but just that small time with the kids was amazing.
We had to head back to our hotel were we ate some dinner and then had our first team meeting. That night we found out we had to prepare a 5-7 minute devotional to share at the church service tomorrow and even be prepared to share our testimonies. I think that God was working in my heart that night because I usually always get really nervous about things like that, but I wasn’t nervous at all . That night God really helped prepare my testimony, I was finding the right verses and understanding them. I couldn’t wait to share my thoughts with them church!
