Belize - The First Week

Blazing a trail; yes, that is a path behind Ansy 

Belize: the land of lush palm jungles, lots of water, more mud than a brick maker would know what to do with, multiple rain showers a day, more kinds of bugs than the average American knows exist (each with a thirst for human blood – so it seems!), elusive snakes, short but heavy rain showers at regular intervals every day, all kinds of colorful birds, a huge variety of lizards, lots of mud, hot weather, cool breezes when the rain showers come, huge spiders, loud toads and frogs that make weird but awesome noises after dark, did I mention rain and mud? cuz there are at least half a dozen downpours a day, no joke – at least, these are the conditions in which we found ourselves the first week of missionary life! 

Where we’ve been:

Travel to Armenia (located 7 miles south of Belmopan, the capital city), drive thru the village, go over  the last 3 rumble strips, keep your eyes on the west side of the road, and just outside the village you’ll see an opening into the jungle; take the two-track into the lush green beyond, over the bumps, holes, and a steep-ish hill you’ll find a beautiful clearing with a tin-roofed building in the process of construction at the far end and a ‘cabana’ (pavilion with a thatch roof) beside it. Sitting at the end of the driveway, just a small distance from the cabana, you’ll find our bus! The building is going to be a dorm and is the first of, hopefully, many buildings that will be built here for a vocational school. It has a room on either side for the future students and a kitchen in the middle.

before and after 

Over the kitchen is now a second floor for the future house parents to live in. This second floor is the main project we’ve done here. Well, ‘we’ is mostly Dad and Lewis (along with Lazarus – the native in charge of the place), BUT I did help carry boards and hammer a few nails on Tue!

Interesting notes:

the tin roof worked great
when the sun shone

On Mon. Mom and I did a bunch of laundry. We brought the first dry ones in on Wed. – it was so wet the clothes didn’t dry till then (some stuff had been hanging out all week)! And, some of it didn’t smell the best cuz of being wet too long – kinda like when you leave a batch in the washer overnight.

On a cool night the temperature goes down to the mid-70s, F.

We sang and Dad preached at Lazarus and Allicia’s church on Thurs.

Sat. was our first sunny day, and it was gorgeous! There was a blue sky (basically the first we’ve seen) dotted with clouds and sunny, breezy weather all day. We got all our laundry washed (some rewashed) and dried in one day (after almost giving up hope of ever doing that here!). Dad wasn’t sure how the bus was gonna get up the steep-ish hill if it was so slippery, but thanks to the sun, and to God for answering prayers, it dried out in time for us to pull out on Mon.

We’ve seen –

amazingly colorful butterflies, especially brilliant blue ones native to here

brightly colored birds, one that almost looks like a cardinal

a poisonous lizard sitting on one of our oranges

beetles half the size of my hand

a huge tarantula sitting on one of the posts in the cabana  

One of the biggest lessons I have learned here is to be content in every place I’m in. It happened the morning that we found some maggots (yes, little white worms) crawling on our toilet. Disgusting, I know! Mom was sick that day, so any guesses on who got the job of cleaning and disinfecting our tiny little bathroom? We figured out that they prob. got in cuz we left the window open for ventilation and we had a leak in the water pipe behind the toilet which made the wood floor…well, not pleasant! Somewhere in my complaining to God about His creation of the little nasty white things and a whole list of other things (getting bitten by fire ants while taking out the trash cuz I forgot to switch my flip-flops for shoes, all the mud everywhere, finding the shower drain plugged, having laundry that doesn’t dry or smell very good, being here at a time when even the natives say there’s more rain than normal…), He gently reminded me of what I had prayed for that morning – a servant’s heart. Yup, it had to be that very same morning! Why not the day before? It had gone well. The boys had put down big planks thru the muddiest parts of the main walkway and out to the water hole. I had been finding out things I liked about being here, like all the birds’ chirping and other cool animal sounds native to the jungle, the awesome little path leading a few feet into the jungle that Julie and I had discovered on our way to burn trash (with the thick undergrowth, being able to go more than a few steps into the jungle without a machete is a big thing), the constant sound of rain (I do like that sound!), the coolness under the cabana. It’s easy to have a heart of content on days when I feel like it – but when ‘disgusting days’ hit, that’s when the challenge of ‘giving thanks in all things’ really hits home. I’m sure my whining had God chuckling at me for a bit, but when He reminded me of this, I also remembered that I’m always up for a challenge! My attitude didn’t change right away, tho I did try hard. The spraying and scrubbing still had to be done, and without rubber gloves (somehow I thot those would make things a bit better!). But I did learn that it is possible to give thanks in all things (I have a good pair of thick-soled shoes that keep the mud from soaking my feet, I found a spray bottle for the bleach that made it easier to sanitize, I have a great sister who helped clean the rest of the bus without complaining, we have a plentiful supply of water…). As an added bonus, after 6 days of rain we had  2 gorgeous, sunny days for our weekend, with only one downpour Sun. morning; and we pulled out of Armenia with blue skies and sunshine overhead – almost a novel thought for us :)

We are heading on to our next stop in Belize! S o far, the entries I’ve made while out of the country have been at short stops at places with internet access, so I haven't been able to add as many pics as I'd like to. I will have steady access in Jan. (as previously mentioned) but till then, if you don’t hear from me in a while, you’ll know that we haven’t fallen off the planet :) Continue checking in; I might be on again sooner than I expect!