Monday March 16

We began our day at the primary school where we were able to briefly interact with the children before class started.  It was so neat to see their classrooms, school uniforms, and overall culture of a Belizean elementary. Our group had a lot of fun connecting with the children through skits, song, and devotion.  One of the children even decided to sing us a song, “This Little Light of Mine”.  It was such a blessing to start our journey knowing that the people of Belize are excited right along with us!

 

Javon’s House is where I spent the majority of my time.  Just driving through the neighborhoods and parking in front of this home I was reminded of how incredibly blessed we are as Americans.  There is such a need in Belize and it was evident that any help we could provide at this site would be so appreciated. We began by removing the rusted and broken railing on the front porch, and then rebuilt a new safe and functional rail.  We also removed the exterior trim from the windows, because one of our big endeavors tomorrow will be to replace those windows. There is a huge plumbing obstacle, and currently the sewage drains into the yard right next to the house, along with some standing water.  We moved a large dirt pile and create a muddy path to walk on all the way around the house so that we can get to the windows. This was a HUGE accomplishment! Before we left this site we ripped up the old flooring and swept so tomorrow we can begin to lay the new flooring. Already, this home is looking completely transformed.  It was a dirty job, but our group worked together with purpose, and I know we made an impact. J I look forward to seeing what we can get done here tomorrow!

 

It wasn’t ALL work and no play… We just got back from a really fun dinner to celebrate Jake’s birthday!  I thought it was really awesome that we were able to treat our Belizean friends to dinner.  This is my first year coming to Belize, and one thing that has really surprised me is the relationships our team has made in this beautiful country (a pleasant surprise of course!). I challenge myself to make those connections this year as I know these friendships are a product of God’s work. -Abby

 

Hello from Belize! This is Hannah, and today was our first day of work! We started our day at the school. It was so interesting to see the kids and worship with them. They even knew some of our songs better than us! We preformed some skits for the kids and they loved them and thought they were all pretty funny. My favorite skit was about becoming a Christian instead of just acting like one because I think the kids understood it and liked it the most. The kids were much more respectful and well behaved than I was when I was their age! From the school we went back to the hotel to change and get ready for the rest of the day. I worked at Debra’s house today and it really made me change my perspective about my own house. We replaced several spots on the floor and put paneling on some parts of the wall. We found some wood lice in the floor boards and had to spray them to get them to leave. Tomorrow we are going to replace the stair case that leads to the front door. I wish I had more construction skills!!! I am so thankful for the roof I live under and I feel so blessed to have the opportunities that come with living in the United States. Driving down the streets makes me wish that I could stay down here and fix every broken floorboard and wobbly staircase at every house.

Abby

 

Hey everyone! It’s Erin. So, as you already know, today was our first day of work. We started out by going to Grace Primary School (the same school we have went to on our past 2 trips) to sing songs, perform skits and give devotions. And of course, give lots of hugs to the children. The group I am a part of was with the older kids and we had a blast! They participated in the songs (for the most part) and really enjoyed our skits.

 

Before we started, while we were still outside interacting with all the kids, Julie came walking over towards me with a beautiful girl. Julie had been talking to her and found out that her name was Erin. What are the chances that there would be someone named Erin in Belize?! We started talking and we pretty much have the same personality. She said she is loud, crazy and loves to sing. J  I will post a photo of her on my Facebook at some point.

 

Next, we headed off to our work projects. There are 3 major projects for us to complete this week so we split up into 3 work groups. My group was scheduled to go to Ms. Deborah’s house but there was a slight delay so we were able to help bust out a wall at The Bible Society. During this time I was able to acquire the title for “First Injury!” I have to admit that I was kind of excited to earn this title. J Some of you may remember that we had a group of people on our first trip to Belize who went to The Bible Society to paint the walls. I had mixed emotions as I was slamming the sledgehammer into the wall and trying to help knock it out. The walls were blue and I know how hard our previous group had worked to make them look so beautiful. But I also knew that this particular wall needed to be replaced and the store would benefit greatly. We eventually headed to Ms. Deborah’s house to get started on our projects there. We spent today working on the inside. It’s really hard to describe in detail all the things that were wrong and terrifying about this house. I was honestly amazed that people were able to live there let alone able to get inside. I think the improvements we made will help make it safer living conditions even though it’s still nowhere close to our standards in America. It really makes you realize how much we complain and appreciate what we have.

 

There was a group of 10 teammates that left the work projects early to head to our afternoon children’s ministry. We didn’t start out with very many kids but they just kept coming and I believe at one point there were around 40 kids. I’ll be honest with you things did not go as planned with this particular ministry. It was pretty chaotic to say the least. The majority of us gave our fair share of piggy back rides. Cheyenne was pinched, Stephen was playfully tackled by a group of kids, I was bitten and had my hair pulled. This was definitely the more challenging part of my day. The best part is that the kids enjoyed themselves and we did get to sing some songs about Jesus to them. We have come up with a different approach for tomorrow that will hopefully result in being able to share more about Jesus with these little ones.

 

We ended our evening by going out to eat to celebrate Jake’s birthday. It was very delicious and a fun time spending more time bonding with one another.