Day Two: The Lord's Day

Today started bright and early again, for the girls at least. The time sprang forward in Texas, but not Belize. Elley's phone (our alarm) was on Texas time, but we didn't know it for the first hour. So we started the day napping fully dressed for church. And their church starts at 8 AM, so this should give you an idea of how early we began.


What a wonderful experience to worship with the Belmopan Methodist Church! Alex read a scripture in the service and Wesley was a hit with his guitar.


Most importantly, it was moving to worship with people who have such a love for the Lord. The music wasn't perfect, but it was sung with much enthusiasm and the church wasn't packed, but those who were there praised God with their whole heart. When making the announcements to the church about upcoming activities, Sunday was always referred to The Lord's Day. How awesome it was to be reminded that Sunday should be set aside for the Lord! When the service was over, it was nice for those of us who traveled here last year to renew old friendships and introduce the new members, plus we all met people we hadn't known before.

After church, we came back to the camp, changed, packed a picnic lunch and headed out to cave tube. What is cave tubing, you might be wondering? It involves putting on a helmet with a head light, getting an inner tube and a life jacket, and hiking 30 minutes into a rainforest to get to the starting point.






Along the hike, we saw many beautiful plants, heard the most rhythmic cicadas ever, saw trees that were much more poisonous than poison ivy, and ate termites to find out that they have so much protein in them that they taste minty. And that was all before we entered the water or a cave!





If you have ever been to Disney, cave tubing is kinda like riding on Space Mountain, except the scenery is breathtaking, you have to back paddle a lot with your arms, and there are slow parts and fast parts. Also, the most enjoyable way to do it is be 6 years old and then one of the guides does all of the work for you.


The first part of the trip was literally in a cave, so we had to use the headlights to see. It was total darkness in different sized caves that the river flowed through. Seeing everything that the water had carved was awesome. Once we made it through the caves, the second part of the trip was outdoors through the same rain forest we had hiked through. It was just as breathtaking by water as it was by land. We all made it in one piece and enjoyed our cave tubing adventure.


But we weren't done with the Lord's Day. We came back to camp to get ready to host children and youth from the Belmopan Methodist Church for Texas-style United Methodist Youth Fellowship (UMYF). Once they got here, we played soccer and volleyball, threw a football, flew kites (into a tall tree), colored with sidewalk chalk, played with bubbles, put together a puzzle, played cards, and sat in hammocks and talked. There were different activities going on and different groups interacting all over the place.








When it came time for worship, we started with a homemade piñata to celebrate Kyle's birthday. All of the kids, plus Kyle, got a turn and there was much scrambling when the contents dropped on the floor.





The Texas group sang several praise and worship songs and Kip and Zac arrived just in time to hear Rev. Kofi and some of his youth perform Belizian praise and worship songs.


Sara gave an outstanding talk to the group on the importance of strong foundations.


When the evening ended, we bid our old and new friends good evening and promised that we would see them again soon.

Tomorrow we start working on the construction part of this project, but I know that the fellowship we had today was a part of this trip's strong foundation. We celebrated the Lord's Day with fun and fellowship. The relationships that are being forged between A&M United Methodist Church and Belmopan Methodist Church will be the rock on which many futures are built. And the people said "Amen."




- Julie W.