Day Three: It's a National holiday

Today was our first day of work. Prior to leaving Texas, we thought we were going to be doing masonry work to build classroom walls. When we got to Belize, however, we found that this had changed. We also learned that Monday was a national holiday, which meant the whole country pretty much shut down. Belizians take their holidays very seriously.

Once we arrived at the worksite, Mr. Cuthbert Burrell, the site manager we worked with last year, arrived and gave us our different assignments. Well, he gave our different assignments to Bob and Bob passed them on to us.


Cuthbert planned for us to help repair the church's storm sewer, paint the exterior of the church for their 41st anniversary celebration, move dirt at the high school site, and work on building the concrete forms for the support of the classroom walls. While this would have overwhelmed many groups, our group just mobilized into work groups and got started. By the end of the day, Cuthbert was amazed with how much work we had gotten done and even expanded a few assignments (like now we are painting the interior of the church, too).























It was a long, hard, hot day and the group worked very, very hard. It was our longest workday of the trip. By about 4 PM, we were ready to quit and head to the Blue Hole, a Belize national landmark, and go swimming. We changed at the church and took off. When we got to the place, however, it was closed. We think this was because of the national holiday.


Luckily, Ray, the owner of Camalote Camp, knew of a beautiful creek that we could go to and swim in for free. It was absolutely gorgeous. The water was pretty cold, which felt great after our long day of work.











When we got back to the camp, we ate dinner and had worship. Kip gave a great sermon about the importance of walls and Wesley led us in praise songs.





We were all pretty wiped out so it was an early night. We turned in early to be ready to work for the rest of the week. It might have been a national holiday in Belize, but our mission team didn't let it slow us down.


- Julie W.

Day One: In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb

The 2012 Belize Mission Trip started bright and early this morning (a 5:30 AM meeting time to be exact). Twenty-two people with bags packed for a week's stay in a foreign country and we were all on time. Pretty impressive, I'd say! Before we even left the church parking lot, it began raining and it rained all the way to Houston. Thanks to Bill & Linda Marr for braving the early start time and the weather to safely deliver us to Intercontinental Airport. When we got to the airport, the number of people who were trying to leave for international flights was insane. The ENTIRE check in area of Terminal E was completely full and airport personnel were trying to organize all of the people waiting outside be allowed to enter the terminal. Luckily, because we were using Group Check In, we were able to maneuver past the hordes of people and go to the front of the line. That made our group happy, though a number of the people we bypassed were not as thrilled. We were able to use our group status to make it through security much faster, as well. It was chaotic, but at least we were not stuck in the 3 hour security
clearance wait that other people had to endure. Once the group (now at 25 because 3 people joined us at the airport) checked in, we discovered that 4 members did not have assigned seats on the plane. There were some tense moments when we thought those 4 people would not be able to make the flight as we began hearing stories of how oversold all of the Belize flights were and how one group had already been waiting in the airport on standby for 25 hours. In the end, everything worked out and we were all able to board the flight. Whew!

Once we took off and cleared all of the rain clouds, the trip smoothed out. We landed in Belize City with no problems, easily cleared Customs, met our drivers, and traveled to our delicious lunch in Old Belize.





As I am writing this, we are settling in at Camalote Camp. Every hammock is filled (one hammock has already dumped 8 people and been named "The Devil"),





Michael is serenading a group with his harmonica,


and Jeremy is taking photos of plants.







All is right in our world.

You better Belize it!





- Julie W.

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.

Homeward bound

What an absolutely amazing week. The only thing that could have made it better would be to have the rest of my family here here with me. I miss them.

I still feel like I was in on the beginning of something amazing, and I can't wait to see how God works through us. I'm thoroughly convinced that the most important work we did had nothing to do with bramble-clearing, or hammering or anything like that, though. It was the relationship building, not only among the team (we have some incredible people in our church, and the youth were... Wow), but between the Belizians and us. I'm pretty sure that, once again, we came here to minister, and are leaving here ministered to. I know I saw God at work here this week.


- Julie M.

Location:Camalote Camp, Belize

Day 7: Working Hard (or should that be hardly working?)

And on the seventh side, they played. :)

We made the drive to Placencia to go to the beach today. It's an interesting part of Belize, because there are some really incredible, HUGE houses right next to what are essentially wooden shacks. The town itself is basically made for tourists, with lots of little shops and individual vendors, a few restaurants, and the beach.

Guess where we spent the most time.





















(I took a lot more pictures than this, but they're on an old-fashioned film camera, so I won't know what they look like until I get them developed).

A great time was had by all, although a few people got a bit too much sun. You'll know who I'm talking about when you see us on Sunday.

We had a bit of trouble on the way home when one of the vans blew a tire. Bob A. was driving, and he got the van safely to the side of the road with no problem, and then gave the kids a lesson in tire changing.

After dinner tonight, we had our final worship service with communion.

Location:Camalote Camp, Belize

Day 6: Thursday (a-bramblin' we will go)

(Just a warning, this post is image intensive)

Last day of work today, and I don't know about the rest of the team, but I'm exhausted.

One crew worked on the forms some more, and when they ran out of wood, they started tying rebar.













The team got 15 and a half boxes done today. They originally said they were going to need a total of 44 boxes, but after talking to Cuthbert (the foreman), he thinks they can reuse what we've built, so they're done. :-)

The rest of us went ''brambling"--working on clearing the field of the brambles, which are huge, interconnected, tangled vine-like things.





The field/site went from this



to this


We even worked in the pouring rain. And Sara K. is amazing. (She also somehow managed to be the dirtiest one out of the entire group.)

And just so y'all can see how the Lord is working though this team...



Cheryl, Ashley, and John with Duane

















I have to say, I've got a much better appreciation of "those who have gone before" after this week. We were the first team on the ground for this project, and a lot of what we did isn't going to necessarily be remembered once the school is built. There's no building to show what we did, just 15 boxes and a now-empty field. But the school couldn't be built without the work we did. I think it's really cool that we were the first team, that the next group (which arrives on Saturday) and the team after that and the team after that and the team after that and... will be building on what we did this week.

How awesome is that?

Location:Camalote Camp, Belize