The Path From Mission Home to Home Sweet Home...!

We’re back! We left our “home away from home” Monday morning at 6:30 and traveled the approximately 200 miles back to Belize City to the airport. We arrived there at about noon after driving through pouring rain, having to slow down to a stop to navigate the multiple speed bumps/pedestrian crossing elevations of several inches, and waiting on school buses to load and move on. Unlike I-10 where the the speed limit gets up to 80mph, we could only progess at best at the speed limit of 55mph. So – you don’t just hop in your car and take a run up to Belize City!

With some rearranging and sharing of packing room, we all came in with bags at or under the 50 pound limit! We negotiated customs without a hitch, and except for six of the people in front of me getting finger print checked – keeping me in line and making the team think I had been detained and incarcerated upon re-entry as we entered in Houston – all was smooth sailing. Naturally, Continental airlines gave our flight captain to another flight and we were delayed for an hour and a half while they found some willing captain to come fly us all home! Arriving at midnight – we rescued our belongings from the carousel, declared our mission an absolutely outstanding experience, hitched our rides and went home.

I don’t know about the rest of the team yet, but I awoke early according to Belize time this morning – unfortunately, it was to the sound of my Sprint EVO alarm rather than to God’s amazing wake-up symphony of parrots, robins and our favorite red-headed woodpecker. I should have captured it on a recording and at least provided a transition phase for coming home!

This is the last post – we just wanted to let you know we made it home safely and give a final thank you – although we will be thanking you in our hearts from now on for your gift of prayer, love and support. We will leave the blog up for awhile for everyone to re-visit and share as you wish. The journey may be accomplished, but the memories will live on.

In His Love, Grace and Mercy,

Patricia and the Team

Philippians 3:14 KJV - "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

Laughing Out Loud Orphanage - Prayer Walking

Psalm 126:2 NIV

“Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’”

And so He has for the Laughing Out Loud Orphanage.
Pictured here is the gate to LOL Orphanage.

Our visit to LOL Saturday afternoon was almost beyond comprehension. There is not time here to relate all the “great things” the Lord has done for them – but they are indeed great. From one idea shared from school and church to families and then to other churches and their families – an orphanage was born.

After 3 years of labor, the license was granted 2 days ago. With 2 toddlers and a 7 month old baby, they have a beginning and room for a total of 35 children from birth to age 8. Everything they have has come from the Lord through others; our God is an awesome God.

The fence project is completed with the hanging of three gates.

We are very proud to leave a finished work for TCA and its school children. They now have a safe and clean playground on which to play. The work of our hands has done a work in and for others.

It is hard to believe this is our last day in Belize. Our reflections last night reminded us how quickly time flies and how soon we would be leaving our friends

and our mission.

We all agreed that the experience has been beyond our expectations, and we have been blessed beyond belief. As we pack up for the trip to the airport early tomorrow morning, we are looking forward to seeing families and friends back home. We have missed you all greatly; words cannot adequately express the joy we have felt here and the appreciation we have for your prayers and encouragement. We have delighted in being both accountable to our church family for our mission work here and in sharing our experiences in a way others could enjoy and participate in vicariously.

Please pray for our safe journey home. We will blog one more time on Tuesday to let you all know we are back safely. We love you all dearly and thank you for loving us.

Patricia and the Team

Water, Water Everywhere!

The Balloon Water War was the best part of playday!(Saturday)On the count of three, kids swarmed the tubs and coolers filled with 600 hundred water balloons and began the onslaught!

Then there was the rare, but oh so adorable, playday onlooker.

Ben timed the action, and the last balloon burst at 12 minutes! 3 hours of work gone in 12 minutes – but well worth it for the fun these guys had!

After the water war, we enjoyed lunch with the staff, and then began the Team Building Event that Shara had prepared.

Not sure how it would be received, we were so very excited that not only was it well received, but completely embraced! For about two and a half hours, we enjoyed activities that were oriented toward building the teaching team as a whole.

While totally fun, we all learned a great deal about what it takes to be a team and how leadership emerges in every setting. By the end of the event, all of teachers and management of TCA agreed that they would like to use this for training for themselves, new staff coming on and even with the older students. Picture here is Teacher Zelda.

It was a great success both educationally and culturally!

Yesterday was wonderful day spent with Emerson, Juliana and Eduardo – who is being considered for promotion to management. We awakened this morning, rested and refreshed after experiencing the culture of our mission territory and its people. Today is our visit to the Laughing Out Loud Orphanage. We are all excited to have the opportunity to prayer walk through and visit the orphanage. It will be a ministry of prayer and thanksgiving for these very special children.

We had many emails to read from you all this morning; we have enjoyed the interaction with each of you who have corresponded with us. It has been like opening a treasure box each morning when we come in to get on the computer and check out mail! Truly, your words are treasures of encouragement and blessing to us as have journeyed through each day of our mission.

Patricia and the Team

Punta Gorda in the Evening

We have been in Belize a little over a week now; it is time to start winding down and reflecting. We will spend the day having some personal time with the leadership of Toledo Christian Academy – Emerson and Juliana Mangar. We will enjoy a time of cultural exchange with them, which has not been possible earlier as we have all been held to such a busy schedule. It will be a great day.

Looking back, we can SEE our building project. With it, we have a sense of accomplishment and completion in providing a safer play area for the younger school children by keeping out the various animals that like to come dig and lay in the sand around the playground equipment.

We have participated in the education of the school children through chapel times and in participating in their graduations: first those from Pre-K and then those from the 8th grade. We have had lots of fun with them in the play day activities and see that they are children like any others we know.

We have attended a local church service and enjoyed the worship experience and seeing how the churches work in this part of the world.

It has been a very busy time with much hard work – but so many things have been enjoyable: the flood flies invasion after the rain, the tight-rope walking stinging ants on the clothesline, the lizards on the window screens; the occasional bird in the house, and – of course – always feeling like you have on clothes that came straight out of the washing machine! At 90% + humidity, even the page I write my notes on goes limp with moisture and feels more like a piece of cloth than a piece of paper!

We really can’t complain about the weather, though. It has been absolutely glorious here – blessed with some rain, but not rained out – and by gentle breezes that have come at just the right time, like answered prayers bringing sweet relief from the heat and humidity. And our skin is looking really good – even the guys’!

When the sun sets on the day, we will be on the downside of our trip – beginning the preparation for heading home. In 8 short days, God has given us an experience that has positioned a place and its people on our hearts forever. Like a watermelon seed planted in fertile soil, this small Christian school has the potential to produce much fruit in its field. It is our mission to keep it watered and nurtured so that it may yield according to God’s provision and plan.

We love you all at home and continue to ask for your prayers for our safety throughout the rest of our time here and all the way back to you.

Patricia and the Team

It's a Croc!

No, it’s not a typo – it IS a croc-o-dile – swimming along the beach at Punta Gorda!Makes you really want to go swimming in the ocean, doesn’t it? We couldn’t believe our eyes, either. We were driving back to TCA from Punta Gorda after I had sent the blog for the day and checked our emails, when Miles made the sighting. We jumped out of the van and tried to get pictures before the croc submerged, and were able to get a shot of his head

and the top of his body just as he was slipping beneath the surface.

It was truly frightening from the perspective that we see people swimming there every day. Miles alerted the local officials, and they will try to find and catch the crocodile and return him to his natural river habitat; they estimated him to be about 8 feet long. Adrenaline is just now subsiding!

Pomp and Circumstance – the Sequel! It was graduation day for the 8th graders, and what a celebration it was.

Even Jesse the dog came to graduation and adopted Landan.

The Magnificent Seven students graduated with many honors.

One of the students posted the highest grade for the region on the achievement tests taken last week. The youngest son of groundskeeper Santiago Choc was the valedictorian of the class.In this picture are Ben and Shara along with Santiago at his son's graduation.

Each student stood out in some remarkable way, and the thrill of the recognition was painted in their expressions.

Standing tall in caps and gowns pressed by Shara and the staff,

they will remember this proud moment in time. Here is teacher Isabella and her family after the graduation.

We are waiting on additional building materials for the gates to be added to the fence – so we found a few other things to occupy us today. Ben and Shari will be presenting the chapel time for the 1st through the 5th graders this morning. Isn't this a precious little face?!

The children help to clean rooms in these pictures.

Miles will be taking care of the chapel time for the 6th through the 8th graders. Landan will be filling 300 water balloons between now and 11:30 when we do the closing fun day activity we selected – water balloon events! Juliana and teacher Isabella will be adding their skills to the filling process so Landan will not be entirely ballooned out!

After playday time, we will have lunch with the staff and teachers for a time of sharing. Afterward, Shara will be leading a team building exercise for the teachers for a couple of hours in the afternoon. The rest of us will be available to assist her as needed during that time. The teachers are very excited about the learning opportunity; Shari’s experience will have a positive impact on them for sure. Then…enchiladas in the evening. Wow – good thing the building materials aren’t here yet!

Thank you for your faithfulness in praying for us daily – we feel it!

Patricia and the Team

So Much Activity

Prayers for cool breezes were answered - so thank you! There were some very “tropical” moments during the workday that had us emptying our canteens – both down the throat and down the neck - just before a breeze came through! We made excellent headway on the fence yesterday, even when several pickets had to be reset as our 2 helpers had not been using the level on the vertical as well as the horizontal. We stood back and weren’t sure if we were leaning or if it was the fence! Here we are resetting the pickets.

But all is corrected and we continue cutting what seems like an entire lumberyard of pickets. Here we are cutting and measuring endless pickets.

We hope to get done with all except the gates today. The work is demanding, but the progress is so wonderfully VISIBLE!

Today is the graduation for the 8th graders – a very important day in their lives as many will go no further in their education than this level. Shara helped decorate alongside of the students yesterday; the results are quite amazing – once again using the flora from the jungle to bring beauty from outside to the inside. Everyone is very excited about the ceremony today, and practice continued even as we left to go back to the mission house for the evening. We are all looking forward to this afternoon’s event as we do not know what the students will be presenting as their program – surprise! Here you can see a packed-up classroom and the walk from the playground to the mission house.

Landan was invited by Emerson – the young man who runs the school – to go striking for Tuba fish last evening. Striking is at night, when the fish are sleeping (no, we are not kidding here!), and they are speared in the shallow waters. Landan “caught” about 20 fish while they were sleeping (sounds sporting doesn’t it), and Juliana’s mother prepared the fish wrapped in Waha leaves and seasoned with Cow’s feet leaves and spices. Here is the Juliana with the fish that Landan speared.

Additionally, we had homemade tortillas to go with the Tuba fish.

There were a multitude of tiny bones to pick through, but the fish was a feast, and we enjoyed the cultural experience.

Emerson and Juliana joined us for our fish dinner, and we learned much about them as they both shared their lives with us – a conversation which came about because it was their 8th wedding anniversary. They have quite a testimony of God working in their lives and in the school. We knew the upper level students had been taking the government required achievement tests this past week; Emerson reported to us that Toledo Christian Academy had ranked in the top ten schools of the region when the scores came in. We were reminded of the importance of the existence of this little Christian school in the midst of both other private schools and the public schools. The presence of teams such as ours is crucial to the ongoing functioning of the school in such a poor area. We provide much needed “feet on the ground” support to the school as it makes every effort to meet the needs of its students and community. They are hungry for our help.

It is unfortunate that they will no longer be able to offer the high school grades due to funding and difficulty in finding teachers. Here is a picture of their upper-grade classrooms.

This means there are currently high school students who have spent their education years from pre-K to 10th at TCA, but who must now attend public high school to finish. Our prayers are that these students will have the strength and grounding to be a light in the darkness, rather than being consumed by it in an area with significant drug and alcohol problems. Please keep them in your prayers as well.

We have much to accomplish today and look forward to a productive time as well as an enjoyable one. We love getting your emails; I print them out and we read them throughout the day. Thank you for your continued prayers and words of encouragement.
Patricia and the Team

Belizean Tetherball!

They tip the tire to start the ball in play !

Our God is Bigger!

If you thought Miles' prize jungle palm from earlier in the week was cool, then brace yourself! At first it doesn't appear to be much, but then you notice a little toy-like suburban and your perception is altered. Wow!

This is an AMAZING Fan Palm by the Mission house.

Good Morning Sunshine!

Well, we found out why it is called the rainy season here yesterday! It rained intermittently during the day – cooling things down, including us. In these pictures you can see the mist rising from the jungle during a brief interval of no rain.

It was an awe inspiring sight and the photos do not do it justice. Later in the evening, the rain truly began to come down, giving new meaning to buckets of rain! It rained quite a while, and we had to go into town to get gas and some supplies; on the road were blue crabs crossing and frogs hopping! It was quite a display of “rain dancing!” Later in the night, the rains came down in sheets once again – it is no wonder that Belizean wildflowers are the exotics that we purchase from the florist shop. Here is a picture of Landan going to great lengths for a wild orchid.

We got a great deal of work done on the playground fence building project, completing the setting of posts and framing; and, then beginning the picket work. Here are several pictures of our work in progress.
Great minds at work!

All hands on deck!

Moving materials = hard work!

So much to do... so little time!

Playground before, with materials, and at the end of day 1. (framing done and pickets begun)

Ben and Landan ending the day and Miles and Landan going to the house.

There is still a lot of cutting of pickets left to do and three gates to be done; so, today we hope to get into the steady rhythm of producing and installing pickets. We woke to sunshine after the rain; tree limbs and bushes were completely still; birds, lizards and frogs create a cacophony of sounds; it is God’s good morning to us. We pray the breeze will come to help with the steamy heat from yesterday’s rain watering – please put that on your list, as the 90% humidity makes 85 to 90 degrees a boiling cauldron here without a breeze to break it up.
Shara worked on packing up the library yesterday as the rest of us worked at the playground. She ferreted out boxes, bags and containers everywhere she could find them to get the books put away for the summer and hurricane season. We ended up buying heavy duty trash bags last night for her to be able to continue her work today – how easily we forget what a resource we have at home with 24/7 super stores to meet our every need in the moment. Here, the resource is where necessity is the birthing of creativity!
We look forward to a day of hard work and the opportunity to visit with children and teachers that go to and from class before the end of school and graduation of 8th graders on Wednesday. The children are becoming more accustomed to us and will talk a little bit now. The teachers are all so young and seem very happy in the work they do each day. We miss seeing the little ones who graduated on Sunday; it is much quieter without their smiling faces and exuberant laughter.
We received more emails this morning from our wonderful prayer warriors at home – we cannot thank you enough for sending them. Your words are at once an energizing force to begin each day and a healing balm as we reflect at dusk. They are spoken and received with much love.
Patricia and the Team