Project Serve hearts Belize

Hi everyone!
I'm so sorry that I haven't been able to blog until now. We have been unbelievably busy, and I haven't had a free moment. Right now the whole team has gone to bed, and I'm stealing a moment away with the computer to let you know what we've been up to. So much has happened, it will be hard to express everything to you. But I'll do my best!

Our travel days went very well, and all though they were long I think that it was important time for us to bond as a team. We had fun on the plane, even more fun in California. We laughed a lot, and expressed MUCH excitment about our upcoming adventure. We landed in Palm Springs and were immidiately greeted with perfect weather, palm trees, and our friend Taylor with his team of interns. It was incredible to be in paradise, and meet such an awesome team of Californians who were so willing to host us. We went to In and Out Burger for lunch (a BIG hit), and then headed to Huntington Beach for the afternoon. The locals were complaining about the "cold" weather, but it felt perfect to us. Of course, now that we've been in the stagerring heat of Belize for a few days that California breeze would probably feel quite cold. As I mentioned in our last post, our evening ended by heading back to the intern house to have a birthday party for Mitch. We ordered pizza and had a great ice cream cake and loaded up the vans to head back to the airport. Our only traveling glitch occured in the LAX. As some of you know, we had a change of team members a few weeks before we left. One of our team members was no longer able to make the trip, so we were able to still use his ticket by arranging for Taylor Pfeifer to join us. Taylor has been living in LA all year, so this flight was his first with the team. I made the arrangements with the airline to change the name on his ticket, and confirmed with them three times before we left. Apparently the person I was confirming the details with made some major errors, so when we went to check in Taylor's name was not on our itinerary. After explaining (again and again) to the airline the arrangments that I had made previously, the man we were dealing with looked up at us and said "I've just talked to my supervisor, and he is officially not willing to help you. Taylor won't be able to get on the plane". That was a low point, and a scary moment for all of us. But I wasn't willing to take no for an answer, and I wasn't willing to underestimate what God wanted to accomplish in this moment so I asked the team to pray as I asked to speak to this man's supervisor one more time. The supervisor came back over to me to hear me out one more time. My previous encounter with her had found her very agitated and qutie snappy. This time, however, I was surprised to see that she was completely calm and willing to hear me out. I explained my situation AGAIN, determined to have her hear me. God worked it out, as she looked back at me and said, "Ok, I"ll make the change". Just like that she had totally changed her mind and was willing to put her neck on the line by changing the ticket. We were all relieved to be able to continue on as a full team, and shortly after we boarded our red eye flight.

The all night flights felt very long, but looking back we seemed to arrive in Belize in record time. I love the first moments as we step off the plane. Everything is so new and exciting. A country that I have now grown very accustom to comes alive to me again as I see it through the eyes of the team. Many pictures are snapped, many fingers pointing out the bus window exclaiming "look at that!!". Everyone is so full of nervous anticipation, not ever really sure of what they should be doing. We arrived at the base and everyone seemed quite impressed with our new "home". We didn't stay up very long to check it out. We ate a very early supper and were literally in bed by about 6:30. Saturday morning was our first day of work, and we wanted to be ready!

Saturday we got our first glimpse of our work site, and MAN were we excited. We are helping to build a house for my dear friends John and Patti George, who are missionaries living here in Belize. They are a truly amazing family, and I feel so blessed to be able to contribute to this project for them. We are building the foundation of their new house, which at one point may have seemed fairly simple in my head... but my expectations sure shifted once we pulled up on the work site. Building a foundation for a house is A LOT of work. It's quite complicated and percise, and requires a lot of man power. But seeing the work laid out in front of us made us all the more eager to jump in and get started. Saturday was spent cutting and tieing the rebar to cover the trenches of the foundation. It was an awesome day, and I was happy for my team to spend some time with John and Patti. We experienced the true Belizian heat and humidity for the first time, as we began to sweat from places that we didn't even know we had. But it was all worth it, and we all agree that putting in a hard days work in Belize is quickly becoming our favorite past time.

Saturday night we were so lucky to be able to take in YC Belize, which is a huge youth conference put on by the same team that puts on YC in Edmonton. We had a ton of fun at the event. There were some great worship bands followed by a guest speaker. It was great to watch the team worship with the youth of Belize. We come from such different back grounds, but we were all there under the same roof worshiping the same God. I'm sad to say that by the time the concert rolled around, we were feeling the burn of our long day of construction so we decided to pack it in and head to bed. Sunday promised to be another long day.

Sunday morning was our first encounter with the incredible children here in Belize. We went to a wonderful little church in Roaring Creek, just 5 min. from our base. We lead Sunday school that morning, and it was SO MUCH FUN. There were about 50 kids, all decked out in their Sunday best, ready and willing to become our friends. It was so fun to watch the team as they started to open up to these kids, give them piggy back rides, hold their hand during worship, make crafts with them. The kids here have such incredible energy and enthusiasm, and their relationship with God is very real and very contagious. It was a honor to share the day with them, and I think that we learned far more from them then they ever could from us. After Sunday school we were invited into some of the children's homes for lunch. We split up and headed out into the community to experience some true Belzian culture and food. It was humbling to be taken care of so well. All of us were treated like royalty, with each family dishing out heaping plates of incredible food. Many of the families went out of their way to provide Fanta or ice cream for our team, which is most likely well beyond their means. We were told again and again that it was a true honor to be able to have us over. They felt blessed that we would even want to spend an afternoon in their house, so they spared no expense. It was a true window into the hearts of the people here. We are learning that in their eyes, it is far greater to give then to receive. Even when you have little, everything is shared. It's a lesson that I think will stick with us long after we leave here.

After lunch we went to the King's Children's Home!! Some of you may know that this is my favorite place on earth, and I was beyond excited to get there. I was greeted by tons of kids (most importantly, Marlon!) and was immidiately instructed that we should all go to the park. We took most of the kids to a near by park and spent a lovely afternoon pushing them on swings, sitting with them in the grass, watching them perform all of the monkey bar tricks they could think of. It was quite relaxing and heart warming, and we were happy to be the recipients of so many hugs and smiles. Many of those kids have come from very rough circumstances, but I heard comments from the team that they were surprised to find these kids so full of joy. Again, we begin to learn another lesson about being thankful for what we have. There are many people in the world who have been dealt a worse hand then us, but are playing that hand with incredible grace. It's impossible to walk away from that situation unchanged.

Sunday night was our first experience at church (are you beginning to see what I haven't had time to write??). We headed back to the same church that we taught Sunday school at, and were greeted by many of our new friends. Church here is quite different then at home, and I could tell that the team didnt' really know what to expect. We took a few moments to share some testimonies and music, and I could tell that the congregation felt truly blessed to have us there. It was a new window into worshiping God, and we were thankful for the experience. We were greeted so warmly, and invited back into different homes in the community later on this week.

Today was day 2 at the work site. I wouldn't have been able to imagine that we could have worked as hard as we did. We mixed cement to fill the trenches, but the thing about mixing cement is once you start you can't stop. We got to the work site at 8am, and were finished by 4 but we were working constantly. We wern't even able to stop for lunch. We were shoveling gravel and moving cement all day, and were probably a little surprised at how much fun it was. It was great to see the team rally together, especially as the afternoon started to drag and we were all feeling exhausted. I often heard the team say "come on guys, one more mix, we can do it!" And those encouraging words were just what we needed to hear to keep going. We had a huge sense of accomplishment once we finished. It was a huge job, and even my Belizian friends told us that "for Canadians, we sure know how to work hard". They were really blown away by the work ethic of the team, which made me so happy as a leader. I knew that this team was ready to work, but even when faced with grueling heat and no energy they totally blew me away. You should be proud of them!! They're doing such an incredible job.

I feel like I've just written a novel, hopefully you were able to hang in there with me! I will try and update more quickly next time. Tomorrow morning we're heading to the school to lead chapel, and then taking the afternoon off to experience the near by swimming hole.

I'll leave you with some prayer requests as I go:
-we have not experienced any sickness or serious ailments. Praise God! Pray that our energy will remain high and we will continue to be safe and healthy.
-pray for the Nicaragua team, they are being held near to our hearts as they experience many of the same emotions as we are.
-pray for chapel tomorrow, that we can pour our hearts into serving this school and make a lot more friends

Thank you so much for joining in this journey with us. We feel like you are a part of us, and we can sense your love and support from here. God bless you with MUCH love....

Kristin and team