"Yeah Mon!"

Back from Belize!!! The trip was AMAZING! I learned so much. Here's a layout of my week in Bellize!

Sunday

We started off the week by meeting at the church at 4am to have a group prayer time before taking off for the airport. While we were praying, all of a sudden we all hear a loud thud....so we thought it was probably just that a suitcase fell over. So we look, and find Alex Rodgers on the ground. He had passed out! So we told Seth to stop praying and told him what was going on, so he comes over and wakes him up. Alex was like, "Wow I have no idea why I'm on the floor?" Thankfully he had his backpack on cause it saved his head from smacking the floor! Come to find out it was his malaria meds that he had just taken that morning that made him pass out. So after all that, we all loaded up in the vans and headed out to the Milwaukee Airport. While waiting at our gate for our flight to board, Scott and Paul Bretl got out the guitar and jimbay and started playing some of the VBS songs that we were gonna do and some worship songs. So we all started singing along, and this guy comes up to us and notices that we all have the same shirts on (shirts we got from Praying Pelican for the trip) and asks us where we're from, so we explain to him what we're doing for the week. He said, "Oh that's really cool! Keep doin' what you're doing guys. That's awesome!" So we chatted with him for a few mins. and then we boarded our flight shortly after. It was really neat to see God at work even before we got on the plane!

Our first flight from Milwaukee to Houston, Texas went really well. The plane was really small, so small that Scott had to hunch over to board and kept hitting his head on the top of the plane while sitting. Lol. When we got to Houston, we ate some lunch, hung out at the airport for a bit, and joined up with the Vetter family (Steve, Barb, Stephen, and Cally) from Ohio. They were such a blessing!! We really bonded with them over the week and were so grateful to have them join our team for the week! :) Then we flew from Houston to the Belize airport.

When we got to Belize, Rae (one of the Praying Pelican staff) and Alvin (our bus driver for the week) met us at the airport and helped us get the bus loaded and ready to go. Rae was an amazing leader for the week and Alvin was the bomb! Then we had about a 2 hour bus ride from the airport to the Nazarene Camp, in Succotz, where we were staying. Alot of the roads weren't paved so it was a bumpy ride, but Alvin had skills so it was great. When we got to the camp, we unloaded the bus and got things settled in our dorms. At first, we were a little surprised by the living conditions we were going to be staying in. Our beds were not clean to say the least, the floor was dirty, the bathrooms reeked, etc. Then come to find out, none of the girls were allowed to tank tops off of the camp grounds so we all had to pull together and find other shirts to wear, but it all worked out. It was so neat seeing our team pull together and not even complain! Everybody had a positive attitude and if somebody got frustrated about something, the team would just come along side of them and encourage them! It was amazing working with my team for the week. :)

After getting things in our dorms, we rushed over to the kitchen for dinner and had a delicious meal of chicken and rice and a few other things. So good! Then we changed quickly for church, loaded up the bus (along with the group from Maryland that we joined up with for the week), and drove over to the Nazarene church in Succotz for their church service. It was awesome seeing how they worship in another country. The people are so passionate about God and showing Christ's love! They're so humble too. We all learned the true definition of humility. It was a great night of worship and fellowship. After the service, we loaded up in the van and headed back to camp. When we got back we had a team meeting along with the Maryland group, and then we finished getting settled, and hit the sheets!

Monday

Monday was our first day of starting the VBS program, construction, and prayer walks. The church that we did the VBS program with was Pastor New Jerusalem Church in Benque. Pastor Louis was the pastor there. Our construction project for the week was to build the walls for the church, because at the time the church was meeting out of Pastor Louis's home. We headed out to the construction site at about 9am and started mixing cement for the blocks. We got there thinking we were there for the labor because none of us were "skilled construction workers" and the church we were helping, thought we were! So we had a little bit of a mix up. So Pastor Caleb (one of our assigned pastors for the week) went into the village and asked around to find a few people to help us out. In the meantime, we just continued mixing the cement and were finally able to start laying some blocks when Caleb got back with a few men to help.

After a little while part of the group went on a prayer walk with Caleb and Barb Vetter. They walked around to different homes and prayed with people and told them about our VBS program that we were doing for the kids in the afternoons. They stopped at a place and met Christian, one of the local kids in the area, and started talking to him. He seemed open for conversation so Barb pulled out the evange-cube (a cube that easily explains the GOSPEL for kids and teens), and then she asked Paul L. to share it with him! So Paul shared the Gospel with him and Christian said, "Yeah that makes sense!" So Barb asked him, "Would you like to accept Christ into your life today?" and he said yes! So Barb told him to just talk to God and tell him that he was sorry for his sins and that he wanted to invite Him into his life as Lord and Savior. So he prayed and he accepted Christ then and there. It was so encouraging to hear how God worked in Christian's heart and gave Paul the strength to share with him during our first day! It was awesome.

After Caleb's group got back from the prayer walk and the rest of us finished up a little more of the construction, we headed back to the New Jerusalem Church, where Pastor Louis' wife and daughters had lunch ready for us. Lunch was our favorite meal of the day because it was always amazing! We really appreciated them cooking for us for the week. Right when we got back for lunch it started pouring rain. It was so refreshing! After lunch, we had a break most days for a bout an hour, and then we would start getting set up for the kids to come for VBS. We had a ton of kids! A lot more than expected for the first day. We started out in the church (branch off of Pastor Louis' house) and it was packed full. We started with singing some songs led by Scott, Charlotte, Michelle and Paul B, and a Bible story (Nicky Schulze, Paul B, Naomi, and Joanna), and then we broke the kids up into 2 age groups. One group would do crafts led by Paul L, Alex R, Derrick and I, while the other group went and played games led by Tim Berneir, Alex B, Sarah, and Brittney H, (the Vetter family floated between groups) and then the groups would switch. Each day we focused on a different letter (aspect) of the GOSPEL acronym and bring it all together by the end of the week. Day 1 was God created us to be with Him and wants to be our friend. Our craft for that day was making a banner with the message on it, and then having the kids dip their hands in paint and do their hand print on the banner, symbolizing God's fingerprints in creation. The first day was a little chaotic with getting everything organized and figuring out how everyone was gonna fit, but over all it went really smooth. The kids are so cute and precious.

After VBS we headed back to the camp to get showered and ready for dinner, and then went to the kitchen to eat. After dinner we had a team meeting with the Maryland group and the Praying Pelican staff. We would usually do an icebreaker and then we would talk about different stories about our day and share how everything went. Usually during our team meeting we would have a time of prayer and worship also, which was awesome. For our icebreaker, they split us up into groups of 3-4 and we shared our testimonies with our group. It was awesome! After our meeting we would usually meet with just our group (Open Door and the Vetter family) and talk about our thoughts about the day and what was going on for the next day. We'd have a time of prayer, and then we'd go back to our dorms and get ready for bed.

Tuesday

Tuesday was kind of the same layout for the day. I went on the prayer walk today, which was really neat. We went around telling family's about the VBS program and praying for people. The people here are so humble! It just amazed me how happy they are even though they don't have much at all. All of the Pastor's (Mark, Floyd, and Caleb, Louis and Eric) are always so worshipful and thankful for what they have all the time and praise God for it! Its really encouraging to see. For VBS, we wound up moving it to the field because there were too many kids to try to fit in at the church. So we started out at the field and then Alvin would bring the crafts group with one of the groups of kids back to the church after music and Bible time, to do crafts. Then we'd switch groups of kids with games. Today's theme was Our sins separate us s. from God. The craft for today was coloring pages (they were supposed to draw a pic of themselves) and face paint. The point was that even if we look "good" on the outside and do good things, God still sees our hearts, and we're all sinners.We took some of the face paint and coloring pages over to the field because there were some kids over there watching the games that hadn't gotten to do crafts yet. Sarah and I switched for a little bit, so I did games with Alex B and she did crafts with Cally. We played foutball and jump the creek (which Alex and I didn't participate in we just watched) with the little kids and it was a blast! After VBS was over for the day, a group of us would go over to the field and play foutball (soccer) with the older kids from the area for a sports ministry for about an hour, so we played more foutball! Alot of times the field was really muddy from all the rain, but that only made it more fun. We definitely got dirty, but it was a blast playing games with the kids and the rest of our team. One of the little guys, Ricky, was so cute. He didn't really know how to speak english, but he could understand it a little bit. So I'd say "Hi Ricky, how are you today? Are you doin' good?" and he'd just shake his head yes and smile real big. His smile would make my day. :)

Wednesday

On wednesday we got to skip construction and the prayer walk and we got to go sightseeing! We got to go see the mayan ruins Xunantunich. They were sweet! We hiked up most of the hill, went through the visitor's center and looked at all of the displays, and then we went out back by the jungle area, and got to hear some howler monkeys. They weren't close enough that we could see 'em but we heard them! Our tour guide also had a wild turantula (domesticated) that he let people hold. Several people in our group were able to hold it. I would've but a lot of people wanted to so there wasn't time. It was really cool though. Then we finished the hike up the hill to the pyramids. There were 3 ruins; The Welcoming Ruin, The Royal Palace, and The Temple.The largest one to climb was The Temple, so we climbed it all the way to the top. The stonework on the sides were beautiful! Once we got to the top, the view was breathtaking. It was amazing. God's creation was so evident and beautiful from up there. After we got done at the pyramids, we went to the marketplace for a bit and then we went back to the church for lunch. After lunch we did VBS from 2:00-4:00 as usual. The theme for today was Sins cannot be removed by good deeds. The craft was decorating hats with puffy paint. The kids had a lot of fun with that...but the the cleanup was terrible! We had puffy paint all over the floor and all over everything. In Alex Rodger's words "I hate puffy paint!" Lol. oh well, the kids enjoyed it and had a blast.

Thursday

Thursday I went on the prayer walk again along with most of the girls, since we would mainly just get in the way of the guys trying to do construction, hehe. We've gotten to know a few people from the restaurant right down the road from the church, Alden being one of them. He was great! Tuesday and today we met together with our prayer groups at the restaurant and got drinks and chilled with the employees there. It was a really good day. The theme for today wasPaying the price for sins, Jesus died and rose again. We did salvation bead bracelets for our craft today and explained to the kids how Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and then he rose again!

Tonight was our closing service at the New Jerusalem Church with Pastor Louis and everyone. Nicky and Alex Beutel shared their testimonies, which were amazing, we sang a few english and spanish songs, thanked Pastor Louis and his family for everything during the week, and then Pastor Louis and their church thanked our group for building the church walls and doing the VBS program for the week. It was so encouraging!

Friday

Friday was our last day,k which was kinda sad. It was hard leaving the kids because they really loved having us there. We did VBS at the park again for our last day. The theme for today wasEveryone who trusts in Christ alone will have eternal life. Life thats eternal means we will be with Jesus and He will be our friend forever! For our craft we decorated foam door hangers with puffy stickers and puffy paint...it was a little disaterous needless to say, with the puffy paint. It wasn't dry by the time the kids got on the bus, so they got it all over the seats and all over the bus...that was quite the cleanup. Hehe.

During craft time, Seth came over from the field and told us that Beutel cut "the whole side of his foot open and was gonna maybe need stitches ". So Rodgers and I were concerned so we're trying to get the kids done with their craft, and get 'em on the bus so we can go over to the field and see what's going on. In the meantime, Steve goes over and looks at it and Barb comes back from the field and said that it isn't bad at all and that's only about a 1 inch cut. So much for the whole side of his foot being cut open. Lol. So he had it bandaged and it was fine. No 2 hour trip to the hospital, praise the Lord!

For our closing night, Praying Pelican had a reggae band come and do a concert! The and was called The Heavenlies. It was a great show! It was so cool getting to see a Belizian concert. We danced it up! It was a blast. We really bonded with a few people from the Maryland group that night...which was awesome, but it was kinda disappointing too cause it was our last night and it would've been so much fun if we would've gotten to know them at the beginning of the week. At least we keep in touch so that's cool. We stayed up pretty late that night, spending time with everybody before they left. The Maryland group and the Vetter family were leaving for the Belize "Key" the next morning at like 5am.

Saturday

Saturday morning we headed out to the Belize airport for our flight back to Texas and then from Texas to Milwaukee. Our flights went well, and we all arrived back safely. It was a great week!

God taught me so much while in Belize. First of all, He taught me a lot about "losing entitlement". When things weren't going as planned or expected, God gave me the strength to just go with the flow, be flexible, push through and make do. He's also been showing me the importance of being humble even when I think I have the answer or think I know how we should do something. Love mercy, do justly, and walk humbly with your God! Another thing, is his provision for me. First of all, in providing all yes I said ALL of the money I needed to go on the trip, good health the whole week, plenty of food, and a bed and shower. Even though the people in Belize didn't have much money for a lot of things, they were always so happy! Even the non-believers. We would go on our prayer walks and talk with people almost every day, and out of everyone we talked to, we only got rejected once. Praise God! That's ALL Him. It was a great experience and one I'll never forget. Thank you all SO much for all your thoughts and prayers. I really appreciate it! :) If you wanna talk to me more about the trip feel free to give me a call or track me down at church and I'd be happy to share more! Thanks again.