The Last Day

The passage of time is inevitable, but the phenomenon of the perceived acceleration of time is usually met with a portion of sadness. After falling into a groove here in Belize, time took flight, as to be expected. Daily patterns emerged, we synchronized as a group, and became a (for the most part) well oiled machine.

It is now nighttime, on the eve of our departure, and the sounds of the animals and insects in the jungle brush now sing a bittersweet song. Bitter because we’ve thoroughly enjoyed our stay here, both on a physical level and a spiritual level. Belize is a beautiful country; It’s impossible to deny the attraction and draw to the tropical landscape, lifestyle and weather. But Belize is also a broken nation. Poverty and laziness abound, and the “average” Belizian man spends most of his time avoiding work and responsibility. The Asians and Mennonites/Amish run just about every significant business in this area, and the women of Belize take care of the rest.

There are exceptions of course, and we were fortunate enough to meet many of them. Allison and Andrew are two shining examples of Godly men making a real difference in this region.

This entire trip has been a powerful bonding experience with the group, and with the people here. So many of the children immediately stole our hearts and we spent the entire week trying to hunt them down and steal them back. Irma (pronounced “Ear-Ma”) and Elbia (“El-Bee-A”) are two of Ron and Linda’s adoptive daughters, and they spent all their free time with us drawing pictures, remembering our names perfectly, and pronouncing our names with an adorable accent. Frankly, they’re show-stealers.

We more-or-less finished the house today by buying some furniture (custom Mahogany bunk beds no less), food, household items, and other miscellaneous niceties that Nidia will certainly enjoy. We installed a shower, toilet and sink — an Oasis first, build a stone lined walkway from the road, and built a number of useful items (shelves, counter tops, doorstops, etc) from the left over building materials.

As of this very morning, Nidia and her children had to walk nearly a half a mile for water to be used for anything: bathing, drinking, cooking, dish washing, and the like. They bathed in the river and by the time they made it back to their hovel, the children were heartbreakingly filthy again. The conditions they lived in, day in day out, were too much for some of us to handle emotionally. In a game of “Would You Rather”, the other option, no matter how awful, always would seem more palatable.

We packed up Nidia and her family’s possessions, and we had the honor of rejecting many items. “You don’t need to bring that,” or “You can leave that behind, just trust us” warmed our hearts. Mattresses so beaten they looked like a bag of rags, bed frames made of scrap wood, and a broken broom with a PVC pipe taped up as a handle were only a few.

Nidia was clearly overwhelmed with the entire “dedication”, and could only manage to smile and thank everyone, including God, many times. In no time, the children were running around with their kitten and baby chickens (we assume the latter will be a meal in the near future), kicking soccer balls, and climbing on their new bunk beds. They’re going to shower tonight, in their own home, inside their own 4 walls. They’re going to sleep under a roof that won’t leak, with windows that aren’t gaping holes, on beds not on a dirt floor, but on a new colorful floor 10 feet off the ground. They can spent time on their new porch, in the shade, go the bathroom inside their home instead of in a tin shed up the hill. The differences are night and day, and even though their new conditions hardly compare to a typical, middle American home, it is now their own paradise, and they’re living the dream, the answer to prayer.

We’ve all been humbled and broken by the experience, encouraged and inspired by the people, and motivated and dedicated to making a change to our own lives in our own various ways, in our own communities and beyond.

Thank you for keeping up with us on this trip, it’s been an amazing journey. Tomorrow is a full travel day, so ideally there will be nothing to report but hours and hours of sitting in small chairs, looking out small windows, excited to see our loved ones in powerful ways, all while leaving a piece of ourselves in Belize.

Day Six - The Beaches of Placencia

The day none of us felt we deserved inevitably came in inevitable contradistinction to our opinion. We loaded up on the Oasis Ministries bus this morning and headed to the Placencia, one of the tourist destinations along the Caribbean coast.

The 2.5 hour drive from Belmopan to Placencia was breathtaking with natural beauty. We cruised through palm and jungle vegetation-covered mountain ranges, across insideosly narrow bridges spanning winding rivers, and through countless banana and orange groves. The tropical landscape rolling by simply flipped everyone’s switch to “Chillax Mode,” and there it stayed for most of the day, except for one event 90 minutes into the journey.

The Jack Knife

We came around a bend in the road at the top of a hill into a scene from a movie. People were scattered about the road, cameras and cell phones out, waiting and watching. A tractor trailer failed to navigate the steep hill, blew out its brakes, and rolled back down the hill only to jack knife at a violent angle and spill its payload of 2x4s all across the asphalt. The truck bed was stuck, like a tied hog in a rodeo, in the air on two wheels. The whole mess nearly spanned the entire road.

Vehicles were forced to attempt to pass on the outer edge of the shoulder, where a few bystanders had re-purposed the planks in an attempt to add stability to a very steep ledge.

We disembarked before the bus attempted the maneuver (in this scenario, only Ron would die if the bus rolled down the cliff), and we all watched, breath held, as Ron spun wheels and the Step of Faith Church bus squeaked through the narrow gap with hardly an inch to spare. From this point on, the rest of the trip was a breeze, both literally and figuratively.

Beautiful scenery, turquoise water, long and slender palms spanning out across the warm water, and all manor of expected Caribbean glory. Some of us spent the afternoon relaxing on the beach, others playing volleyball, and others still hired a local boatman to bring us out to the second largest barrier reef in the world to snorkel. We’ll focus on that later group for the remainder of this narrative for two reasons: First, beach lounging is wonderful and wholly self-explanatory. To elaborate on the sensations of cool island breezes and the sound of gently wafting palm fronds would be cruel and unusual punishment. Second, the narrator of this blog did not stay on the beach.

So, back to the coral reef. We picked up some gear and shot straight out in the Caribbean Sea, ocean spray sporadically blasting us in the face. We dropped anchor off the coast of a tiny island, donned our snorkels and fins, and dropped into the reef.

Hundreds of colorful coral teeming with fishes of all makes and models, star fish, and other sea creatures were stretched out in front of us. We enjoyed every minute of God’s underwater creations.

After getting back to the mainland, we all gathered our belongings up to head back to Belmopan. And then something happened, something that is a rare thing to see in the wild. We saw Allison Garbutt propose to Heather Face.

The beach in Placencia.

Yup, THAT happened!

Day Five - Mission Accomplished. Mostly.

Mercy was bestowed upon us from above for assuredly the morning cloud cover dulled the brutality of the Belizian heat this very day. Lower 90s and a few hours without direct sunlight meant many things. First, productivity. But more importantly second, those putting in the metal rope escaped without what we refer to as Bacon Legs.

It’s true, “Bacon Legs” is a condition that affects more than one(s) person(s) per year(s). For those without intuition to deduce the effects of this terrible condition, it is when the skin of a human is fried like bacon from contact with hot objects. It often is first realized by nearby friends as they wonder aloud “Mmmm… who’s cooking bacon?”

There were a few large items left on the list for today: installing the zinc roof, putting up the interior walls, putting up particle board surfaces on the interior walls, installing windows and glass, finishing the spindles on the porch, installing the handrails (and corresponding spindles of course, don’t think we forgot about them) and pouring cement forms for both the bottom of the stairs and under the outdoor spigot.

Everything got finished. Everything. The house is completely complete and ready to be moved into! We are however, going to spend the better part of Friday building some bunkbeds and other niceties for Needia and her children. There is no amount of stereotypical wrap-up that could describe how happy and proud everyone on the team was to be a part of this. But maybe if one could, it would sound something like this:

We are so happy and proud to have been a part of this.

This evening was the mid-week prayer service at Pastor Ron’s church. It was a great experience to be a part of. Several of us shared testimonies of answered prayer, and after a little worship (the volume of which greatly surpassed the normal expectation for the congregation’s size), broke into small groups of 5-8, stood, held hands, and just all prayed at once. It was moving and the spirit was there.

Pray for the people of Belize. There are many challenges to overcome with the culture here that may only be solved by training up a new generation in a Godly and disciplined way.

The days of the trip are ticking away faster than ever. Tomorrow we’re headed to the coast for a little R&R, we have Friday’s activities planned already, and then Saturday we head home. We’ll all be back to our families and loved ones soon, so let’s all hang in there while we spend some time soaking up the sun on the beach! It’s doctor’s orders for a few smashed thumbs and some various abrasions and scrapes. We promise.

The happy and accomplished team!

The man looks out for us. What can we say.