Last day in Belize.

and yes, it is still hot, but hey- now we are used to it so we don't even notice!
Today was probably the most relaxed we have had all this time. We had the options, again, of staying at the hotel or going souvenir shopping or going to the construction site. Either one we chose, we got a lot of rest.

Towards the end of the night, after the church service and dinner at church (cooked and served by our rad new Belizean friends) some pranks between the teens went on and we had some good laughs, but we now have some major cleaning to do. The girls decided we were going to put well... femine hygene products all over the boys room, and in return they dumped water on us and threw our clothes all over our room.

Since it was the last night, Jared Callahan took some kids over to the feild by the beach to play some midnight soccer while a few of us stayed back here to relax (and as for me, write the blog and upload pictures)

All in all, this trip was one we will never ever forget, and as Marc Otto said "This trip was a taste of heaven."

Picture Party on July 19

We will have a picture party for all Belize team members and their families on Monday, July 19 at 7p at the home of the Kessler's.  Everyone who took pictures on the trip is encouraged to bring 10-20 of their favorite photos to share with everyone else.  Bring your pictures on a usb thumb drive, cd, or dvd.  We'll have a projector setup outside, so bring a camping/beach chair to sit on.

If you can bring a dessert to share, we'll have an informal dessert potluck.  

Our address is 3122 N. Evergreen Street near the intersection of Lytton and Rosecrans.

Last night of family groups

And instead of sticky and hot, its sticky and lightning-y and thunder-y.

Today was an amazing recovery from our bug bites and tired feet from climbing rocks.
The construction went great, we got the most important part acomplished which was putting up forms which includes carrying nearly 600 pounds of wicked heavy bulletwood across a slim scafold along with three other people, too.

No VBS today, though. We still had some neighborhood kids come around and actually help us with our construction which was rad cause they totally didn't have to! After the construction was over, our brilliant leaders gave us the choice to go the the beach or souvenier shopping (be expecting stuff, mom) or staying at the construction site with great endurance. We found a great shop that everyone loved omit the part about how small it was and how we tried to fit around 12 people in there, but nonetheless, there was tons of genuine Belizean trinkets. Most of the stores here are more like $1 Stores, with factory produced items and crammed with half-opened boxes and lots of junk.

After we all got home and showered and started to relax, you could find more intriguing conversations, people trying to figure out crazy riddles, ninjas playing intense games, and teaching new friends new games. It was so great to see a moment like that, where everyone was so beyond happy. One of the coolest parts of the night was a big lightning and thunder storm that past right over us, while fireflies buzzed around our trees.

After the solid moment of sprinkling rain, we went to listen to two guys who came on this trip and their stories. Royer and Brent are two guys who went through a very tough life involving drugs, violence, and finally rehab, where they found Christ and fell in love with the feeling of being a true Christian.

Then come after the devotional about lifting each other up, we broke into our family groups where we had a wicked awesome experience of praising each other. We had one person in our group sit in "the chair" where everyone else said exactly what they loved about that person, and I was in awe at how people felt about not only me, but how I came to realize all the things i love about everyone in return. Its such a rad feeling that you have a family of people who care enough to spend time to get to know you and actually love you when they don't have to.

Return Info

Sorry about the confusion over our return flight. Here is our arrival info:

Wednesday, July 7 Group 1: Return to San Diego (AA Flight 2194/533)
We arrive around 10:50pm. Go to www.aa.com for exact time.

Thanks!

VBS Poem

Sunday services at Corozal Church of the Nazarene were beautiful.  We went to both the am and pm services.  At the morning services the VBS kids had made thank you cards for the VBS workers.  They called everyone up by name and presented each person with a homemade card and a hug of gratitude.  It was very sweet.  One of the older kids, Amy, wrote a poem for us, and several of the kids read a verse to us in front of the congregation.  It was such an honor.  We wanted to share the poem with you:

Around the world there is many a need,
Churches to build, children to feed
Sometimes with their backs against the wall
God's people respond and heed God's call.

This team from California did exactly that
You energized themselves and gave all that you got
You felt the need and you are doing you part
Cause you love Jesus from the bottom of your heart.

You are this group from San Diego who heard about us
You excitedly met and found time to discuss
The vote was counted, there wasn't a NO
Corozal Nazarene was the place to go.

Though things seemed difficult yet there was no fear
You knew that God would answer each and every prayer
While information about Belize you eagerly sought
Funds were being raised and airfares were being bought.

You headed to Belize to arrive after noon
But this was not to be, at least not so soon
Tropical storm Alex announced, Here I roll
But let us remember that God was in control.

Dallas, Belize, Cancun, Dallas and Belize again
The storm was here with the wind and rain
Discouraged you were not, you never lost it
You trusted God. He wasn't surprised a bit.

Tired and famished after such a long flight
Yet upbeat and smiling and looking fine what night
You feasted on the food and we got our wish
We think you enjoyed our special local dish.

Then we saw you --here with a block, there with a tool
While we the children were in Vacation Bible School
We thank God for the teachers who taught us so well
As we always run home with good news to tell.

We tell of the songs and the stories we now know
And how Jesus died for us cause He loves us so
We have said yes to Jesus, he is now in our heart
Thanks to you the team, you've really done your part.

We just want to thank you for the kindness you've shown
The sacrifices you've made will never be fully known
We don't have much to give in return, for such a selfless love
But God has promised his blessings that he gives from above.

Arrival to San Diego

I understand that there has been some confusion on when we will be arriving back in San Diego.  We will be coming back on Wednesday night not Tuesday.  I think we land after 11pm on Wednesday night.  We have two more days of construction and frantic packing before we leave Belize.

Being eaten alive in hot and sticky weather

The past two "relax"days have seen more mosquitos then ever before. We took two days off this weekend to visit some Mayan Ruins and the Cerros beach, which had its upsides and downs, too.

The Mayan Ruins were super rad, they had the coolest views from the top and it took some serious climbing and walking to get there. Right when we got into the ruins area, we found some howler monkeys which are unexplainable. They sounded like scary mini gorillas ready for a war... you had to be there. One of the ruins we went to was the highest point in all of Northern Belize, it was wicked up there.

Today, we decided to go to Cerros Beach, which was probably the funniest sight you would ever see. We looked like the biggest tourists in Belize. Apparently Cerros Beach is mosquito heaven, but of course we didn't read that in the guide before hand. We were swatting all the mosquitos with our towels, and we were running around to escape them- there were so many!  We also didn't expect the ocean to be how it was, at about 5 feet in you would sink in gushy, gooey, sticky, slimy, squishy gray clay. It looked something like this: we would all be running into the water trying to throw our clothes off as fast as possible to get in the water to escape the mosquitos, and everyone starts screaming and yelling and making barfing noises when they hit the clay bottom. Hilarious.

The best part? When we got out the mosquitos flocked to us! We stuggled to get dressed as we slapped at every bug near us, as we ran towards the bus to leave as soon as possible.

Now that we are back and showered and clean, its a hilarious memory that puts us in a great mood to stay up and talk to each other as we sit out on our deck, on this perfect, breezy night.

Feeling Comfortable in Belize

Feeling Comfortable in Belize... where it is still wicked hot.

I think we all have adapted to the early mornings, late nights, lazy lunch breaks, and hard-working days, but we are all defiently ready to take a break this weekend.

If you're curious, our wekend will look a little like  this:
wake up, eat breakfast, leave for the river trip, get eaten alive by mosquitos, go back to the hotel, stay up late playing slapface and catch phrase, go to bed, wake up, eat breakfast, go to the ruins, probably get eaten by even more mosquitos, buy souveniers for all of you reading this, go back to the hotel, stay up a little bit, go to sleep, wake up and go back to work.

There you go, our future weekend in a nutshell.

VBS had some issues today involving some older kids bullying the youngsters, but thanks to Kenny Ortega and Marc Otto, it was safely averted. But on the good side, the kids had fun singing and making crafts and playing with our team, and also ended up helping us construction workers paint the schoolhouse! On that note, the construction workers finished painting all of the schoolhouse, and also are in the process of creating a cement walkway. Oh, and cement mixing? 10 bags of cement with ten loads of rocks and ten loads of sand and water. Not the most fun job you could get here.

As I lay here in one of the hammocks, (best part of the place) Im listening and watching all of our team around me and It's really amazing to feel how great of a vibe this trip brings. There are a cluster of kids and leaders playing catchphrase (loudly, I might add. But thats just Cata) I also can see a group of people going deeper into a previous devotional, I can hear some guys quitely playing a dice game, I can see some people relaxing and reading their books or journaling, and I can hear our new  friends speaking spanish and Its so peaceful with all of this commotion at the same time.

We have a nice breeze coming through, masking the heat, and everyones in a great mood.

Halfway home

We are still alive! (even though its still hot)

This trip has gone so well ever since we got here, We have had great food, great attitudes, great people, great conversations, and great fun.

Last night we couldn't get the blog up because we were running late with an all-teens meeting of the youth group, which included the teens eating dinner at a different time then the adults, and going to the hotel to have a rad conversation about our perspective with Jared and other leaders. It was a great time to talk about what we think has been awesome and not-so-awesome, not only on this trip, but the past with Jared, too.

The construction has been going brilliantly. We have gotten so much acomplished, and it's helped create alot
of bonds between people.

One of the things that Jared said last night was how we have about a 4-5 minute walk to the construction site and back everyday and that's a absolutley perfect time to talk to someone, find someone you haven't yet talked to or even met, or just find out more about that person you just wanna know a little bit better.
The pictures that we last posted are only few of many. We have cameras going non-stop here! Jeff and Marc have been using their wicked nice cameras as well as most of us who have digital cameras snapping pictures of the kids and us working hard.

The number of kids attending VBS has been increasing everyday, and our staff love it. Marc went to VBS yesterday and said a prayer to all of the kids telling them about accepting Jesus into their hearts, and when he asked who did, almost the whole room raised their hands. "It was really cute!" -Meghan Zander
Although we have to struggle to wake up at 4:30 am (San Diego time) every morning, and we have to work in unbearable heat, our team has been complaint-free end the kids and teens on our team have had such good attitudes with all of it, it's been surprising us all.

-Sophie Stephens, Team Blogger


P.S. we read the blog comments to the entire group last night and they were a huge hit.  Everyone is committed to reminding J.J. to drink lots of water.  :-)

Our Daily Schedule

Good Morning!  We have a few minutes before heading out for our day's work at the church and I thought I'd write a post with our daily schedule, so that those of you following along at home know what we are doing during the day:

For half of the group our day starts at 5:50am when we gather at the front of the hotel to walk together to a local restaurant for breakfast.  The other half does the same thing 30 min later.

After breakfast we walk back to the hotel to sleep some more, enjoy some quiet time, and/or get ready for the day and gather again at the gate at 7:50 to walk to the church.

At the church we break off into the VBS team and construction.  Job are explained and assigned for construction and the VBS workers start greeting many of the kids who arrive early, ready to have fun with the teens.  VBS runs from 9-11:30am, and then the girls (who are required to wear dresses for VBS) change into work clothes so they can join in construction for the afternoon.

We break for lunch around noon and take an hour break.  The local restaurant, Joe Milon, that serves us breakfast and lunch, brings our lunch to the worksite in to-go containers.  Yesterday Brian Ruark (I'm sorry that I'm not sure how to spell his last name!) and his wife joined our group from Honduras.  Brian told a wonderful testimony to our group while we ate about how the Lord's many provisions got him and his wife to Corozal.  They also brought a teacher and good friend from Cocal Gracias with him, along with his wife and baby boy....who has been a joy to all of us!

After lunch we all head back to the construction site.  Work ends around 4 and we go back to the hotel to put on swim suits and head down to the bay to cool off after a hard days work.

Then we go back to the hotel to get cleaned up for dinner at the restaurant, which is at 6 for half the group and 6:30 for the other.  After dinner we come back to the hotel for our devotional at 7:15, followed by family groups.  After that our day is done and many people head off to bed or quiet time while the teens and youth workers stay up laughing and playing cards.

God has been so good to us & it is a joy to see the relationships that are being formed!