DTS Update

Friday: we had off in Belize again
Saturday:
On this day we went out to evangelize to some kids (and adults) in the park with balloons. The swords were somewhat of a hit with the rest of the animals. We also gave a service to people at the workshop again. Youth. After that service we preached and gave a program to the Hispanic church in the area. We were planning on a Youth service but there was just a few youth. Instead attendance was like a typical Sunday morning type service. They had us perform our Drama. This went well. which went well.
Sunday:
We attended an English church in the town of San Pedro. The church is more modern and for a few years has been broadcasting their services on TV throughout Belize. During this morning service we performed a drama, shared a testimony, and Jeff (our guide from the Belize base) shared a message. That evening we returned for a youth service where we did a drama, played a game, shared a testimony and message! We ended up not getting home till late.

Monday: we left for travel. After two boat rides and a sizeable bus ride to Flores, Guatemala we arrived. Bruce went on to Guatemala city while the rest took it easy. where Flores is located. We had planned on visiting Tikal since we were in the area. About 3 hours late, due to a strike, we still hadarrived in time to see the main sights from Tikal. This took most of the 4 hours. After Tikal we bused all night to Guatemala
Wednesday: Another travel day, We arrived in Guatemala City about 6:30 or 7. We chilled in Guatemala for a few short hours then went to the next bus station. The bus was late, but we got on it 2 hours late still. We finally made it to El Salvador around 9-10ish. We ate pulpusaspupusas
(you can’t go to El Salvador and not have pupusas!) and then headed to bed sometime after 11.
Thursday was a kind of a day off. The morning started that way but we went to the mall in the afternoon and helped set-up and cleanup with a presentation. We also started to get packed again because we found out around noon that the next day we would be leaving again.
Friday: This consisted mostly of getting ready and then leaving for another town in El Salvador about an hour and a half away. After we got there, we ate and then drove off to a small church group. The church likes to set up small meetings that a leader will guide. This is for mostly non-believers. So a team of three or so people will have the open air preaching. They often also give out a small snack. Interestingly the volunteers are often quite committed and dedicated. The pastor said that they have 57 cell groups.. We preformed a couple dramas for this one, and then the pastor preached.
Saturday:
In the afternoon we went out to pray for a slightly older lady, maybe mid 50s. She had a tumor in her chin that appeared to be the size of about 2 small papaya fruits (The tumor was maybe about 6 inches long and 3 inches in diameter). She had been in pain some earlier but now I think I believe now that she wasn’t feeling the pain. Still I believe everyone felt sad for her. She is a believer but her husband said that he wasn’t. While we were there, he prayed to receive Christ after we prayed for his wife.
We went to a splinter, or outreach group from the churchThat night we went to a place where they were building another church.. I (Jordan) Preached for about half an hour except that it was translated, so only really needed to be about 15 minutes long. The rest of the group worked with the kids. At first we were not expecting to have to perform any dramas for this service. We didn’t bring anything, but the pastor asked us to do a couple of dramas anyway. Thanks to Edwin we still preformed a couple unplanned, but potentially impactful dramas.Instead
Sunday
This day was a little more busy than our other days there. The day started out with a youth service. Our group lead 2/3rds of the service. Carlos had a game called Mathew 7:12. This went quite well. After that Edwin preached for a good half hour or more. After eating and a little rest we went back to the church for the next service. This one lasted 1.5 hours. The first part consisted with us sitting through the worship service. The next hour we had a plan to keep the kids in two classes entertained and teach them. This actually went quite well despite a hiccup or two.
Monday: This was another day that we kind of had off. We were going to go on a tour, but I think that most of the group was too tired to get up around 6am. Instead we sat around a little in the morning. Suzy and I took a walk with the pastor. After that we ate and Julia and Francisco came and picked us up.

DTS Outreach Update

10 1st Impressions of Belize:

Tropical Paradise
Breathtaking
Beautiful
Kalissa: “I figured that the place was beautiful, but I thought the pictures had been touched up until I actually arrived.”
Kalissa “It is hard to take an ugly picture”
“Still kind of Hot” Jordan
Is this really where they are sending us?
Mark “It would be hard for missionaries to raise support after seeing all of the beauty here”
Maryann was also discussing the differences
Bruce “It is a blessing for the group to be here”
Travel Here:

Tired traveling

Very Very nice going through the customs, we had hardly a 30 min. wait between the borders
Mark witnessing to a crowd of people
Dozens of people wanted the giant money tracks, we walked away briefly and came back and about 10 guys were listening to his performance.
Immigration also asked for tracks so that they could pass them out.
At the Bus Station almost everyone reading tracks, Thanks Mark
The trip was Long, by the way, What is Sleep? Still I think most people had a fair amount. Still it seemed a lot like 2-3 hours.


Day 1: Finding Paradise

After traveling all night and arriving at 2 in the afternoon, most of the group was tired. That is except Jordan. The food was good. I think everyone went to sleep early but I (Jordan) decided to swim in the “cold” water instead. The base was surprisingly nice. Three buildings are located along the water front. Several other cabins and a second swimming pool reside empty behind the ocean front property.

Day 2 Orientation: Paradise Island?

We biked into town. It turns out that the water taxi is the best way to travel, but also the most expensive. Rates for the base are $6 per person for a round trip. The prices are quite higher than even in the US. Chips and cereal often sell for $5 a bag/box. Fruit is also extremely expensive especially compared to the Guatemala prices. Actually it is hard to find much of anything as far as fruits and vegetables. Still the cook here manages quite well to make some incredibly tasty food. Lots of tourism and construction still continues. I met a neighbor lady; she said that Ambergris has a great façade, a beautiful front, but that it still needs Lots of work. I knew very little of what she was talking about.

Jeff briefed us:

Alcoholism is prevalent
Many kids have families lacking a father figure
Kids are quite frequently abused
People don’t want to think that “their paradise“ has a problem
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Working at the Base

Carlos and I dug a couple pits for the wastewater from the shower and sink. We had to put a couple buckets of sand about a foot or 2 below the surface. Pipes went to the buckets. The buckets then had rocks and holes drilled to disperse the water in multiple directions.

Crew 2: Worked to cut back a bunch of saw grass. Saw grass is a type of tree, maybe an alternative to razor wire. The saw grass required gloves and machetes to trim back. Maryann came out with multiple cuts or rashes on her arms.

Crew 3: Cleared brush from the ground. This helps with keeping the skeeters low and also helped with the appearances. Speaking of skeeters, I doubt that anyone has been untouched, and I already have about a dozen bites.



_____________________________________________________________________________________

Local Evangelism: Poor and Poorer

We had the opportunity to bike into town again. This time we went to a less well off area. Striking is the difference between the poor and the rich. One lives spaciously with million dollar mansions, with thousands of dollars on landscaping or large concrete walls. Alternatively, the poor are quite poor. Pushed to marshland, they have their houses, some with dirt footings, most however are built with on stilts. Connecting the houses are usually connected by wooden boards that are spread across scaffolding about two feet high. In most places the marsh is about 2-3 inches deep with other places quite a bit deeper. Garbage is thrown into the marsh with the idea that land will maybe be formed more quickly. At some point, maybe a layer of topsoil can cover the marshland.

The day went really well however. Many people were open to having us pray for them. We passed out bibles, tracts, and solar powered radios tuned only to the local Christian radio station. Mark’s group had two people who prayed to accept God. We also went into the town of San Pedro. We shared tracks, gospel messages, etc with them also.

DTS Outreach

The classroom phase of the DTS ended last Saturday and now we are on the 2 month outreach to Belize, El Salvador and Guatemala. We will be in Belize until December 14 working with the YWAM base in San Pedro. From there we will travel to Flores, Guatemala to take a one day trip to Tikal to visit the Mayan Ruins and then travel on to San Salvador, El Salvador to work with the YWAM base for about 3 weeks. Our final 2 weeks of the outreach will be in San Pablo Guatemala where we will work with two churches in the area.
Please keep our group in your prayers as we travel and minister. We will update this blog with stories and photos so stay tuned!