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
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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.
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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.
