The Old Age Home – Octavia Waight Centre

We arrived at Octavia Waight at about 2:30 pm. We spent a bit of time setting up out stuff in our new room. Lauren Gringhuis and I are staying at the Old Age home in a room upstairs. We will be here for the next two weeks. We took part in a Bible study. The lady talked about how our Bibles were wrong calling God “God” and “Lord” because that is not the name in Hebrew. She said that we don’t call President Bush something else when he is in another country. She said that it is using the Lords name in vain to call Him these other names. Lauren and I had a hard time really understanding her. She referred to a lot of different passages in both the New and Old Testament. I can’t remember where she all pointed us to. I am not really sure what to think about this lady. I will pray about it and see what God tells me is right or wrong.

In the evening we went to the circus. It was pretty interesting. There were clowns and acrobatic people. When we got in the tent the first person that we saw was a lady on stilts. It was fun being there. I think that my favourite part was probably the elephant. It climbed up on a fairly small stool thing and it stood on two feet, then it climbed off of he stool and then sat on it. It was really neat. There was also this lady who was doing tricks with a hula-hoop. She had so many of them spinning around her! It was amazing. There were several interesting tricks done by people. I took some videos of the performances. My camera wouldn’t take good pictures though, and it ran out of batteries half way through. I would say that my first trip to the circus was a good experience. I even bought a candy apple!

Before going to the circus we talked to the lady who stays here during the night. She said that the one lady, Hilda, tries to run away all the time. She old Susan that she planned to hop the fence that night. She is so funny… she even had a little sack packed.

We got up at 6:00 to be ready to work at 6:30 serving breakfast. After breakfast we played bingo with the old people for a while

I went to the hospital with one of the workers and Jose to get Joes eye checked out. He had a cataract surgery on Thursday and needed a checkup. The doctor there was a missionary doctor who comes here every year. Today was his last day in Belize. His assistant was a guy from Niagara Falls. He is studying to be a doctor at a school in California right now.

Hilda fainted at the beginning of lunch. They took her to the hospital. It was a bit scary because she wasn’t breathing at first and her pulse was really low and when we opened her eyes she didn’t respond at all. She is fine now, as far as I know. She had to stay at the hospital for a little while to get checked out by the doctor.

In the afternoon Lauren and I helped to shower people… I think we showered about 7 ladies in 45 mins! They were just quick shower to cool the elderly off. They didn’t want any more of them passing out.

Working at the old age home will be challenging. We have to do things that are somewhat uncomfortable… but that is all part of the growth that God wants to put us through I suppose. Please pray for Lauren and I while we are here.

Easter Weekend

On Good Friday morning we had our first sit-down meal. It was so nice to have everyone sitting around the tables.

Later in the morning we went to the Belize Zoo. The Zoo was really pretty. We saw some interesting animals. I really liked seeing the birds. There was this one bird that was so aggressive. If you got close to the cage it would peck at you and it could stick it’s beak about 3 inches out of the cage. It was a little bit scary.

We saw some Keel-Billed Toucans, which is the national bird. They were so pretty! I saw one in the wild one day at the base… but I didn’t have my camera with me then so I didn’t take a picture, but I got one now.

We went out for lunch at Amigos.

After lunch we headed for Belize City to pick up Mrs. Kamphuis. We were dropped off at the Princess Hotel, which is the most expensive hotel in Belize City. The hotel was really nice! We went swimming there. There was lots of stuff there… including a movie theatre, bowling, arcade games, massage rooms, workout room…. and of course a pool. Most of the stuff wasn’t open, though, because it was Good Friday.

On Saturday we just stayed home. It was a relaxation day. That was nice. I don’t think that I had anything that I had to do. Oh, I had to scrub the kitchen floor as punishment. On Friday Amy and I were late in getting to the bus so we had to spend half an hour scrubbing the floor. We ended up scrubbing everything… the counters, the oven, the cupboards, and whatever else we could find to clean.

On Sunday we went to a Mayan Temple. This temple was amazing. We took a fairy across a river, like the last time. This fairy was too small to put the bus on, though, so we had to walk the rest of the way after the fairy. The walk was really long… and tiring… and hilly… and hot… but totally worth it.

The temple was 13 stories high! We climbed to the top up stone stairs that were sometimes huge, sometimes tiny, and sometimes steep. From the top it looked like we were in Ireland. The view from up there was gorgeous. We could see the Guatemalan boarder from there.

In the evening we went to Pastor Scott’s church, which is right around the corner from the YWAM base. The worship was really good. After worship Pastor Scott asked for three people from our team to share how God was working in their lives on this trip. We ended up having four people go up… and some of them were unlikely people who don’t like going up in front of people. I am always amazed to hear how God is working in the lives of the students. Sometimes it feels like nothing is happening spiritually with them, but there actually is. I hear them talk about things that people have said, and I am surprised at what they remember and what speaks to them because often times I totally forget that a person has said what they remember them saying.

Pastor Scott was very supportive of our group. He is going to get all of us 8hrs worth of worship music so that we can worship outside of church. Many of the students come from Christian Reformed churches and so they don’t know the songs that are sung in church here.

It didn’t really feel like Easter this weekend. I am disappointed about a few things. First off, I am disappointed that we didn’t really do anything for Good Friday. We also didn’t do a whole lot for Easter Sunday. In Belize Easter is a huge deal so I am not really sure how we managed to make it just a regular weekend.

I am also sad that I didn’t go to the Bike Race on Saturday. It is a big deal in Belize and I missed it!

This weekend had some major struggles, and also some major rewards. I am learning over and over again how much service this trip takes, and also how tiring that is. I am also learning how important it is to spend time with God and to be refreshed by him. I often get so spiritually drained.., which makes me physically drained and emotionally drained. When that happens the Devil starts to attack my thinking and my attitude towards this trip. I am learning that it is so very important to be revived by God everyday.

Thank you again for all of your prayers. They are greatly appreciated.

Monday April 2 – Thursday April 5

VBS

Monday was mostly just a preparation day. Everyone set up their stations and made sure that everything was ready to go for the next morning. Some of the students cleaned up the grounds.

Tuesday was when the VBS actually started. The kids started arriving at about 8 AM, the VBS started at 8:30. We didn’t have that many kids the first day, which was kind of good. I think there were about 21 kids the first day… and we had 23 workers. It was a nice manageable amount of kids. The group leaders were able to really connect with the kids in their groups. The second day we nearly doubled our numbers. I think we had about 45 kids the second day. On the third day I think that we had about 47 kids.

The students did their assigned tasks very well and really seemed to enjoy themselves. The whole VBS ran remarkably smoothly.

The theme for our VBS was “You are special.”

The people who did the teaching/singing part did very well. They were so enthusiastic with the kids. Their Bible stories included skits, singing, puppets and games. They were able to keep the kids very interested.

I was so blessed to see things work out so well. I have never organized and ran a VSB before, and neither had any of the students. It was good to have everyone know their roles, and willingly do them. Amy and I were the ones who assigned people to their tasks. We prayed about it and we put people in the places that we felt God telling us to place them. God know what He was doing, that is for sure. We could see that through how well things went. God certainly is a God of order.

Videos

Hey Everyone,
There is a girl on this trip name Laura and she is making movies of our trip as one of her credits. If you want to watch some those videos and get a taste of what we are doing you can go to youtube.com and search for "lmikelso"
Enjoy!
Bethany
PS. We got a kitten today!

Corozal - March 28 - 31

Our trip to Corozal was so good! First off, I got a package from my family on my way there, so that made the ride wonderful. I just sat there with it on my lap… reading the letters, looking at the pictures from James and Brandon, munching on snacks… and just thinking about my wonderful family. The drive there took a few hours. When we got to Corozal we had a little picnic and then tried to find a sandy beach. We asked several people where we could find a sandy beach and they kept on telling us different directions to go in… and we never found a sandy beach. We decided that these people don’t actually understand what we mean by a sandy beach. When you ask for a sandy beach they think of sand being on the ocean floor… not sand on the shore. We ended up just swimming off of the ocean wall thing. They have opening in the wall that have some steps where you can get in. The ground is really “oozy” as Opa says. We all had to get past that! The water was really warm, which was nice. It tried to spend a bit of time in the water each day because I know how good it is to be in salt water.

In the evening we went to the Zantingh’s house. Mr. Zantingh is the principal of a school in Corozal, which is where we planned to work. At the Zantingh’s we made some dinner and hung out with them. They were such a blessing to us. We met his family as well as Derek and Morica who are living in Belize for a few months (5 or 6) and they are helping out at Mr. Zantingh’s school.

The Zantingh’s had some kittens that were a few weeks old… and so cute!

After dinner we headed to the school where we would be staying. Mr. Zantingh opened up some rooms for us to sleep in. The girls slept upstairs in a locker room. There were no doors, just gates. I loved sleeping in there. The whole floor was covered in foam mattresses and suitcases, and there was a beautiful breeze flowing through from one side to the other. Some people took showers outside in their bathing suits with a hose. It was an adventure. I slept amazing well considering the fact that we were told that there might be rats!

We woke up super early because we had to have breakfast and get everything cleaned up and in the bus again by 7:00 am because school started at 7:30. In the morning we went to the ocean and had some group devotions on the shore. After that we dropped off 5 people from our team at an American couples house. On the previous day when Mr. K was sitting at the beach he was wearing a shirt from an outreach that he had done and a lady biking by stopped and asked him about it. They talked and Mr K found out that they were a couple from the States who had sold everything and moved to Belize two months earlier. They were a little stressed about the fact that they needed to paint their house. Mr. K offered some of our students to help out. So, we dropped some people off at their house and they painted their living room. It was amazing how God connected us with those people and how we were able to fill a need of theirs.

The rest of us went to the house of the security guard of the school that we slept at. We painted his house and also prepared the house next door for painting. We had to scrape the other house and tare the back part of the house down.

At lunch time Mr. K saw some people on bikes with packs peddling on by so he called them over. They were a couple who were biking from Cancun, Mexico to the bottom of South America. They had already been biking for two weeks and were planning to take 11 months to do the whole trip. We offered them some of out spaghetti for lunch. It was really interesting to meet them. They were also impressed by what we were doing as a school.

In the afternoon we went to the beach again. In the evening we went to a restaurant. It was a small place… and they were not expecting us to come! They kept on coming out and telling us different food that they had fun out of. They had no chicken, they ran out of hamburgers, they ran out of watermelon juice, and fries, and milkshakes… and some other things. It was kind of funny.

In the evening we went and slept at the school again.

On Friday morning we didn’t have to get up as early as on Thursday because there was no school. We still ended up getting up and everything fairly early because the sun only stays down for so long.

On this day we did mostly the same things as the day before. The people who painted the American couples house went there again and continued painting there. The rest of us touched up paint on the security guards house and painted the house next door.

For lunch the security guards wife made us tomalleys (spelling?). They usually make lunch to sell to the students during the week. They kind of have a little store/cafeteria in their house.

In the evening we went back to the beach again and then to the Zantingh’s house. In the evening we watched some children’s movies. It was amusing because no one has really watched anything in the last month so everyone was very involved in the movie. It was funny to just watch everyone else watching the movie. Mr. K and Rick bought us some ice cream and bananas and chocolate sauce for banana splits. We wanted to celebrate one month down!

At night we spelt on the Zantingh’s roof. They have a roof that is half flat and the other part is slightly sloped. The guys slept on the slightly sloped part and the girls slept on the flat part. It was so nice to just fall asleep looking at the stars. It was a bit cloudy that night, but we could still see quite a few stars. Again, I slept well despite the fact that they said that there were scorpions and tarantulas! I guess I am just getting use to the fact that I might get attacked my bugs in my sleep. I woke up once at about five and the starts looked amazing because the moon was no longer lightening the sky and the clouds had all cleared. It was beautiful! I tried to take some pictures but sadly the camera just can’t catch all of the stars no matter how hard I try.

On Saturday morning the Zantingh’s made us breakfast – some nice banana pancakes. After eating breakfast and packing everything back into the bus once again we headed out to see if we could find some cane cutters. During the day on Friday a few of the students and Mr. K had went to visit some cane cutters in the field and gave them some lunch and prayed with them. In the afternoon that day we collected some money to drop off for them. They work very hard, and don’t get paid very much. The one man working was 82 years old and was still expected to cut 6 tons of cane in one day, with not very much pay. We wanted to bless them, so we collected money for them. We tried to drop the money off to them on Friday but they were no longer working when we went to find them. We still wanted to bless them so we went to find them in Saturday morning. We were successful in finding them and they were grateful. They gave us some sugar cane to try eating. I had tried it before, but I liked having it again.

After that we went back and picked up the Zantingh’s and then headed off to see a Mayan Ruin. The ruin that we went to see was not too far away from where we were staying, but we had to go on a fairy to get there. We drove down some rough dirt roads to get to the fairy. The fairy was not very big, but was big enough for a truck and a bus to fit on. The river that we had to go over was not very big… but like 75 meters wide. The fairy was attached to cables and it was moved across the river by one man cranking a wheel. It was an interesting experience.

The Mayan ruin was as impressive as we were hoping that it would be, but the view from the Mayan ruin was amazing. It was right on the ocean and the water was beautiful looking. I have never been to a Mayan ruin before so I didn’t have anything to compare it to. It was kind of cool. There were big faces carved into a fairly large structure thing. I am not really sure how to describe it. There was also this other high alter thing that was built into a hill. It had stone steps leading steeply up a hill leading too a flat area.

After the Mayan Ruin we drove the Zantingh’s home and Morica sang us a song. She is hoping to become a music teacher someday and she likes leading worship so Mr. K asked if she would play us a song. She was good.

On our way home we made a detour to Belize City. We got there when it was just getting dark so I didn’t get to really see what it looked like. From what I saw it looked pretty interesting. I would like to go back there during the day. Our reason for the detour was to go to SUBWAY! It is the only chain restaurant that lasted to Belize. Everyone was pretty excited about going there.

I personally loved this trip. I got to experience so many amazing things. I especially loved sleeping on the roof.

Thank God that things went so well during this trip.