The trip kind of had a rocky start with traveling to Belize. James and I were scheduled to be the first to arrive, but our connection at Miami got delayed. So when poor Chrissy landed in Belize nobody was there and she ended up sitting out there by herself on a balcony
watching little planes come and go for an hour until she saw another big 747 landed on the runway which was probably the best thing that’s happened for her all day. James’ luggage didn't make it onto the flight. And then Allie and Jen's arrival got delayed 3 hours. So here’s us hanging out at the airport. As we waited until past 6pm the Belize *international* airport began to shut down for the day, so we had to move from the indoor area to this picnic table out here…
We drove to the Northern part of the country from Belize city to a town called Corozal. Even though it is the main town in the Corozal district, it seems somewhat sparse by North American standards. The place we stayed in Corozal is the MTW team house “Cascada Maya”. It's a big house by the ocean with two empty floors, each gender occupied one. We lined up air mattresses on the floor and had an 
interesting half camping style accommodation. It's fairly comfortable and quite fun. There were all sorts of wildlife crawling around/in the house and so you occasionally hear short screams here and there from time to time (such as when Mindy found a big tree frog sitting on her luggage when she was trying to get her stuff). Some of the Belizeans we worked with put a tarantula in the house to scare us when 
we first got there, but besides that there were usually frogs and other small creatures hopping around at various times of the day and you can catch them quite easily, it was pretty sweet. We also caught a small snake by the bathroom, but we killed it because it seemed poisonous.
Accomodation for the girls.
Accomodation for the guys....
A stroll around Corozal town...
Most of the Belizean adults we’ve met here I noticed had an interesting calming and modest quality about them, like they’ve got no need nor desire at all to have to convince you of who they are, or to present an image of how they want you to see them. Most of them are quiet and reserved, they rarely initiated conversation with us, but whenever I had tried to talk to them I had always received a warm response that usually consisted of a friendly smile and a few welcoming words. There was a Belizean couple who live in a small side room at the house whom stayed hermit during the whole week we were there and were rarely ever seen. But on the last night after the other team had left and there were only the six of us left in the entire house, we invited them to come worship and sing with us and they shared with us very openly about their lives and homes and about their faith in God.
There are also these neat little parks along the shore,
and many local families would go to hang out in them on weekends or after school/work in the afternoon. There is one right outside in front of the house and we chilled there for a while on Sunday afternoon and met some random people. A Belizean couple we talked to for a while there just randomly gave us a papaya (which was very good, we ate it a couple days later) when they left, that was kind of funny.
There are also these neat little parks along the shore,
and many local families would go to hang out in them on weekends or after school/work in the afternoon. There is one right outside in front of the house and we chilled there for a while on Sunday afternoon and met some random people. A Belizean couple we talked to for a while there just randomly gave us a papaya (which was very good, we ate it a couple days later) when they left, that was kind of funny.
We spent four half-days to help work on the construction of a new building at a Christian high school near Corozal. MTW helped with building this school when it first started many years ago, and now this is the third building that is being added to the school in order to expand its capacity, and eventually to accommodate junior college classes once they are able to find qualified teachers for it.In order to lay down some foundation structures around the building, we had the opportunity to work through the whole process of digging a trench for the foundation, laying down and tying rebars, and finally mixing and pouring concrete into it to complete the project.
Some of us also worked on digging a septic tank by the building. The thing is probably 20 feet deep and we had to pull buckets of the dirt out of the hole after we loosened the soil with a pick and shoveled it into the buckets. It was kind of fun to be digging in a big hole underground, Chrissy I think especially liked it.
The last two days we worked on digging out a walkway and taking off a couple inches of soil across it so it could be paved. All I say about that is we had some interesting encounters with a major fire ant colony underneath the rockbeds we had to remove…It was quite encouraging to see a great deal of enthusiasm from everyone towards completing the work at the construction site. Nobody HAD to work, and nobody was earning anything for themselves through these efforts, but everyone was passionately putting themselves out there in the Central American heat sweating and labouring. There was this short, skinny little girl from the other team who’s got to weigh less than 100 lbs and she was moving these huge buckets of rocks to be poured into the concrete mixer. It was so refreshing to experience and see a group of people devoting themselves with such enthusiasm entirely and simply to serve.
In the afternoons we ran VBS (vacation bible school) in a little remote village called Xaibe. We led the kids in songs/prayers, put on puppet shows, told them bible stories, played sports and just hung out with them. The kids were adorable, everyday they would wait outside the church until our van 
showed up and they would all run over and cling onto us. There were kids from preschool age to teenagers and of various personalities. Mindy, Allie and Chrissy always seemed to be carrying the little ones around in their arms. James and Jen hung out with the older quieter kids. I showed the boys some back flips and other tricks and they seemed to 
really like that. Most of them know some English and some of us tried to speak to them in whatever broken Spanish we know. It was really cool to connect with these kids and get to witness how we’re all one in Christ regardless of any cultural or language differences.
On the last day we took a flight to San Pedro and snorkeled at the barrier reefs. There was a low cloud ceiling in the morning and the small planes apparently couldn’t fly in such condition, so we didn’t know if we were going to be able to go until the clouds cleared a couple hours later. When we got to the hilarious airport we understood a bit better about the limited aviation capabilities. When we were driving on the bus on the way to the airport someone saw a stretch of dirt road we were passing by and jokingly said maybe that’s the airport. Well, the joke became serious when the bus subsequently turned into that area and let us off…
The road entering the airport.
Here is the runway...
Snorkeling at San Pedro was really cool. We took a short boat ride out to the barrier reefs and jumped into the water to swim with schools of fish, nurse sharks, stingrays, and some sea turtles. As you dive down to see beneath the corals you can sometimes find larger fish and eels hiding in the coral caves. The stingrays are usually hanging out at the bottom on the sea floor and you can dive down to play with them (though everytime Mindy saw me do that she said she thought of Steve Erwin…). Allie grabbed a nurse shark in the tail and found them to be pretty docile creatures. James on the other hand, unfortunately got bitten by a tuna. It was a bit unlucky for James but kind of hilarious. There was a huge sea turtle that swam up right in front of Jen and I on its way to the surface to take a breath, I wanted to catch it but didn’t want to scare it away if I failed (and I probably WOULD have failed, since it was a lot bigger than I was and probably a way better swimmer… lol). Chrissy and I chased it for a little bit and eventually it swam away. Allie had an underwater camera and probably has some nice photos she can post later.
There were two other US teams who were in Corozal at the same time we were there. One of the teams is from Tempa, Florida and they were living in Cascada Maya together with us. The other team is from Sebring, Florida and we worked together with them during VBS. I really enjoyed interacting with the other two groups and they’ve also taken great care of us a good deal, we were quite blessed to be on the field together with them. The Tempa team is a huge group of ~30 people and they had come extremely prepared. They had two pastors on the team and graciously welcomed us to worship with them in the morning, shared their devotional materials with us, and even cooked us pancakes for breakfast. A kind lady on their team is a nurse and took great care of us to make sure we were all healthy and well. We also had fun hanging out with their youth and getting to know them.
Sebring was a smaller team of ~12 and I absolutely adored their company. I loved their small-town warmth and simplicity that the adults always expressed while interacting with us. Their kids had a very cool air of country-side innocence and were just really fun and easy-going to hang out with, and they also possess an innate kindness that just naturally flows out at times. During one of the VBS sessions (before I noticed that the rooms were not very tall…) I lifted my hands and got nailed by the ceiling fan. I took the first aid kit, went off into the small backroom and sat in the corner on the floor cleaning up the wounds myself. The Sebring kids came in after their puppet show and one of them came and knelt in front of me, just quietly watching, patiently and passively as if simply a thought and a presence can be healing in some way despite my stubborn independence. As I did my own things going through alcohol pads to clean off the blood, she silently took supplies from the first aid kit and just waited there, and softly handing them to me whenever she had the chance. It was a moving and humbling moment that just amazed me with the innate gentleness I see in this small town group of people.
The trip wasn’t exclusively all fun and smooth sail, but it was actually quite challenging at times in terms of trying to live out a life and attitude of Christ consistently for a whole week. Feelings, perceptions, expectations, fear, joy, contentment, the way I act and am all can go up and down as they often do. There were times when I just felt physically and emotionally tired and I just wanted to retreat to a comfortable apathy like I usually do, but that was not an acceptable option, there were still things to be arranged, work to be done, and people to care for, so I just had to tell myself to suck it up and push on. The trial required me to really have to rely on God for strength constantly and asking for daily bread. I remember stepping outside one night to the park out front, sitting in the dim light and just lifting it all up to Him, and then being freed of the weighing burden as I was reminded of all this being NOT about me, but for His name that will be glorified through His full power and sovereignty no matter what I can or can not do. Such reminder always brought me comfort and back to a clear-mindedness and composure much needed to maintain the right attitudes through the days.
There were many other fun things to remember about the trip, such as when the heavy thunderstorm swept over one night and the wind & rain was blowing into the house and everything was getting wet and everyone was freaking out and running around moving stuff & trying to block the rain by pushing air mattresses against the windows. And then there were some other fun things to maybe NOT remember… such as Mindy’s unfiltered comments about the hardness (or lack thereof) of massages, or James’s excruciating and traumatizing experience during the Yoga session led by Allie, or when the entire team (started by Al
lie... again) tried to grill me about girls in my life... (ahh). Our one week in Belize went by before we could even notice, almost like it had never happened at all (I think the week felt shorter than the 6 hours we were trapped in Dallas airport waiting for our thunderstorm-delayed connection flight back to SFO, heh), but the reflections, the lessons we had the opportunity to learn, the relationships we built, and the seeds we had planted hopefully will stay and blossom to produce fruit as God uses them to complete His work.The mission trip had been thought provoking and incredibly fulfilling and rewarding at the same time. We have been so blessed to be involved in the works in Belize and I want to thank everyone who has supported us in prayers and funds. Please continue to pray for Belize and the ministries there. Pray that the kids we’ve had the opportunity to touch will stay diligent in going to church and hearing God’s word, and pray that the school expansion projects will lead to positive developments in the country as more Christ-centered education becomes available for the next generation. If you are interested in being involved in future works in Belize please do let me know. I think I’ve written enough for now, but if there’s anything in specific you’d like to hear more about the trip or about Belize in general I’d love to talk to you about it, just ask ;)
- Thanks to James, Mindy, and Jen for many of the above photos
