Week 3

It's been a good week! They got the house torn down, you can hardly tell it was there:

The big burn pile is gone!

Joel moved the water tank from the house to the front of the lodge to collect the rainwater coming off the roof. We also did a lot of work on landscaping - weeding, raking, etc. It looks awesome! 

One night we took a walk and collected some fish for the little pond - you can't really see them but there's some mollies, tetra's, and a firemouth cichlid.....we're excited :)

Saturday Sarah and I went to a baby shower for a lady in the village - it was a lot of fun, good food and fun games!

We've had a lot of rain for a couple days now. The cool weather is awesome but the rain has caused the driveway to be pretty bad and the road to the village nearly impossible, this was this morning on the way to church: 

We ended up getting our lunch to go so we could come back before it got any higher since it rained all during church. So looks like we'll be staying put for a few days since it's supposed to rain more tomorrow (we think anyways). Also no sun means we have to run the generator at night.  But that's ok, it'll be nice for working tomorrow!

We had women's bible study on Tuesday, that was good. Shannon worked out here a couple days during the week helping get all that work done. The beach was looking awesome, I should've taken a picture before the big wind and waves and rain hit. It still looks great, just a lot of stuff washes up.

We're doing good, Sage seems to be used to it here, even sleeping through all the storms and getting rained on a little (her bed is by the window lol). Her and Avi play together pretty good, well they keep each other occupied any way ;)  It's funny to hear her talk about stuff that's only here, like turning the pump on, taking a bath in a bucket, coils, checking our cabana for scorpions stuff like that.

Thank you all so much for your continued support and prayers, you all mean so much to us :)

Living conditions

How we're living seems to be a common question, so I thought I'd take some pictures :)

This is in our cabana taken from the door:

This is from the other wall looking out the door: 

Obviously the bathroom and shower: 

storage for clothes: 

Sages bed - with her clothes on the top: 

This is part of the reason the bugs/frogs/geckos get in, all the window frames are rusted and there's gaps all around, it's kinda like living outside ;) 

Joey rigged this up to keep the screens on the windows so we could have them open to get some breeze: 

So all the ribs are open to outside:

                                                  wonder what happened here??     

You know what though despite the cracks etc, I really like our little cabana :) We haven't had a big problem with creepy-crawlies, there's no cockroaches, AND most of all I'm so grateful to be able to live in such a beautiful place and have a roof over my head when it rains and to spend so much time as a family, it's wonderful! Thanks for sending us here God!

Just to the right is the lodge where we spend most of our time other than sleeping: 

 the best place to catch a breeze 

where we eat

Our living room we all share 

Week 2

We've been busy this last week. Sunday through Tuesday Mark and Joel were stuck in the city, the Jeep broke down after dropping off our guest at the airport and no parts stores were open. Then it turned out Monday was a holiday, so again, nothing was open. Luckily the pastor was in the city also and could help them out. While they were there Joey worked on the pastor's vehicle as well.  So they finally came back Tuesday and we were glad to see them :) The good thing is we had thought of having them drop us off in the village on the way to the city so we could go to church - well it's a good thing they didn't! They didn't even have a phone so we would've had no idea what had happened to them!

The rest of the week we all worked on cleaning up the beach and yard (this is a big project obviously!), mowing, trimming, burning etc. We also worked on cleaning out the directors house which is pretty much done and looking great. We had one rainy day while the guys were gone so us girls worked on cleaning/organizing in the lodge.

The guys got the other truck running, which is great in case any of us get stuck here again. They worked on the backhoe today, it needs a couple parts I guess to get it running well. They're working on tearing down an old building next to the lodge and will salvage as much wood as possible to use in other places. Like putting trim around the windows in our cabana so we can open the windows without the screen falling out - it's going to be nice to have some more of that ocean breeze at night!  Joel is out there working on putting up a gutter on the lodge to collect more rain water we can use for laundry and other things.  It's crazy how much extra work everything takes here like laundry/dishes/drinking water compared to the States. I'm not complaining, it just takes up a lot more of the day without all the modern conveniences.

The guys have been trimming a lot of trees that obstruct the view too, one in front of the lodge and one in front of the guest cabana's, that really looks great!

The old house they're taking down and the truck they're working on.

the new view from the lodge deck and Joel's ladder working on the gutters

the grape tree all trimmed

the new view from the guest cabana's - you couldn't see the water before

Sunday we finally got to go to church! It was nice, worship was great, it was nice to meet people that Joey had met at the retreat and a lot of new people - it's so hard to remember names when meeting so many people at once!

I'm spoiled

I learned something important at the men's retreat, they had grapefruit trees in the yard and they looked very green. I saw one of the locals eating one and asked how he knew it was ripe, cause I wanted one. He looked at me funny and said it don't have to be ripe to eat it and he shared it with me. I knew instantly why he was eating, because he was hungry, not because it was good. It kinda  made me feel like one of those famous teenage millionaires daughter. We have been so spoiled all our lives all the way down to the smallest details. I cant wait to share all these experiences I have a feeling there will be more.

Joel's first week

Its been a long week I (Joel) had a chance to go on the men's retreat. What a blessing! I got to know pretty much the core of the village and was very encouraged by the work God is getting ready to do here. The fact that I got to meet all these people in one place and get to know most of them makes me feel like I just skipped ahead one year. God's already working faster than I expected. After returning I managed to get a lot of clearing done around the base. I am a little overwhelmed with all the work but I'm just doing what ever I can with the little I have. I repaired a cordless drill only to find out all the batteries were no good, that was a disappointment. I thought I was getting away from shoveling snow but now I shovel sand every day in this heat. Be thankful you're shoveling snow - wet send is not fun. Sunday Mark and I took a guest back to Belize City. On the way back we broke down with no phone or communication. The ignition coil went out and we needed parts so we walked about three miles to a bus stop then got to a hotel and used facebook to reach Jes. At that point we realized Monday was a holiday and we were stuck until Tuesday. I did however manage to replace a water pump in the pastor's Land Rover and diagnose some other issues while the police stormed the house we were parked in front of with shotguns. Me and Mark didn't know if we should hide behind the car or keep working. God kept the situation peaceful and it was ok. After three days in the same clothes we got our parts and fixed the jeep. Of course on the way back in the middle of nowhere we were stopped by the military police and body searched and questioned. It started quite intense with automatic weapons pointed at us but it calmed down and thank God we were allowed to continue home. It seems like a lot in a week to me even Mark said this stuff has never happened to them. I guess that's just more verification that Satan doesn't want us here. So now I'm at the base watching Sage while I write this. It's a nice brake sort of. Remember to keep us in your prayers and thank you for all of your support.

Our First Week in Belize

1 week ago today we landed in Belize! Well first off we had a great time in GA visiting our friends. The trip down there was great, even Sage did good, we were all excited to get there. Somehow we fit all our bags in the Aveo!

It was REALLY really hard to say goodbye, I was glad when it was over :( So many goodbyes lately.

We spent an entire day at our house we own there cleaning it up and trying to get things organized to sell it. Then we spent 2 great days visiting :)  Monday the 7th John and Val dropped us off at the airport in Jacksonville. We had a 1 hour flight to Miami, a 1 hr layover, then a 2 hour flight to Belize (not far at all!) Sage did pretty good, she fell asleep right before we landed in Belize and even missed the super rough landing. So I held her all through customs where we lost our passports while they were looking through our bags. We found them back after like 10 minutes of panicking.  Mark was there to pick us up and we loaded up the Jeep and headed to the base. Sage cried through most of the trip, it was a long day. Sarah, Avi, and a guest, Qyana met us there and we started settling in.

Tuesday us girls worked on painting some of the guest cabana's and they guys worked outside, Joel wanted to take inventory of what needed to be done and what he had to work with. That afternoon us girls went to a bible study in the village, that was nice :)

Wednesday the guys went to a men's retreat in Belmopan. They left early in the morning and went with a bunch of guys from the village. It is put on by a group from AZ. Joel seemed to have a great time, they even went cave tubing! Most of all he got to know a lot of the guys. They were gone for 2 nights and 3 days. Us girls spent the day doing cleaning and organizing in the kitchen mostly and I worked on unpacking.

Thursday we went to the village for lunch and took the girls to a park. At 2:00 we went to a cooking lesson with Grace. She showed us how to make a coconut pie in her outdoor kitchen. The pie was AMAZING!!! I can't wait to try and make it ourselves!

Friday we painted another cabana and the guys came back. Joel will have to fill you in on his time there some more.

Saturday we had a beach cleanup day. The guys chopped down tons of branches and we all hauled branches and brush to the burn pile. It was super hot but we got a lot done and it's looking great!

That night we went to Jay and Myrtles for supper. They are going to be opening a restaurant and I know why - the food was amazing! They have built everything themselves and even have a guest house for rent that has an outdoor shower - very cool! They are right on the lagoon and Myrtle has gardens everywhere and she made tea from things she grows, it was amazing.  It was really fun hanging out with them and hearing their story.  

Jay and his pet Quash named Queenie

Joey and Jay are a lot alike in that they both love to make things from what they have. I think they will enjoy hanging out for sure. 

Sunday they guys took Qyana to the airport :( We sure had fun with her! I learned how to do laundry here, we went swimming for a while because it was such a nice calm day, and a bunch of girls from the youth group came out and went swimming.  I'll have to share about the laundry in a separate post ;)

Today has been raining all day and is actually not too hot. Last night was the first time I turned my fan off (on purpose anyways - we ran out of power one night) so it's been a nice day to clean in the lodge, which is what we did most of the day.  It made for a super cold shower this afternoon though!

So that's what we've been up to!  Sage is doing really good, better than I thought she would. Her and Avi are learning to get a long (kind of!) and it's nice that she has someone to play with. It's definitely an adjustment, they way we do everything here is different from showers to laundry to dishes etc. We're enjoying learning all this new stuff and meeting new people and seeing how things are done here.  Oh, we saw a crocodile on our driveway!

Other than him we've seen some fox, lots of birds, gecko's, praying mantis (on our bed - eek!) lots of bugs, and that giant tree frog in our room.  Joey wants to set up the game cam soon to see what else is out there, that should be interesting!  Yeah the bugs are really bad, it's the sand flies, they're so tiny they're just everywhere. Some days are better than others. We've learned to wear pants and socks and shoes most of time. Even though it's hot it's better than being itchy for a week.  

It rains every day, well at least every night, actually it storms and downpours which is really cool from the cabana since we are basically outside with a metal roof over us. Yes we do have screens but they are shot, 2 of them fall off every time there's wind so we have the windows closed but they don't close all the way anyway. Thank God for nets and coils to light in our room so we can be in there without being attacked. Joel feels like there's so much to do it's hard to know where to start!

Well I'll have to share more about what it's like to live here in another post, this one's getting long!  Thank you all so much for your thoughts and prayers, they are so appreciated. We know God is going to use us here and can't wait to see what he has in store!!