Weeks 27 & 28

 Well the pizza oven works great! The restaurant officially opened last weekend and they sold out of pizza! And they've been using it for bread and meat too.

Jay is starting to use the clay for the walls too, it looks really good:

We went to church for Easter! Here's a picture of the Sunday school class with their whistles, the video is funnier - turns out giving whole bunch of kids a whole bunch of whistles is a little loud ;)

After church there were two baptisms! Super exciting :)

Then we went to Jay and Myrtles (aka Jozzie's Soul Food) for dinner:

And later on the Kidder family did an Easter Egg hunt:

After that we went back to Jay and Myrtles and Myrtle had a corn-crust pizza waiting for us to take home for supper. It was amazing. It's sure fun having a friend who absolutely loves to cook!

Last week we went to our friends Martin and Jane's. They invited us over for the day for a cookout and some water fun. Here's Joel waterskiing:

AND they let us borrow their truck! So here's our third (and hopefully FINAL) vehicle:

We sure appreciate being able to go places without constantly worrying about breaking down. It is not fun to be stranded here. Joel and Kenny and Mike took the Tacoma and Land Rover to the city to sell them.

Joel has been spending a lot of time with Jay doing fun projects at his house for the restaurant. Well they had gone out to Tiger Point (a point in the lagoon that used to have a business) to get some supplies and things (no not stealing, everything that was left out there was given to the village). They found a tractor out there that Joel thought he could salvage. So they decided to try and get it. We don't have a picture of them loading the tractor or floating it across the lagoon, but I got a picture of the boat they used:

This is the longest pontoon boat ever! Or maybe it looks that way because it's nothing but the pontoons themselves. Well it took an entire day but they managed to roll the tractor on to the boat and transport it across the lagoon. As a bonus on the way back they picked up a bunch of wood to work on Jay's dock. 

Joel's been working around here too, he replaced the water pump in our cabana, fixed the back window of the truck, and put new brakes on it. 

There's supposed to be a showing next week so we're praying it's just the right people to buy it :)

We don't have any more updates about when we're coming back and what exactly we'll be doing, but we'll let you know when you do. We are really looking forward to seeing everyone that's for sure. Also it's starting to set in that we're not going to be here too much longer and that is really sad. BUT our joy is in the Lord and being obedient to Him and doing what He wants us to do and we know His plan is good!

Our next steps

Well we've been making some big decisions lately. We've been doing a lot of praying and talking and seeking these last few weeks and we're ready to share with you what our next steps are going to be.

First of all we have decided our time at Belize Mission and Retreat is coming to an end. We have pretty much run out of things to do other than just keeping up the yard and keeping things in order. At this point we just feel like caretakers. There are no more teams scheduled and we're just waiting for the property to sell.

Meanwhile we've mentioned before that we've had several meetings with another large missions organization. We've had 3 meetings with them and have kept in close touch since December. They are going to be starting a new place in Belize and invited us to join them. It came to a point where they were buying land and wanted to know if we were on board, and we decided to tell them yes. We gave our notice here at BMR and started making plans to go home, raise support, and then come back to Belize and build their team-hosting facilities in Belmopan. We even started the application process (some of you have probably been contacted as references.)

And then we felt Lord said 'Wait.'

We prayed and talked and sought advice and had others praying for almost a week. Then Joel woke up one morning and felt the Lord had spoken to him. He told him to stop side-stepping what God had asked him to do.

Some of you know this already, but Joel knows he is called to be a pastor. He has known this for a long time and I've known it for a few years now.

We know we could be used a lot of places, and that the Lord will work through us no matter where we are. But this is where we feel He is telling us to go, we feel it's time to prioritize what God has asked, and move forward in that direction. When we met with you and/or your church one thing we said is that we are not called to a certain people, place or ministry, but we are called to a need. This burden we share for the church to us is becoming one of the most critical needs anywhere today. We don't know where that is going to lead us past this next step or are we trying to figure that out. What we do know is that God has a plan and He will show it to us on His timing.

So we contacted David Pompo whom we've known for over 20 years, who we consider a spiritual authority, has been our pastor, and is going to be associate pastor at his current church. Joel asked him about discipleship. We all prayed about it over a weekend and the answer came back a huge YES :)

We don't have an exact plan. But we have some ideas, Joel would really like to continue what he has done here with ministry where we are going. Maybe getting a couple part time jobs just to get out there and meet people, get to know them and look for any opportunity God provides to minister and or disciple while under the leadership of David Pompo. This is just an idea, nothing is for sure we are just going to trust God on this one. We want to come home and visit all our supporters and supporting churches when we leave here. Then we will plan on moving over to the Detroit area. Joel is not ready to leave Jay yet - he's going to be baptized in June (YES!!!!!) and we definitely want to be there for that.  Joel wants to spend as much time as he can working with him and encouraging him to grow and fully trusting God. Now that the painting of the lodge is done they've been spending a lot of time together and that has been really great. So probably this summer sometime we'll leave here. We're still praying for a buyer so we can be here for the transition and not leave anyone hanging.

So there it is! We don't have details, we still may need to raise some support so Joel can concentrate on learning and being discipled and doing ministry instead of on working full time. We'll figure that out when the time comes. We know it's a little different to ask for support living in the US where we can legally work but it might be necessary in our situation. We know the Lord will work out the details so we're not going to worry about it right now. Of course if you have any questions about any of this feel free to ask, we want to know what you're thinking!

Thank you to all of you who have been and continue to pray for us. We appreciate each and every one of you so much. You can pray the Lord continues to use us while we're here and that we don't lose focus trying to plan things out too much.

Happy Easter!

Week 26

Well we had an interesting week. We spent the end of last week and the beginning of this one getting ready for a showing. Wednesday morning especially we worked really hard to make everything look perfect for the showing at noon. So the realtor shows up with a couple....and says they're here to look at a lot down the beach and that the lady to look at the base didn't show up. Well we were just a LITTLE disappointed lol. We went inside and just sat there being depressed. Like 5 minutes later another truck pulls in and it's 2 guys from the village and another guy we didn't know. He was in Belize looking at properties and wanted to see land on the beach. He ended up looking around here for a long time and just loved it and later that afternoon made an offer! It was so cool that we didn't totally do everything for nothing. It turned out he made a way too low offer but still it was nice that at least there was some interest.

After that Joel spent a lot of time at Jay's house helping him get everything ready for their restaurants grand opening this week. They've been working on that pizza oven. Well now it's a pizza oven/smoker/hot water heater (of course.) The metal box above the clay oven is a hood that catches the smoke from the oven and they will put a little chimney in the top of the oven going to the hood to convert the hood into a smoker. Then a piece of flexible copper tubing goes in the right side from the water supply its wrapped around the inside of the oven and then goes out the left side with a spicket for the hot water. Here it is with the insulation on it:

Then some heat-shield:

Mixing the clay is a process. First they had to go get clay by a pond and haul it there. Then they broke it up into small pieces. They shovel it over a grate and use a rock to make it into the size of sand. Then they mix it with concrete and water and form it on to the oven: 

 

And then it had to have some bling :) So here it is pretty much done just needs to dry and have a chimney:

He's going to put the same mixture over his whole house, that's going to be really cool too.

That's pretty much what we did this week, house church went on I (Jes) wasn't there but sounded like there was some good discussion :)

So we're pretty much done as far as projects go here. We have some glass to replace next time we go to Spanish Lookout but that could be awhile yet. It hasn't rained in forever so the grass isn't even growing. But we've taken a lot of time this last week to pray and talk about what we're going to be doing next as far as ministry. Joel feels it's important to hang with Jay as much as possible yet and he's really excited at what God's doing in Jay's life. So we don't know all the details yet of what's next (we never do it's in Gods hands) so we'll keep you all updated when we can :)

Week 25

Painting is DONE!!!!! Woo hoo!!!! We are SO sick of blue lol. But it looks great!

Jay came and helped for a day again and they got all the trim and gutters up. Joel mowed the entire yard...and now the grass is officially dead. We haven't had rain in weeks and with all the wind everything is pretty much completely dry. 

Joel's been working on a project with Jay at his house too. He and his wife Myrtle are opening a restaurant and it's opening on Easter. So they've been working on making a pizza oven/smoker for the outdoor kitchen. They went out to Tiger Point on a boat and loaded up a bunch of metal that was free for the taking and boated it to Jay's. They spent another day making a form and then pouring concrete in it for the base of the clay dome oven they're going to build. They're both pretty excited about it and it's going to look really cool - and work great of course!

The form:

the concrete all poured:

The hood they got on the boat. It's going to be a smoker also:

Also new this week: the cashews are ripe! We've never had cashew fruit before, it's really different! You bite off the bottom and eat the fruit. Then you save the seeds and dry them then fire them and break them open and you have cashew nuts. What's really cool is they grow along the driveway and we can literally pick them right out of the window.

Joel gave the message at church today, it went really well. Pastor Kenny is taking the month off from preaching so Joel and Mike are filling in.

Life group was a little different this week. The women's group was meeting and praying for an elderly lady who is in the hospital dying of AIDS. So they joined them in prayer for her and her family. Then the whole group walked up and down the village singing praise songs. After that they met at Jay's and Mike got to be there too, it was great to have him.