Weeks 9-11

Happy first day of winter!

Well a lot has been going on. We are so sorry we were unable to update the blog for the last 3 weeks, we tried to keep everyone up to date through our facebook ministry page.

Well first of all I'd like to share about the showing of the property. It went really great. There were 4 men that came, 3 from a large ministry organization, and one from a smaller ministry already in Belize. We had a wonderful visit with them, they were so encouraging it was a blessing just to spend time with them.  They seemed to enjoy their stay here and when they left they went to explore other areas of the country, just trying to figure out where their ministry would fit in best. They have let us know that they are more than likely going to purchase some land and build housing etc from the ground up, closer to a city. We were a little disappointed but we are sure the Lord has the exact right person/people lined up for this place :)

They left on Friday and we spent the day relaxing with some friends who came out to stay for the night. Sunday we went to church in the village as usual and when we got back we saw the window on the lodge was broken. We went in to find someone had stolen our computer and camera. We also discovered they had broken into the directors house and had taken another old computer and a cd player.  I have to admit I was really sad, mostly about all the pictures I have on our computer, and the one's still on the camera. BUT they are just things. They can be replaced. We were safe, no one was hurt, and as my mom told me when I had something stolen in high school, they must have needed it more than us. We have peace about this whether they are returned or not. Please join us in praying for the men who are in jail, that they come to know the Lord through this.

'Don't store up your treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store up your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do no break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.' Matt 6:19-21

So this was the reason we were not online much. After a couple days Joel remembered we had a little tablet and we got that working so we were able to be online and even skype, so that was a blessing. However it was a challenge typing on that thing! Now some friends of ours have let us borrow a laptop, another blessing!

Another thing this changes is that we cannot leave the base unattended. The break in was a planned event, they knew we would be at church. We can hire someone to come out here however everyone we know goes to church also so we can't really ask someone to do that.  We tried to get house church to come out here but with such unreliable vehicles in the village and just having it be a bigger deal we struggled to make it work. We decided that Joel would go in on Tuesdays and I'll stay here.  It's not ideal but we know this is temporary and it's more important that house church keeps on.

So after all the work we did getting ready for the showing we took it easy for a week. Joel worked on a present for Sage, Sage and I made Christmas decorations, we all decorated the tree we found in the lodge.  Joel is always doing something of course, he can't just sit around lol.  He replaced and added a bunch of lights all around the lodge, got the boat ready for inspection to register it, made us a water heater for our shower (yay!!!), fixing a toilet, along with regular things like keeping the beach clean etc.

Last Sunday we had Cindy Kidder, a missionary who lives in the village, bring out her group of teenage girls for a 2 night retreat. It was really fun, the girls were super nice, and Cindy did a great job planning activities for them, especially since it rained the whole time.  I sure appreciate her and what she does for the girls. They made it so easy to have them here, they did all the cooking and cleaning, some of the girls even played dolls with Sage which just made her so happy :)

On the way to house church (finally!) this last Tuesday Joel was driving the truck and it literally broke in half in the middle of our (looooong) driveway, about half way to the village. As in the frame completely broke and the bed was sitting up on the back window. After asking what the Lord would have him do he found a ratchet strap and strapped the frame back together. He decided since Satan was obviously trying to keep him from going on that he would try and make it to the village and figure out how to get home later. He made it! The amazing thing is our pastor had a truck he was going to sell but thought of us and our almost broken truck and decided to keep it in case we needed it. So he gave him the truck, someone else gave a gallon of gas, and he was good to go!  And it was worth it because house church was amazing that night I hear :)

Last Thursday Joel and Threnton went to Belize City to register the boat and go to the post office. They did some fishing on the way there and back and caught plenty for Threnton to take home and one nice jack for us for Christmas dinner :)

Today Joel is out there mowing, he worked on the truck we're using to get it running better this morning and worked on the boat to make it easier to get up the ramp. I'm trying to catch up with everything while Sage is sleeping but my time's about up and all I did was the blog lol. We'll both continue trying to catch up with emails and messages as well as working on replacing documents we've lost.  I want to get out receipts for donations this last year but of course everything was stored on our computer. So I appreciate your patience as I have to go through bank records and online donations to figure it all out again.  We can take pictures with our tablet so I've been uploading some to facebook and will try and get some in the blog next week.