Friday, March 22

Friday, March 22

Today was the final day of our work projects! The group at the church finished building the wall around the parking lot and patched holes in the wall of the church and roof and resealed it, the group at the caretakers house finished painting the house yellow and filling in holes around the window with cement, and the group at the other house finished up all of their projects. Sometimes on these trips, we think we know what to expect, but sometimes we need to expect the unexpected. Today Karen, Kyleigh, and Shyanna were walking back to their worksite as they passed a man in a van with his family and he called them over to his van. They went over to talk to him to find that he saw them walking from the church and wanted a bible. While he was asking for the bible, he told them that he was visiting Belmopan for business and wanted protection as he visited this new place. He received the bible with words of encouragement from all three women

Kris, Karen and Steph had a really awesome and unexpected opportunity this week to work with Becky Barber at the Rapha Hope Center. Sam and Becky Barber used to be at Vennard College in Oskaloosa and have been in Belize as full time mission workers for the past several years. Two years ago she went into a partnership with Yolanda Welch. They provide Christian counseling services for the people of Belize City. They also are hired to do workshops to bring hope and motivation to the lives of those who have encountered difficult, challenging life situations and have lost hope in the process. We were able work helping them prepare for upcoming work shops by printing and putting together binders of work shop materials and doing some internet research on upcoming topics. We were able to get the documentation prepared through the remainder of the year. Yolanda told us that we were “sent from God” in that they are a small not for profit with very little resources.

It has been great reconnecting with all of our Belizean friends and remembering that no matter what our culture or the color of our skin, we are all one in Jesus. We were shown wonderful hospitality and treated like family.

It has been an awesome week with many challenges for all of us. We are all tired, sunburnt and bug bitten but so thankful for this week of service and ready to take a break and see the beauty of the ocean and life within it tomorrow.

Be home soon!

Kris B, Karen and Madi