"For I was hungry..."

This week, I have witnessed by far the most severe poverty I’ve ever seen in my life. I remember growing up, seeing these types of things on those sad charity commercials. You know, the kids living on dirt floors…no shoes… no bed… etc, etc. But none of those commercials could ever do justice to the reality I faced today. Because it was one thing for me to see it on t.v. when I knew it was far away from me, as I watched in my comfortable home, on my comfortable couch, cozied up with a cup of tea in my nice clean clothes. I would see it and think, “aw man, that’s really sad,” until the next commercial came on and suddenly that thought disappeared like sand through my fingers.

But when I walked up to the homes of multiple families today after driving through the remote dirt roads of Belmopan and saw it with my own eyes, I couldn’t help but feel extremely overwhelmed. This time it was real, it was right in front of my eyes and I couldn’t change the channel to make it go away.

We were delivering bags of food to these families. A few bags of rice, beans, some top ramen and cooking oil. Something most people would eat at home when simply trying to make “ends meet.” Truth is, this ended up being one of the biggest gifts and a delicacy to these people. They just could not thank us enough. We probably spent under $10 U.S. dollars on each bag of food.

It was one of those moments where we all couldn’t help but to cry. Almost every woman in our mission group was crying, the men holding it together silently with a loss of words as well. At one point, we walked into the home of old old man who probably weighed about 100 pounds. I could see his ribs clearly. This man lives in a hut that was about 8 feet wide and 9 feet long with walls made of skinny round wooden logs, and a thatch hut ceiling. It had no floor, he lived on the dirt ground and pretty much all that was in his home was a wooden bed with some pillows and a metal pot which I am assuming he cooks his rice in for his daily meal. Regardless of his incredibly heart wrenching situation, he was a great man of faith and praised God for “all that he does have.” My first thought was… what DO you have? You don’t have a floor, you don’t have enough to eat, you don’t have clean clothes… your entire house is smaller than bedroom at home! How is that fair? But he continued to express that he is thankful and gave praise.

Then we visited three families who basically lived out in the jungle. They were immigrants from Guatemala and are here illegally. They lived in little tin homes that were falling apart. I looked inside one of them and again saw dirt floor, one bed, and one chair. If the government catches them living here, they are forced to take down there homes, dig farther into the jungle and put their homes back together again hoping not to get caught next time. These people were so poor I think my jaw dropped the whole time I was in there. What if another hurricane comes? Their house will be lifted and gone in the blink of an eye… I asked my trip leader why they immigrated here to live in such horrible conditions and he responded, “because this is probably still better than anything they could get back at home.”

And then there was the woman with the sick baby. Her little one year old had a big swollen foot with some skin infection on it. She has had a fever for days but they don’t have money to take her to the doctor… they barely even have money to feed their children. Will her baby be okay? Will she live through this sickness, whatever it might be?

The crazy thing is that, of all the people we visited today, they each had one thing in common. They were extremely grateful and faithful people. Every one of them expressed how blessed they were to even be alive and how much they loved the Lord. I have to be completely honest… I was shocked when I heard those words. I felt like there was just no way that could be true. “How could anyone POSSIBLY be grateful living in conditions like these?!” I thought. “If they are this poor and sick…where is their faith even coming from?”  But then it hit me… maybe I should be asking MYSELF that question instead.

Where does my faith come from? Does it come from a real, honest trust in God or does it come from my dependency on my comfortable world? I felt really challenged by that today. I honestly don’t think that I would be as strong as those people if I were living their life. I would be angry… bitter. “Life is so unfair” I would say. I still do say that! But these people did not have one complaint. Not one. They were smiling, kind, thanking us and repeating over and over “God bless you!”

I think this shook my world up quite a bit. I am going to be thinking about it and processing it for a long time, wondering how to make sense of it all. I wish I could take away all the poverty in the world, but I can’t. What I can do, though, is help one person at a time. I have always heard “preach the gospel at all times…when necessary, use words.” To live like Jesus means to simply give all you can into loving and serving other people. Today I noticed that my sweet little friend Joselyn who is five years old hadn’t been wearing shoes since we first arrived in the village. I asked her where her shoes were and she told me she doesn’t have any. So the girls and me walked to the store and I got the opportunity to buy Joselyn two cute new pairs of pink princess shoes. J She was so excited and wouldn’t stop hugging me all day!

The world is a very, very hard place. But if the people I met today taught me one thing, it is that there is hope in Christ. I hope that I can be even half as faithful as they are one day. Until then I am just going to continue to do what I can to help one person at a time. After all, if  you can’t change the whole world, at least you can change one persons world.

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

-Matthew 25:35-40

Off to the capital!

Well, we had to send John Knox back home yesterday. It was such a bittersweet moment... bitter because I got really close with all of them and wish they could have stayed longer, but sweet because it was truly one of the best trips I've ever been on and I know every one of the JKPC kids had an amazing week!! The last two days were finished off strong. We did more home projects and finished the burglar bars on the church as well as some overall cleaning up.

The farewell church service Tuesday night was beautiful. Many of our students went to the front and shared what this trip has meant to them.  Then, a bunch of the Belizean church members went to the front and spoke about how grateful they are and how we are "family" to them. There were sooo many tears it was amazing. Some of the kids cried from the moment they entered the church until the moment they left because they were so sad we were leaving. It broke my heart! The deep connection between John Knox and El Buen Pastor has definitely built up throughout the years and I feel blessed to be able to witness it. Love was all around us and sincere joy was felt by everyone that night.

I wish  I had more time to write about all the things I want to write about, but in about 30 minutes I am leaving the Caye to pick up my next group at the airport. They are from Virginia! We will be in Belmopan, the capital of Belize for this trip and I'm super excited! Please continue to pray for the groups coming down, all the children and people that we work with in Belize and for me and my health. I have been doing great these last few weeks as far as my health goes! I can't believe Monday marks 7 weeks that I have been in Belize... only 3 left after that!

Hopefully I get more time to write soon, I don't know when I will have internet next but it might not be until next week. I would love to upload pictures too when I get the chance. Busy busy busy!

Love you all :)
-Shannon

A taste of home

Buenos Días de Orange Walk!

For those of you who don't know, my home church youth group, John Knox Presbyterian, is HERE!! Including Dave, Brian, Sue-Ann, and students that I actually KNOW! And I am one of the leaders for their mission trip here in Orange Walk this year. How cool is that?? I am so blessed. :) We picked JKPC up from the airport on Thursday the 12th and will be dropping them back off this Thursday the 19th. And since there is a bit of a rain/thunder storm going on right now, I thought I would send a mid-week update on the trip!

It has already been such an amazing week so far. The first night jkpc arrived we got all settled in to Louisiana Government School, where they are staying for the week, and then we walked on down the street to have dinner and church service at El Buen Pastor, which is Pastor Angel's church and the church we are working with for the week. John Knox has actually been doing week long mission trips to El Buen Pastor for four years now, and the two churches have recently joined together in an official partnership which is just awesome! It is so cool to see the HUGE impact John Knox has had on this little community in Orange Walk. You can see it in the people, the church (which is just beautiful now), the community, the children... everywhere. There has been this overwhelming sense of love and gratefulness from the moment we arrived that shines through every corner of this place. SO MUCH LOVE. The way life should be. :)

The next morning we had breakfast at 7:30am and set off for work day #1. This day was fairly light on the workload as it consisted of mostly painting jobs at the church and at Rosendo's house, and preparing the burglar bars to be set in at El Buen Pastor. After work we enjoyed Leonora's delicious cooking for lunch and then prepared for the first day of VBS. VBS was soooo much fun! They opened with a hilarious skit (Jenna S. is an awesome superhero btw and Hudson H. plays a hilarious "tree") and then we split off into groups for craft time, story time, and games/sports. There was a really good turnout of probably 50+ kids and lots of laughter and craziness everywhere. I realized that I am the absolute happiest when I'm surrounded by a bunch of cute little Belizean kiddos playing and laughing and tickling and just feeling so much love in the air. :) You can tell that so many of the kids crave the kind of love that we give them because they don't get very much of it in their every day lives. How cool is it that we get to come down here and give them the most simple, yet greatest gift they could ever ask for... love?!

Anyways, that night we had free time and hung out, played card games and flyers up or as Dave calls it "500" (because he is old we decided) haha. Marvin, an eleven year old boy who has been around all four years, played with us. He is so sweet but has definitely had a hard life. His parents make him go around on his bike every day selling donuts or other food items that they cook and he must sell everything before he is allowed back into his home for the night. Sometimes it takes him until very late to get everything sold but he gets punished if he goes home with anything left so he stays out until it is all gone. Heartbreaking. So obviously, since they are only $1 belize, we buy off everything from him and let him play with us for the rest of the day. It has been that way for years now. Also Alexis I told him you say hi and that you love him and he smiled really big! :) 

The second work day was the hardest work day they will have this week. They mixed and made cement from scratch and poured an entire concrete foundation for the home of a man named Freddy and his wife Alba. The house is only 18 by 12 feet. They live in that one room with all of their belongings, and had been living on a dirt floor for years until now. They were SO grateful and the jkpc kids worked harder than I've ever seen and finished that floor in about 3 hours. It almost made me want to cry, I'm not sure why haha. I guess I cry a lot here but mostly tears of overwhelming joy because there is nothing better than seeing people who deserve it be blessed like that. 

Day two of VBS went well and there were more and more kids that showed up which was great. Little Joshua is my favorite... he is the coolest kid ever!! He is seven years old and is Luda's little brother. Joshua has the biggest sweetest smile and an even bigger personality. I just want to hangout with him all of the time because he makes me so happy. Also, yesterday Angel took Sue-Ann and I to do some errands and we stopped by the home of these four children who lost both of their parents to AIDS last year and are now living with their aunt in a very small, two roomed tin-roofed home with all their cousins too. They lost everything when their parents died and El Buen Pastor tries to help these kids out when they can. Sue-Ann and I met them and wrote down their names, favorite color, and shoe size and we are going to go shopping today to buy them all their school supplies and backpacks for next year and new shoes too!! I am so EXCITED! :) They are the sweetest kids and try really hard in school so Angel says the church tries to help them out when they can (their parents were both members of the church). 

Yesterday we went, ON BOAT, to Lamanai which was more amazing than I even remember it being. It was like a safari ride through the jungle! Lamanai was good and we got lucky to have the sun out with no rainfall this year. There was a lot of Tarzan-like swinging on vines that went on this year too... don't worry we will have videos to share of that when they get back! Last night was the Sunday night church service and it was beautiful. Afterwards, we all hung outside of the church for a good 45 mins. and played with the kids. Then we all walked to the ice cream shop a few blocks away and enjoyed some yummy ice cream. I would say it was a goooood, good day.

Today and tomorrow are our last two work days and Wednesday we head out to the Caye. I will update you all on the last couple of days at the end of this week... which I REALLY don't want to ever arrive because then that means John Knox has to leave! Noooooo.... :( I asked Dave if they could possibly stay for the next four weeks with me and he said he doesn't think the parents would be too on board for that idea soooo I was pretty bummed. Haha. 

Well if you are a JKPC member reading this please let the parents know that their kids are doing AWESOME and have been perfectly healthy and all having the greatest time so far. El Buen Pastor cannot repeat to us enough how truly blessed they feel to have us back again for the fourth year. I wish you all could see the joy in their faces! I hope things back in Seattle are well and I will be posting again at the end of this week. 

Have a happy Monday everyone! 

-Shannon :) 

We will never be the same

      

       

         On day three of my trip in Libertad one of the local girls at VBS came up to me and told me she recognized me. She asked if I’d been there before and I said no, so she proceeded to introduce herself to me. Her name was Jamylee Rubio and she is 11 years old.  We got to talking and made a connection right away, she seemed to really be drawn to me so we ended up spending the whole day playing together. It stayed like this throughout the week, spending most of each day together. One day, we were sitting talking and she asked me what my life was like. So I told her the basic things… family, school, friends, etc. Then I asked her the same question. And with all honesty, I can say that this girl has the hardest life story I have ever heard in my entire life. It was just one heart-wrenching thing after another. As she spoke her face filled with pain of acceptance for things that, at 11 years old, I could never even dream of experiencing in my life. I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone some of the things she told me, so I can’t exactly share them on here…

            Just know that we talked, we cried, we hugged and held each other, and by the end of the conversation she was asking me with desperation in her eyes if there was any way she could come to the U.S. and live with me to get out of her situation in Libertad. “Can’t you help me? Can’t you please take me with you? I will do whatever it takes… I will get my visa. I will work. I will behave and be good. I won’t bother you too much I promise!” Man was this painful for me. After hearing all that she had told me, I was already in shock for a lot of reasons. Then, to respond with “I’m so sorry Jamylee, but I can’t do that“ to her desperate plea… I felt almost as trapped as she was.

            What do you do in a situation like that? How do I hold so much painful, yet confidential and incredibly serious information in my one and only brain? Can’t we just have another brain set aside, for all the painful things that we don’t want to accept…don’t want to remember… don’t want to face?

            How do I sit there, after a conversation like that, and go on with my usual ways of thinking? Thinking about such trivial things like how I couldn’t wait to be in the A/C that weekend, or how I was excited to spend my week off on the Island relaxing and having fun. I just couldn’t anymore. Here was this little girl…she’s eleven…and THIS was her life. There was no escape at the end of ten days. There was no hope for the future through a good education when she is failing all her classes because the emotional trauma she went through this year has messed up her ability to focus. And her abusive mother won’t buy her school supplies so she doesn’t even own a backpack or one notebook. There is no hope or support when not even one person believes in her, is kind to her, or tells her “it will all be okay” because they blame her for all the things that have gone wrong in their lives.

            Where is the hope when her drug-addict father is expected to die in a few months or even weeks from AIDS and her family has no money to take her to the doctor, so her eye problems are getting worse and she is slowly loosing her sight more each day? When some people in town are sick and twisted, allowing unthinkable things happen to eleven year old girls that should never, ever happen to anyone... when she is afraid, lonely, lost, and it’s not even safe to walk through her own backyard.

            Yet there she was. In front of ME. Somehow in my crazy hectic life I came from Seattle Washington to Libertad village Belize, 3,650 miles away, on the right day at the right time and by fate or the hand of God was now in the midst of a girl hanging on by a string for her life. So what do I do? What would YOU do?

             All I know is that I couldn’t live with knowing these things and not taking some sort of action. Small as it may be, at least I could try and be the one person to ever speak some love into her broken little heart. To tell her that it isn’t her fault. That she IS loved and she is important and she is beautiful inside and out. To buy her all the school supplies she’ll ever need and tell her that there is hope if she tries her best next year to be first in her class and redeem herself. That education is everything and if she succeeds now, I will find a way for her to get money to attend high school because her parents can’t pay for it and so she wasn’t even planning on going. I will write her letters, send her encouragement, and pray for her every single night that she may one day feel the childlike joy every eleven year old girl deserves to feel.

             She is just one young girl, and I am just one person. But I know that we were placed into each other’s lives for a reason. She told me that she has spent years praying every single night for help… and then we finally showed up. Maybe the whole reason God called me to be in Belize this summer is because He had this meeting planned all along. Maybe, the life of one young girl will now change forever because she finally has someone to believe in her and tell her that she CAN achieve her goals and get out of this mess…

            And maybe I will be blessed even more in return. To see the potential that we as humans have to be as strong as this girl. To open my eyes to the important things in life. And that, if we are faithful servants and we truly believe, God will answer our prayers the way he is doing so for Jamylee. Maybe not always how we expected or wanted, but He makes all things work together for our good. At the end of the week, she presented me with a gift. It was a simple piece of paper with a drawing on it of her favorite flower. On the note she wrote, “Sannon I love you. You are my best friend I ever met.”  

            This is why I am here. These are the things I want to live for. And after an encounter like mine and Jamylee’s… we will never be the same.

Thank you for reading

Love,

Shannon

Love for Libertad

Hello everybody, trip #3 is finished and I can’t wait to update ya’ll on the amazing
 ten days I've had! (All three of my groups have been from the south so far…I had to
 throw 'ya’ll' in there at some point J)

It is going to be hard for me to truly express what a difference this last week and a half
 has made on my life. I have been in Belize for over a month now (woah!) and I think it’s
 safe to say that this trip is the one that will change the way I live and what I live for, forever.
There are too many stories, personal breakthroughs, and memorable moments to fit all in one
 blog post so I am going to post more about it later, and if I you want to know more after
 reading, please ask me about my trip to Libertad when you see me next. We can get coffee,
and I could talk for hours. J

We picked up Christ Covenant Church from Tennessee from the Cancun airport on Monday, June 25^th and made the five hour bus trek back to Belize that night. Traveling went well and upon arriving at Libertad Methodist School late Monday night, we set up our air mattresses and fell right asleep, anxious for tomorrow to begin this trip. When we awoke Tuesday morning, the light of the day allowed us to get a much better understanding of our surroundings. The school we stayed in/worked at was a two story high cement building, with a big field out front for recreational purposes. There was a little church across the field that the students attend, and the surrounding village consisted of small, cinderblock or tin/wood houses with lots of pretty greenery in the middle of everything.  Libertad Village has a lot of poverty. Libertad has a LOT of need.

Christ Covenant spent five days, Tuesday-Saturday, putting on an absolutely amazing VBS for the kids.There were different stations, tons of crafts, snacks, sports camp, and stories, etc. and more children showed up for it each day. We probably had about 100 kids by the last day!    

They also did some work projects, such as tiling one of the classrooms in the school, a bit of painting, cleaning up the church, and yard work for many surrounding houses. They even got to use machetes and cut the grass just like the locals do around here, it was pretty awesome.

Other than my little two-day slip up in the beginning of the trip where I had to rest because of that infection, which is going away very slowly but surely (the joke of the week was "there's a fungus among us!" ha...ha..), I was able to return to work and had a great time for the rest of the week. There would be days where we had a few hours of free time so we would go out in groups and do home visits around the village to meet the locals. One day we passed out toothbrushes to homes in the village and they were all pretty grateful to receive them. It’s crazy how something that seems so small to me at home can mean a lot more to a family in a village struck with poverty.

So that was the basic schedule of the week, with lots of little random memories in between (like the day where it rained so hard that a bunch of the boys put on their shorts, brought their shampoo out and showered in the rain hahah).

 But it wasn’t the physical aspect of this week that left such a lasting impact on me, it was the relational. I made a lot of close relationships with people in Libertad Village and even with some of the girls in the Christ Covenant group (miss you already Lani!). These relationships I made led to a change in my heart for many different reasons. I am going to save a few of those stories for the next couple blog posts, otherwise this one would be ridiculously long and I know none of you want to strain your eyes looking at a computer screen all day. ;) I will post again this week about my stories from Libertad.

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4^th of July filled with fireworks, bbq, music, and all things American!! Kelly and I are on break now so yesterday we took a 30 min. boat ride from Caye Caulker out to Ambergris Caye to spend the day in San Pedro…probably the most lively/touristy place in Belize. It was sooooo fun and beautiful. J   

Well, be looking out for my next post because it will definitely be one worth reading. I love you all!

-Shan

P.S. Oh yeah, unbeknownst to me, apparently you have to pay a LOT to receive packages here in Belize. I just spend over 50$ US on two packages that came in for me. :/ So thank you for the sweet gestures but please only send me letters from now on (those are free to receive). Bummer I know... but thank you!

p.p.s. To all my friends and family.... I officially like pineapple now. I know, unbelievable. I feel like I've lost a part of my soul in this conversion... oh well!