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 :)
Jenna and Hudson! Ahahahahaha. Love you.(: Have fun!
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