Finding strength in the hardest of times

I made it through week #3! Praise God.

I wish I could spend this time writing about how smoothly and amazing this second trip went but, unfortunately, I have to be honest. This week was in some ways probably one of the hardest weeks of my life.

Our group, Christ Evangelical Presbyterian Church from Houston, Texas, arrived Sunday afternoon. A really hard working group who came with lots of motivation! They were great people.

We picked them up from the airport and headed straight for San Luis, the village we lived/worked at for the week. This is the same village that I have worked in the last two times I came to Belize in past years so it was very special for me to return again where everyone, especially the kids, remembered my name! San Luis is not even on the Belizean map yet and you cannot find it on google, it is extremely rural and sort of in the middle of nowhere, in the jungle of Belize. They do not have much of anything there. Here is what most of the homes in the village look like...

The first night we arrived, MCA church, the church we worked at for the week, held their opening/welcome service for us and it went well. They were sooo excited that we were there! Throughout the week our group did three projects. Putting in a cement floor of a home (we mixed the cement ourselves with shovels...), building the foundation for an additional room to the church, and then painting the church and the community center. It was a LOT of hard, physically demanding work. The group did a phenomenal job working so hard I was seriously impressed.

We also held VBS four days out of the week. It was so fun and the kids loved it! There was a lot of singing and dancing and just overall being silly. I got to be reunited with my lil' buddy Camillo who is the boy I am kissing in the picture on the background of this blog!! He completely remembered me and was so excited to see me again, we hung out every day. :) Look it's like deja-vu!

(Left is two years ago, right is this year!) I love my lil bud!

Anyways, overall the week went very well for the group that came down and they had a successful and rewarding trip. It seems like every one of them went home changed after being in a community SO different from their comfort of home, yet filled with the most joyful people you will ever meet.

Now on to the hard part. As you already know, Monday I got really sick and had to go back to Orange Walk for the night. Well I felt better Tuesday and returned to the village again. Tuesday afternoon, Pastor Angel, Elizabeth and I took a day trip up to Chetumal, Mexico to get our passports re stamped and to explore the town a little bit. That was really cool! We even went to the Chetumal Mall and I ate a nice steak dinner haha... random! But we returned back to Belize that night and I went to sleep still feeling decent.

Wednesday morning, I woke up feeling kinda woozy and realized that my legs were significantly itchier than the day before. When we turned on the light, me and the girls and my room were shocked to see both of my legs covered in bug bites from my thighs to my feet. We counted while putting hydrocortisone on each bite and I had 50 new bites from just that one night. :( This is what the better side of my legs looked like... trust me you don't want to see the other side!

After putting on medicine I worked lightly until lunch, not to overwork myself. But as soon as I started eating lunch I got really nauseous and was having abdominal pains, so I went back and laid down in the pastors house for the rest of the afternoon. I was soooo sick to my stomach it was miserable. This lasted for the next two days and at one point I just laid down and cried, wishing I could go back home.

But the reason I'm telling you this not so that you can all sit there and feel sorry for me. I'm telling you the hardest parts about my week because I think this experience has opened my eyes up to a lot of things I am learning about myself. Most people know that I have suffered from chronic health problems for many years. This week I realized that it is so easy for me to be strong and courageous when I am in the comfort of my own home, surrounded by people who love me, knowing that I will get through the day no matter what. But when I am in a foreign country, in a village that isn't even on the map yet, and nobody here really knows a thing about me, that's when I began to crumble. When I was laying on my little sleeping pad in the strong Belizean heat that day, sick as can be, feeling alone and crying because I just wanted to go back home...I knew I only had two options. 1) I could continue to feel like a "victim" of my own circumstance, or 2) I could pick myself up, dust myself off, and find the amazing strength that God has instilled in me all along. So I chose #2.

When I say that, it doesn't mean that I magically got better or anything. What it meant was that I realized there can be a gray area in life, not everything has to be black and white all of the time. I used to think I could either be sick and sad, or healthy and happy. But I am learning now that I can be sick and happy at the same time. I don't actually have to let my bad circumstance dictate my entire well being. Instead, my happiness depends on the way I react to that circumstance. So instead of laying there feeling sorry for myself, I instead thanked God for all that I do have and found comfort in knowing He has a plan for my life to make something beautiful come out of these hard times. I have always loved this verse, Jeremiah 29:11 - 'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'


I think I am going to rest in that comfort for the remainder of this summer. Whether or not I feel good now, there are amazing things planned for my life if I continue to trust and serve. 


Thanks so much for reading. I really appreciate all your prayers and support emails/messages/comments, etc last week when I was sick. :) Tonight, we are all taking the overnight travel bus to Cancun, Mexico (don't worry it is safe!) and will be spending all day there tomorrow, sleeping in a hotel there tomorrow night then picking our next group up at the Cancun airport Monday afternoon and driving back to Belize for trip #3! This will be a ten day trip at the Libertad School in northern Belize, so I probably won't have internet for a long time. But I love you all and can't wait to update you next time, whatever that may bring! 


Have a great night,
<3 Shannon