Hello everybody! I am so happy to let you know that mission
trip #1 was a complete SUCCESS! I truly don’t know how to put into words how
awesome this last week was… but I’ll do my best.
We picked up the North Shore Fellowship group from Chattanooga Tennessee
on Sunday morning in Belize!
They were all in bright spirits; there were 14 of them. Six
student boys – Luke, Rob, Gary, Stewart, Reed, and Jonathan, five student girls
– Emily, Emma, Lindsey, Sarah-Beth, and Gracie. And three leaders – Patty, Ben,
and Meg. What a WONDERFUL group of people!! Their ages ranged from 14-30 years. Such a lively, energetic, and hilarious group, with cute southern accents to top it all off. We were laughing
probably 99% of the entire trip...I love my new friends from Tennessee.
Alta Mira Nazarene was the church we worked at in the
Corozal district. We slept in a different church that was about five minutes away, but ate
all of our meals and spent all of our days in the Alta Mira community. IT WAS
SO GREAT. Pastor Ermilio, the pastor of the church, his wife Consuelo, and her
daughters cooked all our meals for us. The food was delicious and meal times
were spent at Ermilio’s house hanging out with the group and his family. The first night there we went to the opening service at Alta
Mira and it was held in Spanish but I could understand most of it! We also had
Angel translating for the group which was nice. They were soooo excited that we
were there. Each of them came to the front and introduced themselves to us and
told us why they felt so happy to have us there. Then we did the same. Some of
the kids went up and performed a song with a dance to it and we all sang and
danced together… so much joy in one room.
Throughout the week we had three days of work projects and
VBS for the kids. We removed and replaced a new roof for the Sunday school
building because it was old, worn down tin with holes everywhere so that on
days when it rained they used to have to cancel Sunay school (it rains a lot in
Belize and when it rains it POURS.) The new roof turned out great! We also did
quite a bit of painting around the church. The kids love love loved VBS, we had
an average of 55 kids come to each day! We had crafts, games, story time,
sports, etc. and there was so much happiness and excitement from them…they just
loved us. And we love them!
On one of the days we did a school visit and got to split up
in groups of two and speak to a classroom of students for an hour. That was
really cool! Emily and I got placed in the 8th grade class so the
students were 11-13 yrs. (grades are done a bit differently in Belize). We
talked about our lives, life in the U.S., what we think about Belize and why we
love it here, how important education is, etc.
They asked us tons of questions about all kinds of things, and then we
taught them how to play heads up 7-up and played four games of it haha. We all
had a great time. J
On Wednesday we went to the Lamanai Mayan ruins about three
hours south for a little day excursion. They were beautiful, as always (it was
my 3rd time going there) and I saw a tarantula that came completely
out of its little hole! There were lots of monkeys in the trees too and one of
the monkeys peed on us hahaha. We barely made it out of the way in time :/
Tarantula! ^^^
One highlight of my week was a little girl that I absolutely
fell in LOVE with. She is the granddaughter of pastor Ermilio, her name is
Alleen and she’s five years old. From the second we met we had a connection and stayed together throughout the week whenever we were
around each other. Such a beauuuutiful little girl with long dark eyelashes and
just gorgeous. And she’s the first in her kindergarten class right now, so smart!
Her mom told me she talked about me all week when I wasn’t around, and they invited
me to their house so on Thursday night I went over there and hung out with her and
her family for two hours. :) She gave me one of her favorite bracelets and a photograph of her, and then drew
me an adorable picture of us together and wrote her name on it. I told her I’d
keep them all forever! She also taught me our new handshake together, where we
say “me, and you, together, forever” with the sweetest little hand movements.
Ahhhhh I love that girl so much!! I already miss her tons. I've been invited to her 6th birthday
party on Augutst 10th, so I am going to try as hard as I can to go. I
must see her again before I leave this summer on the 12th!! Here's me and my sweet Alleen...
To finish off, Pastor Ermilio was beyond grateful by the time we left last
night. The farewell service went so beautifully and there were a lot of tears
and hugs. The people of the Alta Mira church even presented each one of us with
many little handmade gifts, it was unbelievable. It is amazing how in such a small amount of
time, so many lives can be changed. The church already has new members because
of us coming and all the joy the community saw from it. Just amazing! I am truly sad to have left Alta Mira. A
little piece of my heart will always be there, with the church, the community,
all of the people, Alleen, and North Shore from Tennessee. I loved every minute
of this week. You could say I left feeling pretty much like this:
Anyways, thanks so much for reading!! Tomorrow we start our next trip
in the village of San Luis …YAYYY. We pick up Christ Evangelical Presbyterian
Church from Texas and head up to San Luis right after. I CAN’T WAIT. Then,
after this trip some of the leaders and myself drive up to Cancun Mexico on an
overnight bus and stay at a hotel there for another night to prepare and pick
up a group that is flying to Cancun on the 25th. We will be doing
the 6 hour bus ride back into Belize from there, and starting our third trip. I’m
sure I’ll be posting before that though! I’ll let you all know how trip #2 goes
for sure. Mucho mucho mucho love to you all. :)
-Shannon
OH, and one more thing. Last night we had our goodbye meeting on the Caye with North Shore Fellowship. One thing their youth pastor Ben talked about really stood out to me. He asked us to draw a mental picture of the world, and place ourselves in the center. He then asked if that looked familiar. Do you see your world with yourself in the center of it? And if so, how can there be much room for other people to fit? Now, put yourself on the outside of the world you drew. Look how much space you have to fill it with others. I know that I often put myself as the center of my world. If I am not happy, comfortable, or satisfied I usually complain about it. But it shouldn’t be all about me. This summer, I want to work on stepping outside of that and knowing that my purpose is to simply love others and do what I can to put people in front of my own selfishness that I experience at times. I want to focus my life more on giving, rather than receiving.
<3
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