Jesus, or Adventism?

I have been greatly bothered by a particular issue that has been coming to my attention lately. I apologize in advance if this offends anyone – comments and criticism are more than welcome.

I took one of these stupid online quizzes the other day to ascertain how psychologically intelligent I was, or something to that effect. One of the questions bothered me. It asked something like this:

“Is it true that religion can fill the empty space some people feel?”

That is very paraphrased because I cannot remember how it was put, but that was the main point of the question at least. I answered 'False'. The answer, according to this quiz, was actually 'True'.

This particular thing has been coming more and more to my attention. The views on religion are skewed. Religion has become something that is merely for self. You feel better if you go to church once a week; because it is almost something that justifies the rest of what you do. The whole week is for yourself and sure, in that week you are likely to experience a great many difficulties and you will probably do your fair share of sinning, but those few hours spent at church once a week take care of all that, and you need not do more. Perhaps this explains the mentality of some people involved in religion.

A trend I see developing in the Adventist circle is that all they care about is converting the world to Adventism. Don't misunderstand me; I have nothing against the beliefs of the church, since it is at least in theory, biblically based, but this mindset is very backwards in my understanding of what Jesus taught. Is there any verse in the Bible that says that you must be a member of the Adventist church in order to be saved? I think not. Especially considering the fact that Jesus was not even one Himself, due to the fact that they did not exist at the time. Now I am not saying that everyone should convert to Judaism because Jesus was a Jew, but I believe we have lost the focus of what we could call “true religion”. If religion is not focused on God, it is absolutely useless. Why, instead of proving that Adventism is the only way to go, show people the way to Jesus? Why don't we show them that Jesus died for everyone and not solely those who have been baptized into the SDA church?

The point of this is not to bash the Adventist church or any other church in any way, it is just an attempt to bring Jesus to the forefront again. He has been pushed to the background for far too long. We need to understand the importance of knowing God vs thinking we have eternal life in what we experience once a week in a church.

Instead of judging people because of their sins, why not tell them of the one named Jesus who died for all sins? Instead of focusing on useless knowledge, why not take the time to understand the One this knowledge is pointing to? Instead of being stuck on your own opinion, why not listen to someone else, and answer with words that Jesus would have used? Instead of preaching a specific part of belief, why not preach about Jesus?

Why do all group oriented things have to end up getting caught up in details regarding rules, covenants, and trivial arguments that pull all involved away from the original purpose? Sometimes change may be attempted, but how often does it last? Usually not long because there are so many different points of view.

Jesus was a living example of how we should all be. He lived a sinless life, was humble, kind, caring, loved all, and never took glory upon Himself, but always directed it to God. He did not come to the earth to be on a pedastel and live a life of honour and glory, He came to save us, to show us His Father, and to live an exemplary life for each one of us. Why don't we do the same?

A text I discovered one day, pretty much sums it all up. John 17:3 - “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

Nyheter Fra Norge (News From Norway)

Sabbath
February 2, 2008

Happy February!

As I sat here munching on an apple, I decided that I would write a short bit about what we have been doing since we all came back from Christmas vacation.

We have entered into the Health portion of this course. In this part, the goal is to reach out to the community by teaching them about what we are learning through various methods; for example we will learn Massage Therapy, and will invite members of this community to the school to recieve massages if they so desire. We will be having a Health Expo in the near future which will include a variety of things, one purpose being to teach them the 8 natural laws of health. (NEWSTART).

Currently, what we are studying is Hydrotherapy. In this class we have been learning and practicing how to give: hot foot baths, contrast baths, Russian steam baths, cold mitten friction, fomentations, and possibly some more will come. The next thing we will be doing is Massage Therapy which I am personally looking forward to a great deal. I have already learned some things about it, and I have enjoyed it greatly.

Other classes we have include Anatomy and Physiology, which are a little bit harder but are still quite interesting, and we have Bible classes still. We are going through the book of Revelation now, and are also looking at Church History. These classes are also interesting and time is flying by.

We still have work time every afternoon, but with the cold weather and the fact that the sun goes down so early, we have been working shorter hours, and some of the jobs have been more random just because there is not always something set that can be done that day. Another thing they have just added is Nutrition classes, where we will get to go to the kitchen and learn how to make some different things.

So that is just a short look at what we have been doing since we have been back here; I hope all is well with each one of you, and with that I say 'Feliz Sabado' y buenas dias.

Homeward Bound!

January 18, 2008

Quite some time has passed since I have recorded the situations and experiences I have had recently; so I will pick it up back in Belize. The last entry was on the fourth of January; the last couple of days I do not remember very well; I can't pinpoint what we did during those days, but our last day with them was Sunday night, the 6th because they all returned to school on the 7th, the day we were leaving. Some lucky ones, aka Paul & Ryan got to go see them in the morning, but the rest of us were left in the lurch and didn't get to see them that one last time. Anyway, we said our good-byes that night with tears and sadness in our souls, and then the next day was spent cleaning the house out (the house we had been living in) and packing up our stuff. I got a little bit of a later start to it all, and was barely done in time, but thanks to Julia I managed to scrape through. We took off in the bus and went to the Home to drop off some of our leftover food and stuff to them, but it was very empty without all the kids and rather depressing, but we did not stay for a great length of time for we had to get to the airport for the first group of people to go, namely the Uffindel family & the add-on, Ryan. We were all leaving within a fairly close proximity of eachother which worked out rather nicely, and I was the last to leave, about 30 minutes after the one before me, Amber. We got there with plenty of time for the first ones to go and had some time to do some last minute airport shopping, and some of the guys went on a mission of photographing a man dressed in a nice short pleated skirt and a pretty frilly green blouse; a man definitely above the age of 50. Group by group people began to leave; first the aforementioned Uffindel's/Ryan crew, then the majority of the others, then Marcus, and then it was Amber and I. Her flight was delayed so we waited to see who would go first, since our planes were leaving so close to one another. Her's did indeed go first, and there I sat awaiting mine. I waited, and waited, and then looked around and noticed that the seats in the area of my gate were surprisingly empty – so empty that it got to the point where there were about 3 other people sitting there. I at first thought, man this is going to be a nice and empty flight! But then soon realized that it was impossible to have so few people going on a flight. A man came up to me, asked me where I was going, I told him, and he said he was going to the same place, but was wondering what was going on becaues of the lack of people. I told him I was wondering the same thing, and so he said he'd go ask what the deal was, but got about 2 steps away when another man came up; one from the airport this time. He informed us about how we had to leave the secured area and go back up to the ticket counter because our flight was, you guessed it, cancelled. This caught me off guard, as well as the other guy, but the man assured us that it had been announced and it was definitely cancelled. So with that, we departed to the ticket counter again. There was a crowd standing around, which explained where everyone had gone. I joined in the line and awaited my turn to speak with the people to find out what would happen. I wasn't overly concerned at that point because my connecting flight from Hondura's left the next morning, so I had all night go get there. I made a friend while I waited with this guy from California, and he looked out for me and was very kind, so I appreciated that. Finally it was my turn to speak to them. First of all to quench my curiousity, I inquired as to why the flight had been cancelled; he responded telling me that it was “due to maintenance.” The plane had needed a tire changed, and once that was over the pilot didn't have enough hours left to make it all the way, so he just didn't go. Once that was settled I went on to find out when the soonest possible time was when I could get to Honduras. His answer was unfortunate – he said it would be tomorrow, same time; 5:20pm. 9 hours too late. I would be stuck in Honduras at that point, most likely quite unable to get to Miami on time to make that flight, and so on. Now don't get me wrong, I loved Honduras, but I wasn't all too thrilled about possibly being stuck there, no money, nowhere to go, no Spanish. But what could I do? There were no more flights, so that just had to be the way it was, and it was their fault so they would have to take care of it! They gave us all a hotel for the night, and it was a most lovely hotel, named the Bilton I believe. :P There was another crowd standing around the hotel desk of various people who were supposed to be on the same flight, so I again waited my turn. I was informed that there was wireless internet access, but it cost $11 US. I had maybe half that. I was so broke, had some in my bank account, but had no way of accessing it, and my bank card didn't work to pay for it. I was in a rather large predicament because there were a ton of people I had to get in contact with to let them know that I would not be arriving at my various destinations where they would be meeting up with me, etc. And I needed the internet to do it! I felt like a kid, lost and alone, and began to feel my eyes filling up with salty liquid. I tried to explain the problem to the people, feeling so utterly foolish and pathetic, and then my eyes filled to the point of no return and began to flood over, causing me to feel even more pathetic than I already did! The lady was very nice though, and said that it was ok and that she'd let me use it without paying. I was most grateful to her, said thank you, attempted to regain my composure, took a hold of my enormously heavy and awkward duffle bag, and staggered towards the direction of my room. I was so overheated and traumatized that I went straight to the shower (first hot shower in a long time!) and attempted to gather myself together and calm down. Following that, I went straight to my computer to try to get the internet; it of course failed because you had to get a username and password to be able to use it, so I went to my wallet again to actually count how much I had. When I went through all of my change, I found out that I had just enough to pay for it, with about 1 Belizean dollar to spare. This caused me to feel great joy and so I went back to the front desk to try again, even though she had offered it to me free of charge I did not feel right using it if I actually did have enough money, so I took it to her, and got the internet. I began to try to figure things out, emailed everyone I needed to, and got in contact with my parents. The situation caused them great concern and so they set about to find a way for me to get my connecting flights. Long into the night they worked, looking for a solution, and finally one was found. I would go to Houston instead of Honduras and Miami, and then from Houston would try to convince Continental to do a little fancy footwork and take me on a different flight to get me to Newark on time. Sounded a little risky to me, but it was the only way so I went back out to the front desk (this was the next morning by the way) and told them the change of plans and asked if they could call the shuttle for me so that I could be taken to the airport ASAP. They said no. The shuttle would only come at 3:00pm for EVERYBODY, didn't come any other time. I asked them how I was supposed to get to the airport then, and their only answer was a taxi. I asked how much it would cost; they said $25 US. I threw my hands up in the air and said I had nothing and once again asked how I was supposed to get there with no money. They came up with the concept that I would just have to convince the airport to pay for it. They agreed to call a taxi for me, and I rushed off to my room to pack my bags again and lug it out to wait for the ride. I packed in record time and hurried back out to see if it had arrived yet. It hadn't. And didn't for a good half hour. One of the hotel boys came out, and started talking to me, and he told me that the taxi driver would be driving a green mini van. A few minutes later a car pulled up and the guy driving it saw me standing there and got out and asked me if I was going to the airport. I said, “...yesss...” and he was like, “Oh ok, I'll take you there!” And then he came over and grabbed my duffle bag and took it to his car to put it in the trunk. Meanwhile I looked over at the hotel boy and was like, is that the guy I'm supposed to be going with?? And he was like, ummm no. And I was just kind of like ok then what should I do?! He's got my bag! So luckily the hotel boy quickly went over to him and informed him that a taxi had already been called and would be here shortly to take me, so I didn't need a ride. I was very thankful that he stopped him for me! The guy driving the car just kind of stood there with my bag half in the trunk with a bit of a smirk on his face, then walked back over with my bag and dropped it at my feet. It was a bit of a sketchy situation and I thanked the boy profusely for straightening that out. So, I sat down to wait for my real taxi driver. Finally he came, and we got my bag in and off we went. As soon as I got in, I started right into my story. “So...I have NO money whatsoever to pay you with.” The driver kind of looked over at me and slowed to a stop and asked me what I was going to do then. I began to explain that the people at the hotel told me that the airline would have to pay for it, since I had to get to the airport anyway, so I told him as soon as we got there I would go talk to them and do my best to convince them to pay for it. The poor guy looked a little flabbergasted at this and reluctantly kept going. It was about a 15 minute drive to the airport, the guy was very nice and we talked pretty much the whole way there, although it was a little strange because at one point he asked me if I had ever been to Belize before, and I told him yes, and he then asked me when I had come last, and then he said he was pretty sure he recognized me; not sure how that was possible but whatever...a little creepy. So anyway, he agreed to come in if there were any issues with the airline and try to help convince them to pay him. Luckily all went well with that, and after a few tense moments when she was going around talking the manager about it, she came back with the $25 for the taxi driver. I was most thankful about that fact, and then I started to try to figure out if I could get on the flight to Houston or not. The manager guy came out and I told my story of what was going on, and he quickly set to work since there was not much time to get me on that flight, he took care of me right to the end and I was very glad that he didn't just leave me in the lurch to do what I could myself, so within a fairly short period of time he had me hooked up with this ticket and off I hurried to go through security again. One nice thing about small airports is it goes much faster to go through security; there's never any lines, and although there was only one line, there was not a soul there but me, so it is much more convenient if you are in a hurry. I got to the gate, and I was just in time for they were just starting to board. I got in line and when I got there, I unfortunately ended up not having a seat, but that problem was resolved shortly so it was ok, although a little disconcerting for the first 30 seconds. Anyway, I left the airport, and walked across the tarmac to my plane, breathing in deeply the last lungfuls of air I would receive from Belize for some time, and boarded my plane, sad to leave, but happy that I could go.

Some time later I arrived in Houston. Luckily the airport was not as confusing as I was worried it would be. I shuffled through my tickets to see where I had to go, and in the process, I noticed something about the times; they didn't quite line up, so I went to the closest desk I saw and showed them this problem. The man took it without saying a word and about 30 seconds later told me that he put me on an earlier flight and told me I had to hurry as fast as I could and go to the gate that he showed me. Off I took; practically running, hoping I would get there. I did. Unfortunately, I was faced once again with a delayed flight. It ended up leaving at the same time as the other flight was supposed to leave, and lo and behold I once again missed the connecting flight. So there I was in Newark again; waiting in a line to find out what I could do now. This time I was not so concerned because it was my last flight so I couldn't miss another one, so I just patiently waited. There were about 4 other people going to Norway, and I heard that there was a flight going from Newark to Paris and then on to Norway the next day, so I thought I might get to cross off another country on my list, but alas there was not enough space, so I spent the night at the Howard Johnson hotel, precisely where we had stayed 2 months previously when we had begun our journey to Honduras. I now feel like that hotel is my second home...haha. It is a fairly nice place though with good service, and I made many friends in that day with various people from the flight to Houston and those in the hotel, mainly because I could not get internet access from my room and I had to be in range of the lobby, so I went and sat in the hallway where many people passed and kept seeing me there and would comment every time they went past. It got a little old. :P Anyway, my flight was supposed to leave at 8:05pm, so I had the whole day in the hotel pretty much, but decided it would be best if I went to the airport at 5:30pm since boarding time was 7:20pm. I was all ready to go, but I missed the shuttle by seconds, so I had to wait an extra half hour, so I was glad that I had decided to go a little early, or else I could have been rather late. The shuttle came and off we went back to the airport; I got through security and everything with no problem and sat down to wait for my plane. During that time I met a brother and sister who were going to Europe for the first time to visit friends; probably around my age or a little younger; and I met a lady from Norway who was going home for a visit I believe. Then once the plane boarded I was set with a woman and son who were Norwegians and were also going home for a visit. They were very nice people and we had some interesting conversations about everything from film school to Borracherro trees. It was a night flight, but I only slept for maybe 15 minutes for the duration of the 7 ish hour flight, but when I awoke and looked out the window I could see the great land of Norway, it's snowy mountains illuminated by the early morning light. The sun cast a lovely golden glow over the clouds and the mountain tops, and although I dreaded the cold, I was glad to be back.

Once in the airport, I went to get my baggage. I guess there was one more thing that could have gone wrong, so it did. They had lost my luggage, so I stood there waiting, and waiting, and waiting, right up until they turned the belt off, and no Canadian duffle bag came through. So I had the joy of going to the desk again to try to see if they could find it. They asked for my baggage number and I looked through every single thing I had with me, and could not find it. At that point they informed me that if I didn't have it, it would take much longer to find it and I might not get it for quite some time. This concerned me slightly but I had no way of giving them this number, so, they told me they would do what they could and off I went again, hoping they would find it soon. Now Marcus was supposed to be coming in the same day, or so I thought, so I went to see if I could find out when he was coming in. There were a few planes coming in from Amsterdam relatively soon, so I thought I'd wait for them to see if he would be there so we could go on the train to Hokksund together, and after about an hour and a half, I gave up waiting and went to get my train ticket. I called Werner and told him when I would be getting in, and he said he would send someone. Since my luggage hadn't come through I had nothing warm except a sweater and I had to wait for the train outside, although since it wasn't coming for a while I came back inside in the meantime where it was a little bit warmer, although every time the doors would open there would be a nice cold blast of air, but it was alright. About 40 minutes later the train came, and I got on. It wasn't exactly warm on the train either and I was shivering, and then to make matters worse, my nose started to bleed. I, of course, had no tissues with me, so there I was trying to stop the bleeding without looking conspicuous, and within a matter of minutes my hands were splashed with blood. I wondered what people must have been thinking about me, but I could not do much else, and finally it stopped. I felt like it was all over my face, but I couldn't really tell. I was so exhausted I wanted to sleep, but I was terrified of missing my stop then, and since I had no more money, I knew I couldn't afford to pay more to get to where I was supposed to, but my body had a different idea and I ended up dozing off. Luckily it was a very shallow sleep and I would awaken with a start every time I would hear the announcement of the stop we were about to make, thinking wildly in my mind, “is this where I have to get off??!” But finally after about 5 stops like that, we arrived at my own, and I exited the train and looked around for someone who was picking me up. I saw no one, so I started walking through the tunnel and out to where they usually parked to pick people up. I waited, and waited, and my nose still felt like it was bleeding, I was freezing cold and was standing there with my backpack and the smaller bag I had with me. At that moment I felt like a little homeless kid. :P FINALLY Andrew showed up with the car, and off we went to Skotselv. We made a stop at a little mall and I went in to see if I could find things that I needed that were in my bag that was lost, and then off we went again.

We arrived back at EBS safe and sound much to my delight, and from there on, life carried on as it is ought to do.

(Sorry this is so horrendously long - it was written over several days, ever since the 18th until yesterday, which therefore caused the length to greatly increase!)

Cleaning and Shoe Shopping

Friday, January 4, 2008

Our mission of today was to finish up the painting at the Home, and to finish up the painting here at our house, and to go to Cayo to buy shoes for the younger ones. I was on the team to stay home and finish up things here. We did, got the place cleaned up a little, and then readied ourselves to go. After a little bit of hassle we finally were on our way towards Cayo. We were each assigned two children to take and find shoes for. My two who self-appointed themselves, were Ezekiel and Edgar/Pappito. (sp?)

Off we went – I was glad to have Ezekiel with me because he knew what kinds of shoes Edgar would need, and could also translate Edgar for me. (He seems to have a speech impediment and I can't make out most of what he says.) Anyway, it was very simple to find shoes for them because Ezekiel knew what he was looking for, and Edgar is too young to be overly picky, so in about 20 minutes both pairs were found and after buying a few things to eat/drink at the market we headed back to the bus.

When we got there no one else had come back yet, but the bus driver was there and he came back to talk to me for a few minutes. It was a very interesting conversation we had; he was telling me all about the state that Belize is in currently due to government issues and stuff like that. It was pretty sick some of the things that have been going on lately. The people in positions of power have been stealing people's money from the bank, selling out people's land right from under them for cheap cheap prices to white people, like $200-$300 per acre. But he has hope because there is going to be an election in February, and hopefully the other party will win and then he says that if they do win they will take back the land that was given away to these other people, and give it back to their real owners. The reason why they were selling the land was because if enough white people came to live, they figured they could win easier, because they would be kind of out of the loop when it came to election time, or something like that. Anyway it was interesting to talk to this guy. Then I had another interesting conversation with a guy who had a little stand on the side of the road; he asked me what religion I was, and when I told him, his next question was “Do you think you are saved by keeping the Sabbath?” The conversation was cut a little short by a girl who needed to be taken to the bathroom, but it was interesting to hear his input on religion. He had not been a part of any religious group at all until four years ago whereupon he became an Evangelical. I wanted to ask him what caused him to choose that particular religion, but I didn't get a chance to unfortunately...

Anyway eventually everyone came back to the bus, and we went back to the Home, where we had worship and shortly after we came back to our house. It was a nice day for the most part; fun hanging out with the kids, helping them out, spending time with them. I'll miss them a whole lot when I go...

Long Day

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Finally the end of a long day has come.

The day got off to a bit of a bad start by me being yelled at because I hadn't done something the way I was told to do it the day before...In actuality, I wasn't able to because my painting things had been taken over by the other two and they said what they thought they were told to do, and were sure they were right about what he had said, and so I said ok whatever and let them do their thing, even though I knew what I had been told. So that was a good time; then the day consisted of a great deal of painting. We were working on the kitchen, Catherine and I. We had done the first coat yesterday and managed to finish the second coat quite quickly and although we painted the wrong colour on half of the kitchen, they decided they liked it anyway, so we kept it.

We painted and painted and painted until lunch time, then after lunch we did the other half that we couldn't do beforehand and finished that an hour and a half or so later. My task was cutting in which takes a very long time in that kitchen because of all the various things here and there on the walls, but it was finally completed. After that we were sent to take care of the small bathroom in Leonie's room. This was also quite a task despite its small size; a lot of stuff to take out, and alot of things to cut in around too.

Oh I left out one important tale of this morning! A couple of blog entries ago I talked about the man named Dave from Builder's Hardware – the creepy man who wanted my email address. So he promised us all shirts from the store, in return for a Home Depot one sent to him from Canada. We didn't get these shirts until this morning. They came in a bag and as we were going through there was a smaller bag inside with a shirt in it. We all assumed it was for Paul, being the head hauncho and all, until Ryan spotted something on the side of it; yes it was a name, and can you guess who's name it was? Yup, it was mine. Spelled incorrectly mind you, but my name nonetheless. Sara. This caused me great curiosity, hilarity, and, of course, creeped me out. I took the bag, I opened it, and inside was a medium sized Builder's Hardware shirt, a waterproof case of some kind, and a Builder's Hardware cap. Everyone else recieved shirts. I was not sure why he gave a medium to me, but whatever. Moral of the story was as Ryan put it, “I guess it's not an out of sight out of mind experience!” I shuddered a little, I won't lie.

Anyway, side trail. So yes we finished painting the bathroom finally, and then tried to help Leonie put her room back together a little. Eventually, after supper, some of us left to go back to our house to change and clean up a little before worship. We made it about half way there, Stevie driving the bus, when we reached a police checkpoint. We would have been ok, except the bus' insurance and inspection had expired the day before. Ryan phoned up Paul to ask him and Leonie to come down as soon as was possible; Paul asked how much trouble we were in, and Ryan relayed that message to the man who had talked to us, and he responded, “alot.” “The passengers are ok, but the driver will be arrested and taken to jail overnight and will have to appear in court tomorrow.” Steve's face fell. He proceeded to tell us that a policeman would have to drive us home and then take the bus back to policeman. He then went off to talk to someone or other, and in the meantime we all had a minute of prayer for the situation. Shortly the man came back and asked us where we were staying, and Ryan, self appointed spokesperson went into a big explaination of where you had to go to get to our house, and then proceeded to say that it was the house that had been donated to the orphanage, and the guy just kind of looked at him like he was crazy, and then said something to the effect of, “Ok whatever man, just go.” And he waved us away, much to Steve's relief!

...And A Happy New Year

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Happy New Year to all! 2007 has now become history, very recent history of course, but history nonetheless.

On Sabbath ourselves and the inhabitants of the Home set off for Cayo/San Ignacio/Santa Elena (?). In other words, the place we spent most of our time when we were in Belize before. We drove in our two buses and as we started to arrive closer more and more things became familiar to me, such as Lin's Supermarket, the Adventist hospital, etc. We arrived at the road that took us to the church; just as many bumps as before, and we forged upwards. Everything was familiar on that road; and then after much jouncing we came to the Hillview Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Mr. Borland and family was there to greet us (the ones we stayed with last time) and Dennis was as well, who was one of the guys whose house we went to for New Years previously, but other than that the faces were fairly unfamiliar to me. There was a guest speaker I guess you could say, who was originally from Oshawa, Ontario, and older gentleman with the name of Grant something or other. He had moved to Walla Walla, Washington at some point in time before he moved to Belize. He has been living there for the past two years and is, to my understanding, working at the hospital. Anyway, he preached a mildly disjointed sermon that I did not quite understand the point of, but that is alright. After church we went to eat lunch in the very building that had been our project of two years previous. Much more had been done on it and I took a multitude of pictures of it so some of the others who are not here this time could see the progress. It unfortunately has quite a ways to go still, but at least some things have been done with it.

Following the consummation of comestibles the little kids left us and us and the older ones went to the Xunantunich Mayan ruins for the afternoon. (That is the one where you go across on a little ferry, for those who have been there before.) It seemed kind of boring compared to the first time we were there because I had seen it already, but it was nice to go again anyway. After some time had passed we made our way back and went back to our building to have supper and worship, then we went into the city for some shoe shopping for them. They all found shoes and then we had some free time to go do our other shopping. Mel, Julia, Israel, Herman and I were in a group at first, but then it soon divided up a little, and I was left with Herman and Elona (a blind girl from the Home.) It was painfully slow to walk with her because the ground is so uneven, but it made me appreciate the wonderful thing called sight even more than I do. I thought I had forgotten my money so I wasn't really looking for anything in particular, but I later discovered I hadn't forgotten it after all. Anyway, we visited a couple of stores only and spent most of the time just walking around a little bit. Around 9:45pm we had all gathered at the bus again and loaded ourselves in to go home.

The next day, Sunday, we worked until we took everyone to this one place called Blue Hole where we went swimming for the rest of the afternoon. The water was on the chilly side, but it was refreshing. There were some other random people there at first with unclothed children swimming about which was slightly uncalled for, but they left after not too long. Anyway everyone seemed to enjoy themselves there, although most found it to be quite frigid.
Yesterday, Monday, we worked until 12:00pm and then went home to ready ourselves for the New Year's service that was to be held at the church at 4:00pm. Since we would be spending most of the night at the Home for New Years some wanted a chance to sleep so that was why we left at such an early hour. Unfortunately the bus was having issues so we didn't get to the church until around 5:00pm. Once there we had a song service, and then Paul was in charge of the service so he made a short introduction and then asked people to stand up and say what they were thankful for from the past year. It was nice to hear the different stories people had to share about their various experiences/blessings; since all come from such different backgrounds. After that we went back to the Home for the New Years party. We helped to fill the pinatas, Winnie the Pooh and Elmo to be precise, with a plethora of candy, and then were supposed to play games with the kids, but it was difficult to keep them all organized so that lasted for a short while, and then they called everyone into the play room to wait for the gift opening. At the Home Leonie has taken the emphasis off of Christmas because it isn't actually when Jesus was born, and puts more emphasis on New Years, because it is clearly a new year. So she gives them gifts on New Years, which is more of a production than Christmas; I must say I like her theory. Anyway that went on until right up to the time when the clock was about to strike 12:00. We went outside to see some of the fireworks, but it was not that good because you couldn't see many from where we were and they were all in the distance too, so it was rather dissapointing and definitely not like 2 years ago when we were here! Shortly after that we departed for home; I was absolutely exhausted and still am this morning. I felt very unwell last night and this morning as well, so I opted to stay home for the morning and get a little more sleep until someone will come to get me after lunch, so that is what I shall go do now...

Time Passed

Saturday, December 29, 2007

I have been slacking off in my recording of events lately, so I will do my best to remember all that has happened in the last little while.

Christmas came, it was actually a fairly uneventful day. We went to the home with all the presents, and after breakfast the great gift opening began. The kids seemed kind of subdued about the whole affair, but there was still excitement. That went on for quite some time and then we spent some time playing with the kids, until we went to help out with lunch. After lunch some girls and a boy took me on a walk, and when we came back there were two horses there that someone had brought over so the kids could ride, so after switching the one saddle from the first horse to the second one, they got to go on a ride. After most of the kids went, the guys who were taking them for rides asked if we wanted to as well, and I resisted, but was eventually convinced to go as well. I had the option of going by myself or with one of the guys, and since I have never actually successfully ridden a horse by myself, I opted for the latter, and so Sean jumped on to take me. It was an interesting experience to say the least. The stirrups were too long (slash my legs were too short) and so after about 5.3 seconds my feet had been removed and the horse was trotting about, gaining speed until he reached a gallop. Needless to say I was incapable of doing anything to keep myself still, so I flopped about on the horse, awaiting the time when we would come back. This one guy who is from Pennsylvania and comes to work there from time to time had a really nice Nikon and took some funny pictures of us.

Anyway, the day seemed long and non-Christmas-like, but it was nice.

Wednesday...I think we just worked at the home painting and stuff, fairly normal day if I remember correctly. Then Thursday, I was beginning to become under the weather and so I decided to stay home instead of going to the home and infecting others with my cold, so I did just that and accomplished several people's laundry, cleaned bathrooms and the kitchen, cooked some food for Marcus and I (who had to stay back and whippersnip the yard) and then Stevie as well, and then I did some painting in the house as well.

Today, we went to the home, Marcus and Stevie stayed back, ill and to work, and then they came later. We painted and painted and painted, and I was drug around by many little ones, and began to feel quite claustrophobic by the end of the day, but it's all good.

Oh wait, I forgot a very important story! Before we went to the home, we went to the Builder's Hardware store, for the millionth time. There's this guy there, the manager in fact, who kind of connected with us the first time, promised us shirts from the store etc. So we saw him in there, and Mel and I were talking to him for a minute, he was asking us questions about Canada, and telling us some random story about how the Belizian government was going to send a bunch of people to Canada to become butchers, anyway, so after a short time Mel kind of deserted me. So this is how the conversation had gone:

Dave: “What is your name?”
Sarah & Mel responded.
Mel leaves shortly after.
Dave: “Can I ask you a question?”
Sarah: (Feeling a little creeped out.) “Yeah.”
Dave: “How old are you?”
Sarah: “18.”
Dave: “Really?! You look like you're 21!”
Sarah: (Definitely creeped out.) “Oh yeah? Haha most people say I look 16...” (She trailed off, looking for an escape.)
Dave: “Can I ask you a question?”
Sarah: (Still creeped out.) “Yeahh..”
Dave: “Do you have an email address?”
Sarah: (Deciding whether to lie or not) “Umm yeahhhhhhhh...”
Dave: “Can I have it?”
Sarah: (With exclaimation!) “No!”
Dave: (Hopefully) “Can I give you mine?!”
Sarah: (With exclaimation again) “No!”
Dave: (Still hopefully) “Oh you know we could just say hi every once in a while...”
Sarah: (Excessively creeped out.) “No, I have to go right now actually.. See ya!”
She takes off, as fast as possible, half laughing, but more creeped out than ever.
Dave: (weakly, in the background) “Ohhhh...hahahaha”

So that was the conversation. I have made an oath to never enter that building again as long as Dave is around. Mannnnnn. Oh and just to make this story come into perspective, this guy is definitely in his thirties, and the way he looked at me and Mel was up and down; real creepy.
Anyway the rest of the day went without much incident. We came back after work around 4 or 5, and then had some time to shower and get cleaned up before we went back to the home to make supper for them and to have worship with them, but we ended up missing worship, but had supper with them nonetheless. The kids were absolutely wild. I was dragged here and there, mostly by Ezekiel who was desperately trying to bring me over to his brother Israel and getting me to put my arm around him etc, and by the end of the night I was exhausted. But it was kind of amusing, all in all.

Now I am weary and Mel wants to tell me stories, so I will depart henceforth, and bid thee all a good night.

Christmas Eve

Monday, December 24, 2007

Christmas Eve...and it feels like it's the middle of summer, very wrong.

I haven't written anything since I've been at our new abode, so I will do a quick rundown of the events:

Tuesday, the rest of the group came. First only Paul, Sheila, Korey, Hollie, and Ryan were there (because they came early) so when we went to go get the rest of the group, I met up with the aforementioned, and we found out that the flight had been delayed for an hour and a half, and then when they got there ALL of their luggage was lost. That was sorted out shortly, and they got their luggage a day or two later. Anyway, once we got them, we took off for our the place we would be staying in while here. It is a huge house, very fancy compared to anything we've stayed in, but it was excessively filthy. So that was our duty for the next day, to clean as much as was possible. We also had been told to paint it, so we went to buy paint and various other things from the local hardware store (which was kind of like Kent or Home Depot, combined with Home Hardware or something like that.) We made some friends there and bought our supplies and came back to go to work. We ended up going back to that store about 5 more times throughout the day to get all the other stuff we needed/forgot. Anyway, the house was gradually made to be cleaner, but only the last couple of days has it been really nice and clean, and hopefully it will continue to improve.

Marcus arrived safely that night, and shared some of his adventures he'd had in Africa and on the journey here.

The next day we went to the orphanage to start work there. Some of our tasks included painting, and fixing various electrical problems, etc. The kids were all very excited about the whole painting thing, and many of them “helped” until finally they were making such a horrible mess of themselves and the walls that Marcus and I were told to take them all and go to the park. We did just that. Marcus hung out with 3 little girls who were picking plums off of the local plum tree which grows these very odd green plums, most of which are not ripe, but hey they all eat them anyway. I hung out with about 6 little ones. Two of which were still in the baby stage, and the others who were a little older, 5-8 or so. They were all very demanding, and I ended up being completely exhausted after a very short time, and then they all started crying because of injuries, lack of attention, and various fights amongst themselves, so I gave up and took them back. Aiyiyi. The day finally ended and we returned to our house, all quite weary.
I was told that Marcus and I were preaching the sermon on Sabbath on Thursday, but Marcus said he felt like he would need a little more time to prepare, so it was left to me. I thankfully had a couple of ideas already and only needed to do some expanding work since they were quite short, so I requested Friday to use to spend here at the house just preparing. They agreed and so all Friday I spent working on this sermon. At first I had two ideas, Elijah, and giving glory to God, and couldn't decide on which one would be best, but then I was reading my new study Bible (which I am thrilled I have!!) I read one of the commentary things, and lo and behold, it made a bridge between the two subjects, so I could do both! It ended up kind of deviating from that though, and turned into knowing God, which was for the best. I studied allllll day, only taking a couple of breaks to do laundry and eat lunch, but other than that I spent pretty much all day working on it. I worked on it until I went to bed, and finished it off before going to church. Another one of my famous last minute sermon things, but luckily this one actually came to fruition and I didn't hand it off to someone else. I wasn't particularly nervous about it, but once I stood up it all went downhill. I forgot an important question to ask first, and it was suddenly ridiculously warm in the room, and I was saturated in sweat, and felt like I was exceptionally red. Anyway, other than those issues it went alright for having not ever preached an actual sermon before, but it was way too short, only about 15 minutes long at the most, even though I tried to go slow, but unfortunately it was still too short, and when I asked my last question, “and now I ask you, do you know God?”, and then announcing the closing song, I saw shocked looks cross their faces because it was over so soon. It was an interesting experience to say the least, and following the sermon I decided that I would prefer to go the rest of my life without preaching again, but I suppose I just need to practice more and learn slash prepare more so that
I will not be so nervous and all.

So after church we came back to eat lunch and then after spending some time just resting around here, we went to go to the home to take the kids to this park place. It was a very nice place – we saw some howler monkeys in the trees, and walked for about an hour and a half through various trails in the jungle foliage. Very pretty place, and the kids enjoyed it alot. Then we came back after dropping them off, and set to work going through the gifts that had been sent for the kids for Christmas. It was a big job, and we worked as late as possible, but we had to get up at 4:00 the next morning so that we could get ready to go to San Pedro, a Caye kind of near Caye Caulker where we went last time. After a short night of sleep we got up and took off in the bus for the water taxi terminal where we had tickets booked to get to San Pedro. We also had a time slot booked for going snorkelling, so as soon as we arrived and put our stuff in the hotel, we went to get our gear for snorkelling. Our guide's name was Joey, and looked like he was no more than 15 or 16; he was an interesting character, spoke as little as possible and looked like he hated his life, but he was a good guide nonetheless. It was very nice – tons of fish, and was very enjoyable for all. We saw a sea turtle (!!) and a couple of sharks, rays, and a multitude of other fish. So we swam around for quite some time looking at the reef, then we went back to the boat to go to the next stop. This place was not a reef, but there were tons of fishes (not a word, I know) and it was really cool to swim with them all...

(I stopped at that last paragraph a couple of days ago, so I will try to remember the rest of it.)
After the snorkelling we had the rest of the day to do as we wished, shop, swim, whatever. So we first went to an internet cafe, then we went shopping for the rest of the day after that. Marcus met the love of his life while everyone was getting their hair done, whose name was Eden, and we frolicked all about the island of San Pedro, making friends here and there with various Rastafarians, and spent some good times together.

The next morning we left, but our boat was very delayed and we never ended up leaving until around 10 am or something, and we didn't get back to our house until about 5:00pm because we did some more shopping in Belize City whilst there.

And that pretty much sums up the events of that experience...

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

In a short while we will be departing to pick up the rest of the crew from the airport, whereupon I will find out if it is still a surprise or not! I hope it will be, but I don't know if it is...

This morning I stayed in bed as long as was possible, but eventually that had to end so I got up and made my way to the shower. It was a nice shower because the water was warm! Following the shower, I went and made myself look presentable and considered the option of going for a walk, but some of the kids came over to me and wanted me to go to the park with them, so I went to ask permission to do such a thing, and once it was given we took off to the park. We had swing races, and then Ezekiel found a squirrel in a tree (which at first he thought was a porcupine, or as he pronounced it “purkle pine”) and this caused some excitement and so all the kids went to try and find it, running hither and yon throughout the playground and onto other people's properties. I tried to keep a low profile whilst still keeping an eye on them, but I'm sure I stood out anyway, although I was probably mistaken as a 13 year old or so...haha.

Anyway after all that, we went back to the park and some of the kids went to pick these odd plums off the nearby tree and ate a bunch of them. One of the girls, Laquisha, had hurt her toe earlier, and it was bleeding a little and was in a messed up state, so I took her back so that it could be cleaned because I didn't want it to get all dirty and infected, and after that was taken care of we just stayed back here and some of the kids drew pictures for me, and another wrote a letter to me which said as follows:

Dear
Sarah Lynette McCann
I am so happy to see you here and you are a good person to me and a wonderful and beautiful girl I ever seen.
From your
Best Frind
Zaria Orellana
Kimberly
and tell your frind in Canada I said Hi and tell them that Crystal miss all you guys.
Zaria Orellana
Kimberly Sarah
From your Best Friend
Zaria

It's real cute. :)

Anyway, I went outside to read a little bit for a while, and then I was excessively tired so I went to lie down for a while and fell asleep for an hour and a half or so, and was woken up to Ezekiel telling me that it was time to go eat lunch. I was still exhausted, but having not eaten breakfast this morning I knew I had to eat something, even though I wasn't hungry at all, so I staggered to the kitchen/dining room. I received my plate of food and much to my utter horror there were several lovely chunks of, as dad would say “dead animal products” lying there on the plate. It was too late to get rid of them, and I couldn't waste it because I know how short the food is here, so there was no other option but to do my best to swallow it down. The first bite was not too bad except for the bone that I discovered...the next bite was better, but a couple more later, it was kind of a big piece, and it had so many veins and ligaments or whatever it is in it, that I chewed it for approximately 5 minutes, to absolutly no avail. I was on the point of regurgitation, but could do nothing because I was sitting at a table full of adults, including one who had made the meal. It was horrrible and I barely got through it, but finally the end of it came. It's not the taste that I don't like but the texture, and the concept of eating a dead animal...And to use another saying of Dad's, “There goes 18 years of veganism out the window!” But I cannot claim that great length of time, but it was quite a long time since I had last eaten anything of the dead animal assortment.

Echh.

Anyway, some time after lunch we went to the airport, myself, Chino the bus driver, Rosita, and another lady whose name I am not sure of, in their little school bus. Once we got there we saw no one we knew at first, so I took off to go see if I could find them. On the way I saw Paul and he informed me that the rest of his family and Ryan were in the internet place, called BTL. I set off in that direction to greet them. On my way over there I passed this one guy standing with 2 or so other people, and he called out to me saying, “Hey Girlfriend! How you doin'??” In the classic tone of voice and pronounciation, and it was all I could do to keep the laughter inside. I politely nodded to him and responded “Good, and you?” and kept walking. He continued to speak, but I am not sure what he said, anyway I found it quite hilarious, because I have never heard someone actually say it like that in all seriousness. :P

Anyway I talked to Sheila and Ryan for a while, and then when it was close to time of the plane's arrival, we went over to the airport to wait for the others. We waited and waited and waited some more and they didn't come, so I went to inquire of American Airlines when the plane from Miami was supposed to be coming in, and they said it was already here, so I assumed they would come through shortly. We waited some more, and then when they still didn't come, Paul went in to see what was going on, and lo and behold, he saw the whole crew standing at the lost luggage counter...Again, just like last time we came here. Although this time, they ALL had lost their luggage! Anyway, eventually they came out, and I hid myself behind Ryan so I could surprise them, but alas they had heard the day before that I would be there, which was unfortunate, but they were still glad to see me. :) Then we took off in the bus and made our way back.

The house we are staying in is a veritable mansion, but it was rather filthy, so we spent the evening cleaning it. We ate supper, and had worship, and shortly after made our way to bed, and I here.

Onward to Belize

Monday, December 18, 2007

I am absolutely exhaustedddddd.

We started out today by leaving the hotel at 4:15am or so, and I was up at 4:00 to do my last minute packing. We took off in the taxi that was sent to take us to the airport, and we arrived some time later. Our flight was delayed for some reason, or perhaps the time they told us was wrong, but either way we managed to be on time in El Salvador, although barely, as well as Belize. The flights were nice because they were so short, and Eli was surprised to find that his ticket was for first class, so from El Salvador to Belize he rode there – the first flight he gave up his first class place and stayed with me in Economy. We both ended up falling asleep for a short time, which caused me to realize the glory in what they call “power naps” and how you feel much better if you just sleep for about 5 minutes versus a long time. Our luggage was sent on to Belize so we didn't have to worry about that either which was nice. I was awfully hungry during this time, but we didn't have time to get anything to eat. We arrove in Belize, and no one was there to get us, so we went on a mission to phone and find out what was happening. This proved to be rather difficult because of the various issues with the cell phone and card, etc. But finally we got through to discover that Leonie (the mother of this orphanage) had been told we were coming in at 2:00pm rather than 10:00am when we actually got there. So since they were in no position to come get us at that time, Eli told me to tell her that we would just get a taxi to the bus station, where we would then catch the bus to Belmopan and San Ignacio, respectively. We did just that, and had the pleasure of seeing some Rastafarians, in their awesome hats and Rasta colours, etc. Anyway. We got to the bus station and I went to call Leonie to let her know we were at the station, and so she sent someone to come pick me up. The guy came shortly after, and so I bid Eli a farewell and off we went to the orphanage.

From the beginning it was mildly awkward. I tried to talk to the guy who was driving, but he would only respond with the shortest answers possible, so I gave up, but luckily the drive was very short. We arrived, and I went in, and was told that Sheila had called and said that I should stay at the orphanage tonight, so I went out to get my stuff from the car and brought it in. I was shown to my room so I could put it there – a room that I am sharing with apparantly 2 people, but I only see one, and there's 5 beds...Anyway, then I went out to ask Leonie if there was something I could do to help since I didn't have anything else to do – she asked me if I had any experience with entering data into a computer. I responded affirmatively, so she told me to pull up a chair then and to help. We worked on it for about 2 or so hours, which I was very happy about because it gave me something to work as an escape from the nothing else that there was to do. Then she said she needed to stop because she was starting to feel not good from not having eaten lunch. (It was about 3:00pm at this time). I agreed because I hadn't eaten in over 24 hours and was quite famished, so I was shown to the kitchen where I receieved a plate of beans and rice, which was quite excellent. Following the meal, there wasn't anything for me to do, so I asked to use the internet and so I had a nice long chance to check my various messages. I did that for as long as possible so that I wouldn't just wander around by myself feeling awkward, but eventually other people seemed to be waiting for the computer, so I removed myself from it, and made a friend with Laquisha, a girl who I remembered from last time. She is 7 I think, and is adorable, and a nice child.

Basically I wasted as much time as possible on everything that happened. I talked to Crystal, the girl whose name I had to get something for last time, and although she didn't remember me at first, she began to as I refreshed her memory with what we had done. I got out my computer to try to show her some pictures of the people who she would recognize, and ended up having a little crowd of kids standing around me looking at the pictures I had, pointing at all of them and asking me to open them. Then they wanted to play games on my computer, so I let two of the girls play (under supervision) and then when it started to get too out of hand I told them that it was time to put it away. Then it was time for worship.

Worship is amazing in this place. First they sing about 10 songs, with guitars and they sing so exuberantly, it sounds amazing, even if it is a little loud or off key sometimes! They actually do sing very well though, there is only a couple who aren't right on key. Then they have a couple people giving some thoughts, and then someone has the main talk/reading, and then they go around the room and all the kids tell what they understand from what was read. Some of them you can tell didn't listen at all, but have an answer that sounds close enough like they did. And then they recite various chapters or verses from the Bible. Tonight it was Psalm 4, or 41 I forget which one, and then Psalm 91, and Romans 3:1-12. It's amazing how well they have them memorized; it inspired me to try to memorize more too. Then they pray and sing another song or two, and that brings it to a close. It is a really nice worship they have though, and I was impressed, again.

Now there are a bunch of them out there with the guitars and they are singing random songs – it sounds really good. But unfortunately it's been drowned out by this one song that this girl in this room is playing, whilst she is asleep, and it is on repeat, and it is driving me absolutely crazy, even though it is a nice song...you can only listen to it so many times, seriously...

Again

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Again.

Where I left off earlier this day, shortly later we were taken by these two people to Subway (Hallelujah for Subway!) whereupon they bought Eli and I lunch, which was awfully nice of them. After we left there, they brought us to our hotel, Saint Anthony, and also paid for that, so we there is much to be thankful for. After we ate our excellent Subway meal, and readied ourselves, we went to the mall, because both of us had a mission of buying dress shoes. I found some very nice ones which are extraordinarily comfortable, and were only around $25, so I was quite pleased with that. Eli also succeeded in his mission, and in addition to his dress shoes, he made the purchase of a book (in Spanish) on philosophy. We came back after that and I repacked my duffle bag so as to try to get everything to fit in a little better, and after some hours of that I went to see if Eli had heard anything about how (for sure) we were getting to the airport at 4:30am. Unfortunately his cell phone didn't have any time left on it to call, so we moved on to plan B of finding a pay phone. We found one, but alas it didn't work either, because you had to have a special card – coins could not be taken. The stores appeared to be all closed as well, so we couldn't get the card needed to call on any phone. Finally we decided to just walk and see if we could find a store that had the cards for sale and that was open. We walked for a little ways and finally found a gas station that was open, and wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, it had the card we needed. We bought it and came back and were finally able to get through, and the plans of the morning were confirmed.

I hope tomorrow will go smoothly with the travelling...

Last Weekend

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Yesterday; all my troubles seemed so far awayyy...

Anyway moving right along; we went to church in the morning and had a nice time with them – Rob had the sermon, he preached about Elijah and how we needed to trust only in God, and he did well. Following church we came back home and ate lunch, and then I went for a walk on the beach since it was my last opportunity to take pictures. It was a lovely sunny day and was very pleasant; a little on the warm side, but it was nice. On the way back down the beach I met up with Johannes who had been swimming, so we walked back together and then he showed me this banana plantation not too far away that he had discovered the other day. In it we found some bananas that were actually ripe and so we ate some of them and in the process were bitten by these ferocious ants, so I quickly vacated that scenario. There was supposed to be a program in the afternoon from 2:00 to 4:00, but it started a little late and ended up going until nearly 5:00. It consisted of some special musics, and talks from various people. For example, Eli and Patrick talked about Daniel (giving them an overview of what we do in our Bible classes) and Henrietta and Kestas had a presentation of EBS and what the courses are like, and also they showed what the mission trip had been like, what we had done, some of our experiences, etc.
Once the program was over Rob and I decided to go to this town called Punto Cortes, which was about an hour bus ride away. We were told by several people that it was very dangerous to travel by bus that day, but we decided to go anyway, taking only some money in our pockets making it impossible to be stolen, and tried to look as inconspicous as possible. We walked down the road for a while waiting for the bus to come, and then we stopped at a little store to wait for it, since that was one of it's stops. After some time it came along, and off we went. We arrived with no incidents of danger, and walked around for a season, stopping for one store only, and then we moved on to Pizza Hut where we ate our supper. After that, since it was getting late we thought it would be best to go back rather than stay in for any longer, so that is what we did. The last bus went back at 8:00pm or so, and it was beyond that by this time, so we hailed the nearest taxi. The only problem was that the driver couldn't understand what Rob was telling him and didn't know what our destination was. So we drove for a minute until he came to a place where he thought he could find someone to translate. 2 people came over simultaneously and also could not understand him, so Rob tried to think of the alternative pronounciation that may help them to be able to find the place, which he succeeded in and the light bulb flashed on, and off we went with our taxi driver. It was unfortunately more expensive than we thought it would be since it was night time (according to the driver it was always cheaper in the daytime) but we didn't exactly have a choice, so we just went with him.

After we arrived back to San Ignacio (our place of abode) I was informed of a crocodile that inhabited a nearby pool in the zoo, so Marylin, Kestas, Eli and I went to go see it. We found all manner of other animals on the way, and we made a friend with a blind raccoon and he followed us everywhere we walked. After we had found the crocodiles and all the rest, we found some peddle boats and took that out, and then Marylin and I went in this little dinghy afterwards and paddled around for a little bit in the little pool they had made for such a purpose. Then I went back to pack my bag again, which I didn't end up doing because Miriam (the girl who cooked for us) gave us massages, and shortly after that I went to sleep for about two hours until 2:30am whereupon I finished packing and we left for the airport.

The rest of the group left with only a couple of difficulties of people having lost some paper that they needed, but as far as I know they all got on the plane, but Danny may have been left behind, we are not exactly sure.

Now Marta, Werner, Eli, and I are in Aseyco (some office building) using their internet, and then they will leave and Eli and I are going to a hotel. These people are quite ridiculous. The plans have changed about 5 times since I have last heard. At first we were supposed to stay at this same place we were at all weekend, then this man named Saloman said he was going to take us, then he said he was going to get us hotel rooms, then a lady named Daisy Mae was going to take me, and Eli would stay with Saloman, THEN we were both staying with Saloman, then Daisy Mae said she wanted to adopt me, and NOW apparantly we are going back to the hotel idea, and I hope it doesn't change again.

Daisy Mae is the lady I am supposed to be staying with later on, so we'll see if that plan remains solid or not until then...

When I was told that she was going to take me today, I was also told that I needed to wear something nice because she was going to take me out, her and her daughter who is apparantly my age. That frightened me slightly since I had no idea where and what we would be doing, and then I heard that neither of them spoke English, and then I heard that the daughter did speak English and oh my goodness these people make no sense at all! So many different plans and ideas, never knowing which one we will end up with!! But I am happy about the whole hotel thing now though...as long as it stays that way. :P

On the Boring Side

Friday, December 14, 2007

Today seemed very short – in it we spent some time at the beach, and also took the bus to go to the nearest place with internet. We missed the first bus coming back, so we stayed and looked around a little bit more until the next bus came. We left Tobias behind because he was still busy doing something or other else, but he managed to come back with no difficulty. Anyway we then came back and after spending some time at the beach we came up to eat and then had some time to waste doing what we wanted. After some time of that we went to this little “water park” thing which consisted of 2 water slides, but one of them was pretty great, although it was small, it went real fast. The guys became quite adventurous with it and tried all the tricks they could possibly think of, and amazingly enough all came through quite unscathed. Occasionally you would hear a resounding “Owwwch!” when they would come up from the watery depths, generally from the mouth of Kestas, who seemed to recieve the most pain of all from the various attempts that were made. After some time of fun, the majority of us moved on to the beach where we engaged in chicken fights, and others were thrown about by some of the others, doing flips, etc.

When we came up from the beach we were informed of a worship we had to go to which was starting at 6pm, approximately 30 minutes away. All of us had to get showers, and so we rushed as fast as we could to get ready. We were told that there was going to be a vehicle waiting for us, and so when we were ready we set off to find it, but we thought the gate was locked, so we walked all the way around to the other gate that we thought we would be open. It wasn't, and then we were informed that the gate wasn't actually locked, the padlock was just sitting there still open. So we went all the way around again, and went out. The vehicle wasn't there, so we began to walk, and ended up walking all the way there. (It was fairly close, perhaps a kilometre or so.) The church was very nice, and a fairly good size as well, and there were quite a few people in attendance. Their worships seemed to be like a typical vespers that we hold on Saturday night – consisting of games and short thoughts/verses/songs. It was a nice time although rather different than what we were expecting, but it was in a pleasant way.

Sooo, that just about sums up today – kind of boring I must say.

Good-byes

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Yesterday was the last day and since we had plans to leave at 4:00am, I figured that it would be easier to not go to sleep at all, as did Rob and Elissa for a period of time at least. We went into town and I got my picture taken with various people, and then said good-bye to those I would not see in the morning, and Elissa and Hannah and I walked around for a little bit. Eventually we went to Alexander and Raina's house upon their invitation, and had a nice visit with all of them for a while, and then we began to get tired and rather cold so we decided to go back to Buenavista. We met up with Johannes and Noel and his friend Daniel, so we all walked back together. I didn't feel like just staying there and trying to be quiet enough to not wake up the others, so I suggested we go to this place where they have a cross on the mountain. The mountain was small and there was a path going up it, and gives a nice view of the town. (Unfortunately my camera's batteries were dead so I didn't get a picture.) Anyway so Rob, Elissa, Noel, Daniel and I all set off back towards town to this hill. They kind of slowed and stopped for a time once we arrived in the town, but then they apparantly decided to come along with us anyway, because they kind of felt that they should look out for us since sometimes random people can come into the village and not be nice to those who are foreigners, so that was kind of them. Anyway we made our way up the hill, being as quiet as possible so as to not wake up all the millions of dogs that there are, but our efforts were quiet in vain and we did not manage to go through without the warnings of a zillion dogs going up loudly. We arrived at the top and spent some time sitting there and talking, and it was quite lovely and I wish I could have taken a picture of it all...Anyway then we descended after some time, and went to the good old street corner where many like to sit, disturbing some more dogs on the way. Daniel parted ways with us, but Noel stayed on, because he was waiting for his cousin for some random reason, so he just stuck around with us. We sat there until it once again started to become too cold, and then we went back to Buenavista. Rob and I stayed up for a little while longer, but then I began to drift toward the edge of sleep and decided that I should probably get a couple of hours in. It turned out we were supposed to leave at 5:00am instead, and so that time rolled around and I woke up and packed everything else into my suitcase as quckly as possible, then after we had said some more goodbyes we took off on the walk from Buenavista to El Suyatal for the last time, for now at least. It was all very said and I wished I would have had more time to stay and get to know people more, but it was nice to have seen some of them before we had left. We had a prayer with all who had gathered at the bus to see us off, and then we loaded in and took off.
Today almost became a replay of approximately 1 month ago – except today we travelled for 9 hours by bus rather than by plane. Let's just say that by the end of it I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to walk normally again. Being cramped into a little bus (although it was comfortable) for 9 hours was a bit much to say the least. I was on the verge of insanity I think by the time we arrived here, and where we are I am not exactly positive of the name, but I believe we are outside of San Pedro Sula by a slight bit.

We are staying in 3 cottages, fairly nice buildings which are about a 700 metre walk from the beach. It is a nice location, and they have their own little small scale zoo type of thing. There are a couple of ostriches, a cougar, a jaguar, oceletes, monkeys, cappyberras, a wild hog, waterbuffalo, sheep, and the best of all...A TAPIR!! I was walking down the place where the animals are, and all of a sudden I beheld the tapir, and my day was immediately made complete! I went over the cage and it being curious came over to the fence, close enough so that I poked him on his nose, and then touched him on his back as well, which was surprisingly hard, kind of like a shell underneath some fur. Anyway it was awesome, and I took about a billion pictures of it because it thrilled my soul so greatly.

Then after supper/lunch we wanted to go swimming, despite the lack of sunshine and overabundancy of the clouds, it was a very nice time – the water was so warm, and there were some fairly nice waves as well. The view is incredible when you are in the water – if you look back towards the shore the beach streches for kilometres and behind along the horizon there is a mountain range of beautiful green-covered mountains, plus the palm trees in the foreground. Beautiful.

Nearing Departure

Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Today is the second last day here, and I must say I will be sad to leave. Just when you become comfortable living in such a place, you have to go. Anyway, most of the people went to Talanga today to do more work on finishing the tamarind trees, but I stayed here to help Rob paint. We got most of it done and would have completed it, but alas we had to wait for them to come back to bring the rest of the paint, and by that time it was getting too dark to be able to finish it up which was unfortunate, so tomorrow we're going to get up bright and early so that we can do the rest, because we have plans to go up this mountain and climb a really tall tower which is on this mountain.

After supper tonight we went into to town, a whole group of us, and met up with some others who were already in there, and so we sat where all the people usually hang out, and shortly many joined – almost all guys. My best friend of all showed up too – Jimmy (Yimmy Krippy) which was kind of good in a way because that way I had the opportunity to take a picture of him. I got pictures of the whole group standing there too – classic memories of how everything is here! Anyway, this one guy who I met yesterday when we were standing in that big group of people whom they call Chino cause he looks Chinese and whose real name is Edwin, was wanting to take a picture of me with his cellphone, but it didn't have a flash so he was trying to get me to go under the streetlight, but I declined.

Tomorrow they have planned a party for us to say good-bye. We were supposed to have one today, but they cancelled it because the people from the church in Tegucigalpa didn't want to organize it, so they just got rid of it all together, but some people from this village decided to have one anyway, which I thought was very nice of them. It should be an interesting day to say the least. We are leaving on Thursday at 4:00 in the morning for San Pedro Sula – I think that's where it is at least...

Mountains to Climb & People to Visit

Monday, December 10, 2007

Today the plan was to go bright and early to the mountain to see Don Mario's coffee plantation(s). We were told to be ready to go at 5:00am. This was quite unexpected, and I, having learned the time of the Hondurans, assumed that they would be at least a half hour late, so I was not too worried about waking up at a particularly early time. Monica on the other hand was. She woke us all up at 4:10 the first time, and when none of us made great movements to rise, she came a second time, and a third time. 5:00 arrived, and we ate breakfast. They, just as was predicted, did not show up. This went on for a time until 6:30 came along and they FINALLY drove up. During that time we had eaten breakfast, Tobias and I had done breakfast clean-up, and we had worship. Needless to say, those who had been awoken at such an unearthly hour were not overly happy with the whole affair, but unfortunately the weather had impeded their arrival since it was raining very hard apparantly and they could only go at a very slow speed, especially since it was dark. Anyway, we set off on our merry way, for the couple hour truck drive up this mountain. There were about 10 of us in the back of the pick-up truck, and the road was absolutely horrendous. The drive was long, and painful, but enjoyable in a sense nonetheless. We arrived at the top and then had a couple hour walk ahead of us. Anyway to make that story a little shorter, we walked for a while and arrived at the first plantation, walked further and arrived at the next one where he has a house, and we stayed there for a time resting and ate lunch, and following lunch we were taken to pick some coffee beans and then proceeded to learn the method of how they process it. It was kind of interesting although a little pointless other than for learning what they do here. Anyway, then it began to rain and so off we set to return back, this time taking a shortcut, which was good because it was hard going, both on the way there and on the way back. The paths are tiny and turned to slick mud – so we experienced mud skiing for the first time. It was difficult to go on these paths becaues you were constantly in danger of crashing down because it was so utterly slippery. I must say though I was thankful for the rain because it made the heat much more bearable. Oh yes and on the way there we had the pleasure of eating oranges straight from the tree – we all agreed they were the best oranges we have ever had! Anyway, we returned and started our descent in the truck, which was fun although a few times it felt like we were going to roll over because one tire would go down and the other one would be way up...but it was still fun. Once we got down and back to Buenavista we ate supper which was really good; some kind of a pasta dish, and then a group of us girls and Danny went to the Prophecy church because we had promised that we would come tonight. We arrived a little late, and it turned out they were having some kind of a church meeting or something of the like, so we stayed for a short while then decided to vacate that scenario because it didn't involve us at all. We decided to go check out another church, Mission to the Nations, but it had no worship service either, so we turned about to go back home. On the way we met up with Johannes who was talking to a group of guys outside the store. We stopped to talk to him and found out about other churches that might have service this night, but there were none, so our original group carried on home. A very short way down the road, Elissa and I decided that we didn't want to go back right away, so we turned around and went back to where Johannes had been. He seemed to have vanished, but I was in need of a washroom facility anyway, so we stopped there first and then when we came back from there, he had reappeared. We talked to him and soon a large group of boys gathered around to talk/listen/look at/with us – but once again it started to rain so after some time that group broke up and we were invited into this one house where we continued talking to them, but with only Dani and Noel and some older people. It was very nice to be able to do something different and to visit with other people rather than just hiding away at Buenavista, and I really appreciated the opportunity.

My battery is low once again, so that will have to be it – kind of the short version of the day.