2010 BELIZE MISSION: February 2010

Sunday, February 28, 2010

February 25th & 26th - PHOTO's

THURSDAY

Morning Prayer

Beverly and Bill .....hard at work

School children sanding their new tables

The first six tables

Our "home base"

Cindy, Doug and Susan

Starting to paint Mr. Armando's Standard 6 classroom

This is the highest level of public schooling in Belize

(equivalent to our grade 8)

Doug painting all the high, bat dust, areas

Susan recruiting little Robert to help her stir the paint

The village bus

Brad enjoying some time with the children

Students from Mr. Armando's senior class, taking the tables into the chapel

Our team, just after watching Canada win GOLD in women's hockey

CANADA vs. USA

End of day devotionals

FRIDAY

"CANADA DAY IN BELIZE"

Beverly showing her national pride

Cindy enjoying some hugs and laughs

A couple students enjoying their new and improved classroom

Beverly with a few of the teachers from St. Hilda's

We gave them some educational gifts including, but not limited to:

practice books, dictionary's, wall posters, erasers, rulers etc...

Saying so long to Stanley as he awaits the bus

Group shot after presenting Mr.Armando with his newly painted & cleaned room

Photo includes Father Juan and his wife Maria and some curious little school children

Beverly tutoring David on reading

Ann and Doug teaching journalism

Group photo before the end of week assembly

Mrs. Ida Bennett addressing St. Hilda's students

This was the first time we saw all the tables occupied - Quite a sight!

Susan and Beverly look on with a little girl

St. Hilda's dance club perform for us

After the assembly we were each presented with a gift from students of St. Hilda's and we presented the school a plaque of Christ Church Cathedral (Aitken Pewter) for them to keep in the school chapel, as a reminder of our friendship.

February 25th & 26th - Day Four and Five at St. Hilda's

Our muscles may be sore....but our hearts are full!
- Ann Deveau

THURSDAY

Doug, Susan and Cindy finished the preparations of Mr. Armando's classroom and then completed the first coat and half of the second coat. It's antique white since they have only two lightbulbs and rely heavily on natural light for the children to see what they're reading. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew finished building table #8 and #9. As they prepared to move them out into the yard we all started to realize that the safety of the tables would be of great concern. The school is nestled in the middle of a very unsafe area named Georgeville. Without security, they were certain that the tables would "go missing" within no time. The initial "solution" was to have the senior students move the tables into the rooms at the end of every day and out each morning. We only had to move them in once to realize that this solution would not be feasible. The tables are unbelievably heavy and the children would surely be at risk of injury. Some more brainstorming continued. Possibly have concrete buckets weigh them down somehow? Chaining them together wouldn't work. In the end it was decided to only make one more table (10 instead of 12) so as to not make the issue bigger than it already was. We have hired an electrician to visit the school on Monday to install security lights in the schoolyard so that the tables can be left outside. Unfortunately, solar lights are not an option. It brought the spirit of the group down a bit during the afternoon ...but we were happy to have been given the challenge and have the opportunity to work together to figure out a solution.

Hode's Sports Bar for supper so that we could show our true colors and watch Canada vs. USA women's hockey. We proudly stood and sang the national anthem when we took gold, joined by another Canadian sitting on the patio with us.

Back to the hotel for our devotional and off to sleep.

FRIDAY

Everyone gathered to say goodbye to Stanley as he took the bus to Punta Gorda to visit his former parish and many friends. His contribution, as a friend and spiritual leader for the week, was very much appreciated by our entire team.

Table #10 was made and the second coat of white was added to the senior classroom. Then, we added the morant blue to the front wall and of course "The Blue Door". The extra wood came in handy when we realized that the majority of the text books in the senior classroom were sitting on tables and the floor. Brad sprung into action with Bill and built a very sturdy five shelf bookcase. Mr. Armondo was thrilled to have his room painted, cleaned, organized and mopped ...but the bookcase was definitely the cherry on top. It was the first sign of joyful emotion from him all week. He stood so much taller on Friday than he had throughout the week, and we left confident that we had made a small difference in his life, and hopefully the life of his students.

Ann and Doug held a journalism class with Miss Carol's class. They would like to start a school newspaper and have a lot of creative ideas. We shared some tips and tricks with them and described the kinds of jobs they could get in the world of journalism when they grow up.

Around 2:30pm, Father Juan and his wife Maria visited with us and commended us on our accomplishments. Prayers were shared and then all the students, sitting proudly on their new tables, had an assembly. They danced for us and presented each of us with a token of appreciation. In turn, we presented them with a framed pewter ornament of Christ Church Cathedral and an NB flag for each child.

After many tearful goodbyes, we boarded our bus to Belize City. Thankfully Andrew was patient enough to wait for us since we were over an hour behind schedule. Time well spent.

We arrived to the Anglican guest house and then turned around and headed out to the Bird's Isle restaurant for dinner with Andrew. It was a lovely restaurant on the water's edge near St. John's Cathedral.

We ended our day with devotions about servant leaders and Jesus washing the disciples feet.

February 28th Prayer Request

Good morning!

Today we ask that you pray for the following:

1) The children and teachers of St. Hilda's school
2) Safe travel for the two away teams, both today and tomorrow
3) Watch over Stanley on his journey
4) Build bridges between the local community of St. Hilda's and the mission team
5) The people of Chile in the aftermath of the earthquake
6) The growth of the Sunday school at St. John's Cathedral
7) ..and a prayer for the "shut-in" parishioners at both St. John's Cathedral as well as Christ Church Cathedral - at this morning's service there was a special plea for drivers to transport them to the church or to visit with them

Thank you,
Week One Away Team

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Team 2 ready to go

This is probably going to be slightly confusing for the next three days or so; by the looks of it, we have 3 people blogging on here all at once.

But to keep it straight, this is a little team 2 update. We are now back on track! After (hopefully) having a nice restful sleep tonight, we'll be heading to the Portland airport to begin our 2 day travel down to Belize City.

In the meantime we've been having a great time here in Portland. This morning, we had a delicious breakfast at our hotel. Then while George and I finalized the flight, the team headed over the the Maine Mall, for a stress relieving shopping trip. For supper we went to Chili's conveniently right next door to our hotel, and had possibly the most delicious dessert I've ever tasted. Sadly I forgot my camera for this.

On the note of camera, I've tried to upload the photos I've taken so far. While I like to call myself a computer expert, I have no sweet clue if this will even work.

Anyway, please keep us in in your prayers for a safe travel down, and If all goes well, i'll blog again in the Newark airport (we'll be sleeping in the baggage claim by the sounds of it..) or hopefully, FROM BELIZE CITY!

talk to you all soon

*these turned out backward. terribly sorry for the confusion, if you want to chronologically look at them start from the bottom and go up. NEXT TIME ill get it!

The Girls Room enjoying their House marathon in Portland after a long day of shopping

The boys room in Portland

Our Friendly's dinner on Friday night in Freeport

Beautiful sunny day for driving to Portland

Lini and Heather look excited to go!

Ready to leave the Church Hall Friday at noon

Saturday Feb 27

Just a note to let you know that Team 1 has arrived back in Belize City safely after completing their work in St. Ignacio. They currently have no access to Internet where they are staying so further updates from the team may be limited until they can get connected.

Also, please continue to pray for Team 2 who are stuck in Portland until tomorrow evening.

Blessings
Mike Pope

Friday, February 26, 2010

Hello everyone,

here is our first post from Mission team 2.

Sadly we have some bad news. After a long and grueling drive down in the snow, and a lovely dinner at Friendlys, we discovered our flight to Newark had been cancelled due to the record breaking snow that they've received. After a group meeting, George and I have booked a flight out of Portland Sunday evening, arriving in Belize at 1120am Monday. the is the fastest option; they first offered us a flight out Tuesday, so we are extremely thankful to the workers at Continental who when we came back (after they closed) came out and found us an earlier flight. Please Pray for our safe travel and a uncomplicated trip down. We'll have till Sunday, so I'll post some pictures of our journey down tomorrow morning.

until then, we've been travelling since noon, so its time for bed.

talk to you all tomrrow

February 26th - Prayer Request

Our prayer request for today are:

1) Safe travels for team two, who are on route to Portand, Maine
2) Safety for all of our friends and family in Fredericton and beyond
3) Safe journey for our team to Belize City and Stanley's journey to Punta Gorda
4) Good health as we complete our work

As Ann said this morning ... "We may have tired muscles, but our hearts are full"