July 7, 2010

Spent another morning at the school helping Elsa with the books.  This is the building where we will be helping to move the school offices, Lord willing, on Friday.     I'll take more pictures then - it is really nice with two administrator offices, a nice big office for the secretaries, bathrooms for the staff with showers, a conference room for board meetings.   I wish that they had all new secretary chairs and filing cabinets.   What they will move into these offices are pretty beat up.  However, finding those new items here in Northern Belize would be impossible.    Dale has been preparing for the Thursday evening men's group where he will be teaching the group.   He has been a big encouragement to both Albert and Chayo as they have spent hours in discussions about school administration and dealing with all sorts of situations.  He has also spent time talking with a couple of the teachers and writing out a plan of action for the general manager of the Presbyterian schools.  Pray that he will be able to actually have the opportunity to share this plan before we leave.  This is another shot of Elsa and Caron in the school office.

 

These young boys are the grandchildren of the woman who still does her weekly wash in this small washing machine on Albert & Romalda's porch, using their electricity and well water.    This family lives down the road, and we are amazed every time we are here of the love Albert & Romalda show to this women and her children.  Even though they tire of the noise and mess it makes, they give over and over to this family.

July 6, 2010

Another long and busy day in Belize!    Left the house again at 7:30 am, picked up Elsa and Caren in town (they catch a bus  in Patchekan to town every morning, and then have to get a taxi or catch another bus to take them to the school).     We were at the school until a little after noon, me continuing to help Elsa on the bookkeeping and Dale spending time with Chayo (Blackie listened in on their conversation.)   It was fun seeing a couple former students and old friends who had stopped by the school on business and were surprised to see us in Belize.

Lunch at the Zantingh's over the soccer game between Holland and Uruguay.  Chayo and Amy were also invited to come over and ended up staying the rest of the day - Chayo, Dale & Albert for a meeting to make scheduling plans for the fall and us girls spent the afternoon chatting, taking a long walk, and learning how to make escabeche.    (Onion soup with chicken & corn tortillas)    So, that's what we had for dinner and we ended up sitting around the table for hours.   Lots of good fellowship!

An abandoned stick house we passed by on our walk and a tractor pulling the chemicals they spray on the papaya groves.

July 5, 2010

While all our friends and family have been celebrating the July 4th weekend, we have had no indication of any holiday here.   The closest we have come to fireworks is this beautiful flower.

Today we were on our way to the school by 7:30 am.   I spent 5 hours working with Elsa on the Quickbooks.  We are making progress!    Dale spent the morning with Chayo looking for school board members so they could call a school board meeting in the afternoon.   Dale was also able to arrange several meetings with the General Manager (of the Presbyterian Schools)  and the education commission of the presbytery.    Texting is big here.  It is much cheaper to send texts than to make phone calls.


After dropping Elsa off in town so she could run a few errands , be went back to the Zantinghs in time for a late lunch of corn tortillas, refried beans, salsa, & shredded chicken (make your own soft tacos).   

We just returned from an evening with Elsa and Alvaro and the boys.   It was a very encouraging time of learning how God is working in their lives.   Alvaro is growing in the pastorate and showing an understanding of how to lead men and bring about unity.  He is working with ruling elders and men who desire to be elders in several churches.  He constantly talks about important it is to know God and who he is - that is central to our faith.    He has started reaching out in to their village by doing community projects, they have a strong youth group, Elsa has a growing women's group.

 Aldair (their oldest) is very interested in music.   We were able to get a taste of that enthusiasm Sunday night at the joint worship service where he led in a couple songs with his youth group.  (he has self taught himself to play the guitar and does a very good job!)   His desire is to be a musician and use it to share the gospel in song.  He just completed his second year at Cornerstone. 

July 4, 2010

Happy Independence Day!    Boy, it has been a long and busy day.  We left for Sunday School this morning at 8:30.   Because we are sharing a vehicle with the Zantingh's, we had to drop them off in Patchekan before we went to San Narciso.   Alvaro's church has been studying the ABC attributes of God and today they were on "E" for God's enthusiasm.  At the end of the Sunday School time Alvaro went around and asked each person what they learned from today's lesson and it was really interesting to see the different ways God used the lesson in each person's answer.

After Sunday school we headed back to Patchekan where we were invited to eat lunch with the Zantingh's at Romalda's mom's house.   Above is the kitchen where we ate lunch.   This is where Romalda grew up and she said her whole family  ( the Chan's had 13 children) slept in this thatch hut which is now her mom's kitchen.   Pictured above are three generations - Romalda, her mom Victoria, and Brittany.

After a lunch of rice and beans (made over an open fire) we went to the outskirts of Patchekan to visit with Elsa and Tito and their children Kristine and Kevin.    (This is the Elsa I work with in the school office.)

We then headed to Cristo Rey for the 4:00 worship service.  Once a month four churches - Cristo Rey, Concepcion, Louisville and San Narciso gather together for a joint worship service.  This is something Alvaro has instigated to bring the churches into closer fellowship.   It was good to see many folks we haven't seen for some time and to renew acquaintances.  They sing, pray, read scripture and have special music from the grupo juvenil  (youth groups), then Alvaro preaches.   Afterwards they eat a meal that the ladies of the host church provides.   Tonight the food was  - you guessed it - rice & beans.  Actually, we needed to leave because of the car situation, but we were brought a plate of food for the road.   

We didn't get back home until about 8:30 pm - it has been a long but enjoyable day with our Belizean extended church family.

July 3, 2010

On our way to meet our friends in Corozal last night, we passed by the Paraiso town square where Jeremy and friends were playing volleyball. This is the same town square where our daughter Cydney used to take early morning runs when she lived in the village in 2000.  Once in town, we had dinner at RD's and spent the evening with friends Chayo & Amy. Chayo served this past year as the principal at Cornerstone. We are looking forward to them visiting us in Pittsburgh the week we return from Belize and looking forward to introducing them to our FRPC family. Here a picture of them in their dining room - yes, Carla, this room IS a real dining room.
 
 

This morning the big attraction in the Zantingh home was the Germany - Argentina football game. Here is the buzz cut duo with their eyes glued to the tv.

 

Later this afternoon we went looking for a place for Brittany to swim - and ended up at a small park by the bay. While we were there, the Cristo Rey youth group arrived and had devotions and a time of singing.

We are looking forward to a busy day tomorrow worshiping with our church family in San Narciso.

Sorry pictures aren't matching up with explanations. I'm having trouble with the downloading of pictures. Hopefully I'll figure out what's wrong soon.

Here is a good picture of the Cornerstone School property, showing the three buildings. The one on the left is the original building, the second building is on the right, and back in the middle is the third and newest building (only one story) where the new offices will be. FRPC teams helped pour the floor in the third building two years ago, and it is just now being completed for occupancy.




Here is one of the rooms in the new building.











We thought you might be interested in seeing a picture of the parking lot at the papaya plant.








Looking forward to dinner with some dear friends.

July 1 & 2, 2010

Never got around to blogging yesterday, so it's a two day catch-up.

In case you are wondering, it's still hot here in Belize. Although everyone is telling us this heat is unusual. Actually it's been semi-breezy the past two days and the breeze is nice and very welcome! Yesterday morning I went to town with Romalda to get some groceries (that meant going to the market, and three other grocery shops. Dale spent the morning with Albert and working on various things. In the afternoon Dale and I went back to town (we are staying in a village just north of town) and we stopped by to see some old acquaintances. Above is Clara, the lady who runs the copy shop. It was good to see her and her daughter again - renew aquaintances, catch up on life.

As you can see, the water level in Corozal Bay is really high - which might be a result of the storm Alex. We haven't seen water lapping over the sea wall like this before.

Last night, after a bowl of Romalda's delicious Chermole (black soup), we went to San Narciso where Dale attended the Thursday evening men's group and I spent the almost three hours visiting with Elsa P.. Dale enjoyed the time with the men - they were very interested in the book "Disciplines of a Godly Man" which Dale was introducing to them. And I enjoyed my visit with Elsa - she is such an encouragement to me.


This morning we went back to the high school. Elsa I. and I spent the morning getting into her bookkeeping program and starting the process of getting the schools books in order. We got a good start today and will continue working together every day next week. And Dale found out today that we are helping to move the school office into the third (and newest) building at the end of next week.