Independence Day

Today was our final service day in Belize. Mark and I decided to try a new activity, a trip to  South of Belize near the town of Placencia.  The YWAM director Santi and his wife Lilli have friends that own beach front property in the town of Independence.  We awoke at 5:30am (some perhaps at 5:59am) and headed out for Independence shortly after 6:00am.  It is a 3-hour journey to this southern coastal region.  It was a beautiful drive. The first 1.5 hours was spent traversing a mountain pass that included a view of the “Sleeping Giant”, a mountain peak that resembles Te Fiti in the Disney classic Moana.  It was also a journey through the jungle.  After a stop for drinks and snacks near Dangringa, the final 1.5 hours was a straight flat stretch that took us due South and followed the coast (I think, we didn’t actually see the coast, but it seemed close).

Once we arrived in Independence, we were able to spend two hours at the private beach that our new found friends own.  I would recommend to all readers that you should try to find new found friends with beach front property in the Caribbean.  The beach house and beach are on a lagoon across an inlet from Placencia.  The owners also allowed us to use their fiberglass canoes.  The beach was beautiful, the water was warm (it looked more like a lake), and we had a relaxing couple of hours enjoying Caribbean life.  To commit to being fully cliché, Charmaine even had a coconut fall on her head.  #classiccharmaine

Around 1:00pm, we packed up and stopped by a grocery store for snacks before preparing our hot dog feast and kids crafts at Independence Primary School.  We found out that Cashews are very expensive in Belize. 

This day was so unknown.  The students prayed last night about it being an impactful day.  As a Christian School, our goal is to come to Belize and support other schools. We expected today to me messy, but it ended up exceeded our expectations 20-fold.

At 2:00pm, the Hot Dog Feast and Craft Time started.  We went in blind and it turned out to be beyond awesome.  We plowed through 400 hot dogs and played with the kids for nearly three hours.  Kids face painted, blew bubbles, put on tattoos (I am hoping and assuming fake ones), played volleyball, colored, and played soccer.  All parties involved had such an enjoyable time.  The pictures are worth 100,000 synonyms for joyJ  The students are now challenged to bring some of this fun back to our own elementary school.

We prayed for a impactful day and it was certainly an impactful day.  The school was a public school and they asked us to add Bible Studies for their children on our next trip. #amazing

When I arrived at the school, I had several students run up and give me hugs, making comments such as, “pastor you have returned”.  It dawned on me that I must look a bit like a pastor that had spent time at the school.   To add to this, the children almost always added, “pastor you are back, and you are bigger” or “pastor you have returned, but you have grown”.  I am assuming there is a mini-me with a 6-pack roaming Belize pastoring to schools.  I don’t hope to meet him one dayJ  This story did remind me to sign up for another half marathon to look more like this mythical pastor.

During devotions, the kids spoke about service and also about the Belizean people.  The students admire the Belizean’s friendliness, faith, kindness, and their carefree pace in life.  People are exceptionally friendly in Belize.  Belizean kids love people and love playing in abundance. Adults say hello each time you walk by them.  In general, time is not as significant as it is to us.   Students were also challenged to not just demonstrate their faith more in words, but also in actions, primarily in relationship and being inclusive. Our conversations during devotion time often run an hour and this is cutting the conversation off.

The students noted that the pace also does not include a lot of screen time.  While many Belizeans have phones, they are typically not smart phones.  We have not seen any young adult or child playing on a phone our entire time here.  We have also only seen one tv and it was showing America’s funniest home videos.  During each trip, at night, our students play cards, chat about the day, and play Belize ball.  Nobody is near a phone.  The fellowship is fantastic.  Once we enter a restaurant on Wi-Fi, we all certainly binge on DATA, but these moments are few and far between.  Cell phones are not all bad, and it is important to discern how to use them well.  However, technology has shifted how we spend time in community.  Community exists online and community is much larger on line, possibly too large.  With this said, there is something special (almost magical) about sitting and playing cards in a covered area in Belize, conversing and laughing with the sound of howler monkeys, parrots, and a trillion bugs harmonizing in the background.  There is something nice about not being locked into six different devices while watching the NBA game, completely ignoring the people beside us that are also locked into six different devices watching the newest Netflix Original.  I will read this in a week on one of my six devicesL  Recognizing the value of being in what unfortunately is now called “old-fashioned community” can feel very “hezellich”.

Tomorrow is our final full day in Belize.  Time flies.  We head out at 7:15am for our beach day at Shark Ray Alley and Cay Caulker.  I likely won’t post tomorrow night.

Kids are eagerly awaiting embarrassing messages, please do send them my way.