We get up early again.... it is strange, but this is far from home and we are far from having all the comforts of home.... but it is feeling familiar and to me, pretty normal already to be here, in Belize. I am not used to not being able to flush my toilet paper, cock roaches, ants crawling all over the hotel bathroom, the extreme humidity and lack of ice in my drinks.... (actually, not having ice cold drinks throughout the day is pretty hard for me to get used to- even the drinks you get right out of the refrigerated section are not that cold here.) But, I am feeling pretty comfortable, for some reason.
I am pretty adaptable. We moved a ton while I was young. About 10 times from the time I was 3-11. I am not sure if that is why- but I seem to adapt pretty easily to change. In this case, though, I am wondering if it is because although I am in Belize, I am surrounded by US citizens. We have 16 in our group. There are 9 from the Mississippi group and then we have 2 from Praying Pelican from the US- actually, from Minnesota.
I feel, looking back, like I got to know these people better than many of the people I met from Belize. These, after all, are the people I spent most of my time with.
Anyway. Wake up at 6am. Wake the rest of my room at 6:30. Meet in the lobby at 7:45. Head to the church for breakfast. After breakfast we being cleaning and painting the church!
This was the day that I personally felt a huge blessing from God in a one on one situation through something service (which also happens to be one of my strongest love languages.) We have loud music playing. Washing walls and preparing to paint them a bright white. I look into the baptistery and asked Melvin, "Do you guys still use this?" He says yes. The area walking up to it is a little closed in area- similar to a closet with stairs. I pull everything out, knock down spider webs, sweep, scrub the walls, the steps.... it was very dirty. Spiders came down to greet me and I didn't freak out. "Proud moment". Usually, I scream and run! I get into the actual baptistery and clean the same way.....Melvin comes over and asks me if I had water dumped on me- "No. That would be my sweat!" Gross. Then I move to painting trim in the sanctuary.
As I kneel on the floor and paint I sing along with the music and I think about people wanting to come into this church - feeling like they can come and feel God's love, be in a clean and vibrant area to do so. (At least that is my prayer.) Feel good and welcome and clean and fresh here in this place. And it hit me- God's presence was overwhelming. I remember reading a book years ago and a guy names Brother Lawrence was talking about how he worshiped God even while washing dishes.... and I now knew that feeling! I was completely worshiping God as I painted this trim and the feeling overwhelmed me and I began to cry.... it was a wonderful feeling. One I hope I can carry with me into the future. How wonderful it is to worship God- to show Him love in my love language of serving!
Lunch time! We take a break from painting and we prepare for our first night of Vacation Bible School. We are hopeful that walking around and inviting the kids yesterday brings them here today!
About 40-50 kids came that first night, I think. A team of kids performed a skit for them about "God Makes us Special"- they developed and performed it themselves. Another group of us lead them in dancing to some praise songs- I love dancing with kids for God! It is super fun and I love encouraging them to express their love and joy before him- as adults people become so inhibited! (I wish we would dance and be joyful more-side note!) We had a team teach a memory verse with motions and then it was games and craft time! So proud of these teens and what they accomplished!
As this time with the local kids ended- they had new bags they decorated and they were going around asking all of us to sign them. It was amazing to me how much they appreciated us being there. What a blessing to be a blessing.
Dinner:
Dinner, and some down time with a meeting before we headed back to the hotel for our team Bible Study/ Meeting. Many of our students didn't want to have another meeting. Adults get burnt out on meetings. It was late, we were tired, but our lead youth pastor felt strongly about having these meetings consistently. So, we met. It was good to reflect on the day and talk about how to make tomorrow better. For me it continued to help be focused on God's plan for while we were there, instead of my own. I get in the way a lot. Being a planner, I was actually enjoying not planning my meals, cooking, or really knowing until the night before what the next day held in store for us. I was praying tonight that the students would be able to let go and just trust that whatever was planned for them was part of God's bigger plan. :)
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