Mission Trip to BELIZE

March 16 - 28, 2003

Here are a few photos of our trip.

Rick played his guitar for several classes at Belize Adventist College, which is the equivalent of the high school level here in the USA. He also played for every grade in the 8 grade Ranchito Government School. These little ones were his favorites. The older ones enjoyed him, too, and wanted more.
Tobi spent a lot of time learning to lay block. The crew built a Sabbath School room on to the back of the church. They started with bare dirt, poured the footings, and built the walls. The church members are planning to finish the room and roof it. Then they have received permission from the government to hold a kindergarten in the room during the week since the government school does not have a kindergarten.
Wendy had the most fun taking pictures of 250 students and teachers at the Ranchito Government School. This school hosted the vbs program in the afternoon for four days. The digital photos were to be for craft time on the third day. The first two days of vbs Wendy spent taking photos, then she worked the rest of the afternoon and evening on printing them. On the third day of vbs they were given to the children along with foamy material to make frames for their pictures. They loved them. The teachers wanted to frame their photos, too.
Tobi participated in almost all aspects of the vbs. She told stories for several rooms, then helped with crafts for several others. Since there were so many children at vbs, she was running the whole time.
Here are children with crowns and children with animals during the VBS program.
The country and towns of Belize had a strange attraction for the men. Rick loved the unpretentiousness of the people, buildings, etc. Here he is in the market in Corazol, which was about a mile from where we were staying. Fresh food was there every morning. Some of it came in a bicycle basket. Some was displayed in the back of a pick up truck. This was one of the prettiest market stalls. The meat market specialized in fresh fish. You could walk out on the dock and see the men cleaning them up for market. On Friday the park was full of people selling their wares, some of which looked like used clothing from the USA.
We visited three locations of Mayan ruins in the area where we were working. One small ruin was in Corazol. One ruin called Cerros, pictured on the left, was in a lovely park. We drove for a while to get near it, then walked through mosquito infested jungle before we were able to see the ruins. A little excavation was done, but not too much. This one was right at the edge of the water and had been a Mayan trading center. The largest site was Altun Ha. It had many temples in a group. The one in the center photo has been excavated and restored. Others at the site were in various stages of being excavated and/or restored.
We wouldn't have been able to do too much without the friendly taxi driver, Ben. He took us birdwatching early in the morning. He took us to Progresso which is pictured here. It was the nicest little town that we saw. Houses were made from sticks and thatch or from concrete block. Many concrete block houses were unfinished and people were living in the stick houses on the same property. The bus drove on to a "ferry" to get across the river. The ferry was attached to a cable and the ferry men hand turned a winch to pull the ferry across the river.
Snorkeling was great. It's just like bird watching except it's underwater. Our guide made friends with the rays, sea turtles, and fish by bringing them food and tourists. We bought a little memento from this salesman on the beach in San Pedro, Belize.
This is Wendy in the heat after she got a bad sunburn from snorkeling. This is the empty house we rented. We slept on our air mattress in a top floor bedroom. The girls spread out on the floor in the large room upstairs. One bath was upstairs, one was downstairs, and the hose was outside if you were in a rush for a shower. The hose wasn't a whole lot different from the showers since there was no hot water anyway.