We have arrived!!

Well, it has been an incredibly long day, but we have arrived safe and excited into Corozal Town, Belize.  Most of us have been up since 3:00am to being our travels to the airport.  Our journeys began with excitement from the first ten minutes in the plane before we took off, when Troy nearly lost his passport.  Thankfully it was found quickly (under his seat) and the rest of our travels went off without a hitch.  We arrived in Belize city at 12:30pm (2:30pm Toronto time) and met our first contact from the Concepcion Presbyterian School, Alvaro, a local pastor who is involved with the school.  He brought us out of Belize City and through the countryside where saw many Belizean things, like huge fields of sugar cane and booths with vendors selling everything but the kitchen sink.  What really struck me most was the juxtaposition of wealth.  As we expected, there is rampant poverty throughout the country; even the capital, Belize City, looked more like a poor country side town than a growing city, but even amongst that we saw a number of houses and people that were clearly quite wealthy.  After this bus ride we were brought to the school and introduced to the job that we would be working on this week -- tiling the auditorium on the second floor.  It looks like hard labour, but promises to be rewarding in using our gifts to help those less fortunate and share the gifts of God with all.  We are all very excited for our first day of work, and even more excited to see what new and delicious foods and culture we will be introduced to.  It will be a great pleasure to seve these people in the name of Jesus and hopefully we may be blessed by our deeds and learn a new respect for the earth, our brothers and sisters in foreign countries, and most importanty our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Written by: Marcel Van Helden