Back at er again. We all woke up to another beautiful morning. It seems almost everyone was partaking in the coffee libations this morning. Just when you thought they hit their culinary stride, they pulled ahead again and offered us breakfast buritoes of some form. They were quite the hit. Team leader "S" or "ole one eye" as some of us refer to him as, helped get us focused for the day. S is good at that, in a very unassuming way he brings us back to the things that matter and help us remember to focus on the right things for the day.
When we arrive at the school the kids are still very excited to see us. Kate has a whole crowd of followers, but "Lance" Nataniel "Romance" seems to have stirred a few young girls hearts. I think he is at 7 notes of affections and counting.
So Lori got to teach the preschoolers today, I think she was a little anxious about this, however, and as always, God took her through it. The kids seemed especially well behaved.
The lads were back at their concrete smoothing tasks. Once again, hammering and chiseling away inch by inch. They are getting real close now, with only one wall left. Hats off again to them as this is the tough work. Kent and Matt tried to soften up the concrete for them by raining down sledge hammer blows to the stubborn concrete, it seemed to work a bit. It sure made them feel macho and the kids were quite impressed as well. After one of the heads of the sledge hammers came flying off and crasching into the classroom floor, we were a little more careful to offer more precision blows.
The rafters are almost all installed along the sides and we are now trying to figure how to make the cuts to the metal beams on the sides to join them in. We've got something figured out so we will have to see how it works out tomorrow.
We spent part of the afternoon visting two other schools. One was a grade school in Christo Rae and the other one was the high school. In speaking with the principal, we found out that Ededeo has helped and continues to help the grade school out a lot and they are very thankful. The parents are choosing to send their kids to the school, which has a tuition fee, as opposed to the free government school, right across the street. He was quite pround to let us know that the kids in his school are fairing better in the national exams then the other schools, so the parents are seeing this as another benefit of sending their kids to the school. We got to speak to the kids and it seems that they love learning at these schools as well and we are reminded once again why that is. The teachers and the kids love Jesus and they want to shine it out. One thing we learned, that if you want to get them all excited, you just need to mention the word "football" or Soccer as we call it.
At the high school we got to meet Mr. Zanting, who was the former principal at the high school and was originally from the Smithville area in Ontario. After finding a wife and a couple kids later, it looks like Belize is now home. It turns out that retirement age is 55 in Belize if you work in a public role. He is past that age now, so he needs special permission from the government to be able to teach. This school consisted of 3 separate structures and it really seemed to be thriving. After the school tour, we put in another solid hour or so of work.
After getting back to the hotel, we did our after work ritual of cooling off in the beautiful waters of the ocean. It feels so good to do this and it keeps you refreshed for the rest of the evening, that is unless you decide to play some volleyball with the locals at the civic centre. (More on that later.) After the swin, we were once again treated to an excellent diner by the ladies. We had our devotion time again at the dinner table this time, which might be familiar to a lot of you back home. It's a good thing, get filled with food and then some spiritual desert following right after. We learned about how God's greatness is displayed through the weakness and that relying on our own strength is destined for collapse. We hope and pray that we are shining God in this little task that we are doing here in Belize, because we are definitely in the weakness class.
After dinner, we all took a stroll down to the civic centre to play some volleyball. Joel was looking forward to this the most. I think we were playing against some of the guys on the national team as they had some skill. I'm just thankful the one guy, "Pounder", would find the open floor to pound the balls at instead of our heads. I believe it was Nathaniel who did finally take one for the team at the end. Hopefully next time he will let the ball hit off his face in such a way that we can at least play it afterwards and not give up the point. Still lots of learning do.
When asking for some memorable parts of the day, it seems like sleeping on the cool tile floors in the lunch room at the end of the workday topped the list for Lucas.
It was a full day with lots of activity. So we all went to bed quite tired. We are doing a lot, but God is sustaining us and showing his greatness through our weaknesses.
Soli Deo Gloria
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