A Shower for Baby Garay

Jason and Isela Garay are expecting their first baby, Isaiah James, any day now.  So while we were in Belize, we wanted to do a little something for them.  Several ladies at our congregation gave gifts and/or money for us to take to Jason and Isela.  So Mel and I thought it would be fun to have Isela a little baby shower in our hotel room one afternoon.

They were so SURPRISED and EXCITED when they walked in!

 Love this picture of Isela!

 Isela had so much fun pulling all of the gifts out of the sack and showing them to Jason

 Sandra made the baby these burp diapers and Isela was amazed!  She loved them!

 Ben sent his own baby gift to Jason, and he LOVED it!

They thought the baby was coming a few days before we arrived, but it was a false alarm.  So we were sort of hoping baby Isaiah would come before we left Belize, but it is probably better that he waited until closer to his due date.  Which is any day now!  I am so excited for this new little family!

Belize Mission Trip 2013 - A trip to the Morro's

Brother Morro and his wife live a couple of miles outside of Belmopan and have several acres.  I can't remember how many he said they had?  But quite a few.  One afternoon, he invited us out to his place to show us around.  This was my second trip to their home.  The last time I went to Belize we had a home Bible study with Sister Morro.

Brother Morro led us around and showed us all the different plants and trees that he had.

 Sister Morro said she planted these flowers one time, and each year they just spread and spread.  I have these exact flowers in one of my flower beds.  I don't know what they are called, but I think they are so pretty!

 We tasted some things along the way.  This is some sort of root that Erin is tasting.  It is sort of like a potato.

 The Morro's had several of their grandchildren visiting.  She is so cute!

 Love this pic of the kids on the log

 And whatever Michael is doing right here, is what we think sent us to minor emergency for a shot and three prescriptions when we got back home.  He is cracking open a cashew nut, which has a lot of oil in it.  We think he had the oil on his hands and then touched his face and had an allergic reaction, which was made worse when he shaved and then rubbed lotion all over his face.

Tasting more stuff... 

Brother and Sister Morro are very good Christian people and are very hard workers.  I am so thankful to know them.  And so very thankful they had us out to their home.  Definitely one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Belize Mission Trip 2013 - Part 3

After VBS each afternoon, we would head back to our hotel and relax and rest for a minute (or start preparing things for the next day), get cleaned up, and head back over to the church for the evening adult Bible classes.  We would start the night off with singing before breaking out into ladies and men's classes.

David led singing each night 

 I love little Tyra.  She was only 2 months old the first trip I made to Belize.  And she has stolen my heart.

Mel taught the ladies class each evening, and she did an AWESOME job!!  She taught them on "teaching"

 Vickie taught the kids class each night.  This is what I did on my prior visits.  This year I helped Mel with ladies crafts which I really enjoyed!  But I am sure my job was 100% easier than Vicki's.  Vicki did an awesome job with the kids!!

The men's class met out on the porch

Each night the ladies had a different craft to make.  They have so much fun making the crafts after their lesson each night. 

The first night night they made duct tape binders.

 The next night they put a Bible verse in a picture frame and painted it.

 The last night they made lotion.

While the ladies were making their crafts, Mel and I got to love on some babies so their momma's could play

 

What a wonderful experience it was to be a part of the mission team to Belize this year!

Belize Mission Trip 2013 - Part 2

Each morning, we started VBS off with 30 or 45 minutes of singing.  This gave the van time to make multiple trips to pick up all the children.  We divided the kids up into 3 groups.  The 3 groups rotated between Bible story, crafts and games.  Each group made two rounds.  So they heard two different Bible stories, made two different crafts and played the games two different times.  And we ended the afternoon with a sack lunch for everyone which included a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, chips, cookies and a drink. 

I can't remember the exact numbers, but between 100-120 kids each day!  Wow!!!  It was busy!  It was crazy! It was great!  It was awesome!  And I would do it again with the same crew in a heartbeat!

Belize Mission Trip 2013 - Part 1

Prepare for picture overload!  I have TONS of pictures and I am horrible about narrowing them down, but I am going to try very hard to do that.  Maybe if I break the post up into several different parts, it won't be too bad.

Our church helps support the congregation in Belmopan, Belize.  This was my third trip to make to Belmopan.  I have not been since 2010, so I was VERY excited to finally get to go back.  This year, our flight left a little earlier than it did on my prior trips.  Even though it meant my alarm going off at 4am, I really think I liked the earlier flight better than the noon flight we have taken previously.

Michael and I ready for take off!

We landed in Belize City around lunch time.  It was raining and rained off and on most of the day.  Michael and Ryan guarded the luggage while Evan and Rod went to get our rental van.  

Here we are all packed in the van.  There were a total of 13 of us.  From Blossom:  Evan, Mel, Erin and Ryan Butler, David and Vicki Childres, and Rod, Michael and myself.  There were 3 from the Rockwall congregation that went:  Charlie and Angie Stone and Mackenzi Olmstead.  And one man, Johnny (not sure of his last name) from a congregation in Tennessee.

Since we landed so early, we were able to take our time in getting to Belmopan.  We stopped at Old Belize, one of our favorite places to stop, right outside of Belize City.

Belize does not have daylight savings time.  So it gets daylight EARLY.  Like at 5:30am!  And once the sun is out, this girl can't sleep.  That is hard on a night owl.

This is the view of the church building from our hotel room.  

 I went to class on Sunday morning with the kids.  I just wanted to observe and see if they needed anything.  And they needed everything.  They had no supplies at all.  The teacher was Ms. Diane, and she read them a Bible story.  I think I counted 28 kids in this one class, which is about normal for them.  When they have two teachers, they break the kids into separate classes - one for younger kids and one for older kids.

 These top two pictures are the two classrooms.  There is possibility for a 3rd classroom if it is ever needed.  The bottom left is the baptistry, and the bottom right is the kitchen that is used to prepare communion.

We went over early Monday morning to get everything set up for VBS.  Evan was the "ring leader." Michael and Ryan were in charge of games.  Mel (with Makenzi as her helper) and I (with Erin as my helper) alternated between teaching the Bible story and doing the crafts.  Vicki and Angie prepared the lunches for everyone each day.  Johnny (and I think David and Charlie alternated) helped one of the members of the church go and pick up kids every morning and take them home in the afternoons.  And  Rod, David, and Charlie helped fill in where needed and made sure everything ran smoothly.

Since this was our first time to do a VBS there, none of us really knew what to expect.  But over the week, we all worked together and it went great!