Divine God appointments through chocolate cake

Wednesday we've driven to San Ignacio where we're spending the night before we cross the border into Guatemala on Thursday. Well that's the plan at least, anything could happen as our plans change all the time... A highlight for the day was homemade chocolate cake for Natalie's birthday. Amazing. What's more amazing is the testimony of how we got the cake. In the morning Liz (a friend on the team) asked Jesus for a great cake for Natalie's birthday. Later that afternoon when driving into town a man rode past on his bicycle selling cake. After sampling the cake and deciding it was amazing, there wasn't enough cake for all 24 of us so the man rang his wife to ask her to make us a (big) cake. Which she did. 3 hours later and we went to their house to pick it up. Chatting to the wife we discovered she's a Christian to. Liz shared how she'd asked God for a cake that day, and how this lady was an answer to that prayer. The lady was so moved she was speechless and close to tears.

Anthony

Tuesday's plan was to go minister on an island, but due to hurricane warnings (the island was warned to evacuate) we changed our mind and a group of us drove south to the town of Punta Gorda to minister there. This was probably the best unplanned day I've had in a long time. We arrived at midday so stopped at a restaurant/stall on the side of the road next to the sea for a plate of rice and beans and chicken. While speaking to Joy, the owner of the restaurant, about where to go from there, we landed up spending 2 hours ministering there. First lady we prayed for was healed of her bad eyesight. That was awesome, seeing her not need to wear her glasses. Plus it was her birthday so what a great gift! Their faith was of course stirred after that so they asked if we could go to some of their friends houses and pray for them. So some of our team did that.

The roadside restaurant

I stayed behind as I was ministering to Anthony, a friend of Joy's who is an alcoholic. We first prayed for him to be free from his alcohol addiction. After speaking with him a little more we prayed for restoration of his brain. He'd suffered some brain damage as a result of all the alcohol - it was hard keeping him focussed while we were talking, his gaze was all over the show plus we needed to speak simply, using small words. I stayed with him to continue ministering to him, sharing Jesus with him, giving him tools to overcome his drinking. I even called Godfrey over to share his testimony of how he's been clean of drugs 8 days now. We also prayed for his eyesight which has been deteriorating over the last 2 months.

Anthony and Joy

Turned out he had a knowledge of God, having read the bible, when out he popped with he wants to be baptized, he was baptised as a Catholic as a baby but now he wants to be baptised of his own accord as an adult. So I shared with him what it means to be baptised, and then asked him if he wants to be baptised today, which he did, so he was, by some of the guys on our team. Amazing. The transformation in him was incredible, he looked so different when he came out the water. A life transformed indeed. It's moments like this that make what I do worthwhile - $20 petrol money to drive to a town 2 hours away to minister to one man, yes it was worth it.

Brent, Rowan and Godfrey baptizing Anthony

When the others were finished ministering to other people we headed to another village to minister at a primary school where there's been a lot of dark things happening. As far as we could gather, it seems like one school class was cursed (we don't know why), but these kids have now moved away. We visited the kids in the classrooms. It was so cute, I went into the kindergarten class of 3 year olds. They're so sweet! It was challenging sharing Jesus with them as they don't speak English or Spanish, but rather a local dialect (which their teacher doesn't speak either!). They learn English at school. It was fun hanging out with them though. We read them a bible story and then prayed for them and their teacher.

On the way back to Dangriga we stopped at some Myan ruins which was ok, more a pile of rock ruins though! But the colouring in the sky was beautiful as the sun was setting...

Dangriga

The drive to Dangriga was beautiful. Belize is a beautiful country, kinda has a mainland island vibe, maybe it's a preview for Jamaica. Ja man. The people here speak English and Spanish generally, and Creole or other local dialects. An interesting fact is that the people can't write in Creole because they speak it at home but then school is in English.

On the way we stopped at the Blue Hole, a big cave with a great swimming spot a mile away. The cave was average if you've been to the Cango Caves in Oudshoorn. Plus we were eaten alive by mosquitoes, it was horrible. But walking to the cave was good, felt like I was walking through a jungle, bugs and all. The swimming was fun (mostly to relieve to the bites!), even though I had to brave touching the little fish in the water, and the boys (being boys) felt obliged to jump into the water (above the no jumping sign) from 30ft. High.

View looking up out of the Blue Hole

Dangriga has a different feel to Corozal, not as nice and safe. But ok :) We've spent the last 3 nights sleeping (in the pop up trailers) in the driveway of a hotel, plus a few people in hotel rooms. It's been nice, the owner (Phillip) has given us a great rate plus we've had wifi. Well most of the time (wifi is always sporadic I've found!).

Monday was a great day of ministering in the town. But first we went to the beach after breakfast to baptise Godfrey. What a special morning, so amazing baptizing a brother in Christ. We baptised another man Kareem we met in the morning after Ben lead him to the Lord. He'd arrived where we were staying somehow, I invited him to come watch Godfrey's baptism, Ben lead him to the Lord and then he asked to be baptised. Yay God.

Baptising Godfrey 

Ben leading Kareem to the Lord

Baptising Kareem

Christian with our newly baptized friends, Kareem (L) and Godfrey (R)

After lunch we went to visit various people in the town at the leading of Charlie, our self appointed tour guide who'd found us and attached himself to us the first night we arrived in town. It was good going to specific people who we knew needed prayer for specific things (they were friends and family members of Charlie's). A highlight was praying for Ms Dimples, a quirky 84 year old lady in a wheel chair (still living alone) who don't take no $&*€ off nobody. Man. (said in a Caribbean islander's accent). She made us laugh with her directness and no nonsense attitude. An interesting observation was how many people are in wheelchairs in Belize from having limbs amputated as a result of diabetes.

Ms Dimples

Monday evening we had a party in the park where we entertained the children and told them about Jesus. It was a little wild but lots of fun, except being eaten alive by mosquitos and other little critters. It was intense.

Leading the kids through a Holy Spirit fire tunnel

Corozal

Our ministry has included going into the town centre in the evenings to meet people, witness and evangelize. A highlight has been meeting Godfrey (Thurs night in the town). He's been a drug addict and alcoholic up until 5 days ago. He's recommitted his life after meeting us, and is a completely transformed man. So beautiful, makes this all so worthwhile. He's spent the last couple of days with us, we've been in a local village walking  around meeting and praying for people. The people are beautiful, especially the children. We also went into the community hospital to meet and pray for the patients. One of the ladies was in hospital as she'd been bitten by a snake in her garden. Err, best I watch out when walking around the bushes :)

On a practical note the bathroom at the RV park where we're staying was finished, well to a usable state! a day and a half ago so that's been great. The roof hasn't been built yet so it's nice seeing the stars at night. We're also very grateful it hasn't rained! 

Saturday night was an Art in the Park festival in the town square which was so fun. Lots of crafts (eg jewelry and paintings) and food for sale - the plantain and carrot cake was amazing, made by a Scottish and Belize couple. It was great chatting to them, he met her 23 years ago when he was stationed in Belize as a British soldier. They've been together in Scotland since then but moved to Belize a year ago so their son can learn about his mom's culture. This town, Corozal, is very multi cultural, as I saw while walking around the town. I haven't seen this many white people in weeks!
Today we head south to ........ The next couple of days are going to look a little different as we've decided to bring Godfrey with us for the rest of our Belize time. We'll put him on the bus back to Corozal before we leave Belize. With his life changing so dramatically in the last week, he really needs to get away from his town for a bit to be away from the temptation of his old life (drugs etc) here, plus we'll be able to disciple him over the next few days which will strengthen him in the Lord. He is a treasure within the dark who we have found. We trust that in time he will shine God's light and love in his hometown and the rest of Belize. 

Belize

Wednesday we crossed the border in Belize. Although long (it took most of the day), the border crossing went well. The plan for Belize is we have no plan. No contacts and no plan. The good thing is considering this is the only country we have no contacts (we nearly didn't come here at all, but rather were going to head straight to Guatemala), it's great that they speak English here!! It's weird being able to understand everything again after sending the last 5 weeks in a Spanish speaking country! So what we're planning is to spend a few days in an RV park and minister from here, and then head South to another area and do the same thing, spend a few days in an RV park and minister from there. The good thing about this RV park is that across the road is the Caribbean Sea, and it's a little cooler and less humid than Mexico. A less good thing is that the RV park is not actually open to visitors as it's still under construction. This means we have no restroom facilities. Err. And it's pretty muddy with SO many FAT mosquitoes which are biting us silly. Aaarghh!! But otherwise it's really good to be in one place for a few days so we can organize ourselves and doing washing etc. This morning we had a great team meeting at a restaurant on the beach across the road, worshipping and seeking God for what we should do for the next few days in Belize (we plan to be here for a week).

Tuesday was a super long day of driving but we got to the border town so mission accomplished. We left at 9am and arrived at 12pm, so that's a 15 hour day, with me doing 12 hours of the driving (with 3 breaks). 

We set off again on Monday super early towards the Belize border. Was quite a good day of driving except I was super sick. Two days of an uber headache and throwing up is not cool. The aim has been to get to the Belize border before Tuesday as we need to pick up the newest member of our team, Victor. Hence the long days of driving as it was quite a big distance with challenging roads - very mountainous (we climbed 9000ft in a couple of hours) plus loads of pot holes, some of the pot holes are pretty intense, more like dongas than pot holes. Monday night I slept in the parking lot of a hotel in our pop up camper. Some people slept in the hotel, I was too sick to care where I slept. The hotel was so good to us, let us use their restrooms and even gave us coffee in the morning. Sweet.

No earplugs in the world can drown out the music from a Mexican's 15th quincenyeta birthday party

It feels like we can't get out of Mexico, and we are so ready to leave! I feel like I've been ready to leave for at least 2 weeks... We keep getting delayed... Saturdays's early morning start got off to a good start with an hour and a half drive before stopping for our last big (2 hour) grocery shop before leaving Mexico. Driving slowed down as we headed into the mountains. Plus car troubles. The smell of petrol from one of the cars, a car being close to overheating, burning brake pads on another car, all the way up and down a mountain. When we stopped at a small town (Ixtlan) to get petrol, at that moment the transmission seal in our camper broke, and that was it, driving for the day was finished as we had to call the mechanic to fix the camper. So now we are camping in the mechanic's courtyard until the car is fixed, at least 24 probably 48 hours. Actually who knows. The mechanic's going to Oakana city (60km away) to buy the part, but it's Sunday so hopefully the shop will be open. And then the fixing time...
The town itself is super cool. Walking around last night was fun. Walking home was peaceful until we got closer to our camp and we started hearing the music pumping... It came from our neighbours, we discovered it was a 15 year old's quincenyeta  birthday party. In Mexico that's their coming of age birthday, like their sweet 16. It was ridiculously loud, it felt like our campers were vibrating. Trust us to be sleeping in probably the only noisy part of town. Lucky the mix was pretty cool, took me back to my student days. I must admit I was NOT in the mood for being kept awake in a cold pop up trailer so I prayed the Jesus would give us good nights of sleep and He did, I fell asleep almost instantly and slept right through. Yay Jesus, certainly a miracle as that music was LOUD (and I'm a light sleeper!)

Ants in my pants

About the most entertaining thing that happened while camping by the beach last weekend was me accidentally sitting on a fire ants nest. I was up in seconds as they were everywhere, biting my bottom, sides, down my legs... eina!! The only thing I could think to do was to shower and wash them away. So now I know the meaning of ants in your pants... First it's really sore, and afterwards really itchy. Awkward.

Tuesday we drove to Teposcolula. Wednesday the team split with a few who went to another town. I stayed behind. It was freezing. Rainy and muddy. But good. Wednesday we went to the new church premises which are currently being prepared/built to help clear it out. We did some gardening - cutting back the overgrown bush with machetes. That was fun. We then drove into the mountains to minister to an old lady and her granddaughter. She fed us some rice (really tasty, seriously), hot milk (freshly milked from the cow) and some sort of tea, tasted kinda like apple tea. Good and local.

Caitlyn gardening with a machete

We prayed for her granddaughter who was deaf and mentally disabled. we're not sure what exactly was wrong, or what caused it, but we think she had hepatitis as a baby or small child and the medicine she was given resulted in her deafness and mental disability. While praying for her healing, one of our team members felt that there was something standing in the way of God bringing her healing. We discovered that she'd been treated by western medicine as well as witchdoctors. She was still being given the medicine by the witchdoctor and that was what was holding her healing back. The granny brought the medicine out and burned it. That was cool. Another highlight was ministering to the granny, bringing truth and liberation to her.

In the evening we lead a church service which was actually a lot of fun. I got a word for the church from the Lord so that was cool, it's the first word I've got for a church. That was cool, although I was nervous to stand up and speak in front of the church.

The last light for the evening

Ripping it up during worship

Thursday was a day of not so much. The plan was to go minister in a local village up in the mountains. The Pastor was not very keen on us going as in the past missionaries have gone into the village and taken the women ad wives, even married women have got divorced and then gone off with the missionaries. Not good. So we went there not knowing if we'd be allowed to minister. After driving over an hour up the mountain, we spent a couple of hours not really doing anything, waiting to get to speak to the chief of the village to ask his permission to be there. To which the answer was no. We were allowed to walk around the village and then we went home.

The highlight of Teposcolular was the food - yummy buritos etc from stands at the plaza, cheap and so tasty. A lowlight was it was freezing, muddy, and the coldest shower ever. Seriously, I couldn't breathe the whole time I was in there. Only the fact that I hadn't showered in 3 days lead me to brave it, and as we now have 2 full days of driving ahead of us as we head to Belize so I wasn't sure when the next shower opportunity would be.

Thursday we ministered in the village we were staying at instead of going to Veracruz for the day as there'd been a shooting there (drug related).

This weekend we're taking some time out to rest. It is sooo needed, the team has been running hard, early mornings, late nights, long driving days, lots of ministry when we're not travelling, plus many of us have been sick with diarrhea and unbelievable stomach cramps. So now we're spending a couple of nights camping at the beach. It's great. The water is warm, there's a light breeze and no mosquitos, although there are fire ants which hurt like anything. Most of our legs are in a shocking condition with bites that itch so much they hurt. Highlights so far include swimming in warm water (sea water in Cape Town is cold), a couple of us taking a car into town last night for a joy ride along the beach and just having today off to chill. Right now I'm writing this blog in the hammock :)

This afternoon a couple of quad bikes were hired to cruise around the sand dunes on the beach. Today was my first time riding one. First ride was with Jesse (one of the leaders of our team). Boy is he wild, I nearly fell off in the first 2min, we both nearly felt off going straight up and down the dunes. By the fourth time of us being airborne (the only way to take a speed bump is as fast as you can apparently) Jesse looks round and just smiles a naughty smile! Driving by myself was also super fun, but way less crazy!! oh my gosh they are so fun! Guess what I want for Christmas ;)

Jesse and Tanya

Melissa, Zoe and Tanya

Veracruz

Wednesday was a 12 hour ministry day. Good but tiring. We drove 15min to a small town. We went door to door inviting people to a meeting at the pastors house. This was an experience for me - I'd never seen as many people with physical conditions before. A baby with some syndrome which resulted in 6 fingers on each hand, a heart condition plus other issues, an old lady with a broken arm which never set properly so now bends in way too many directions, plus others.

Tanya and Zoe, with Zoe wearing my hat to protect her from the super hot sun

So our church services look a little different to what you'd expect. Let me explain. We have some guys on the team obsessed with the movie Noche Libre (yes we have watched it as a team movie evening). Especially the luchidor fighting scenes. When we were in Mexico City they bought some masks so we now have our very own luchidors. We have worked these luchidors into a skit where a man is attacked by things like sin, alcoholism, lust etc (these are depicted by the luchidors who come and attack him). Jesus saves him in the end and defeats the luchidors. It's a winner.  Especially for the kids.

After the service we had another great local meal - chicken soup with vegetables, I was glad I didn't get the portion which had a chicken leg and foot.
We then went to another village up the mountain. This was where the black people were supposed to be. We didn't see any. The people did look different and were darker though, so this must be what Mexicans class as black in their culture. I reckon the different look is from the slavery background (some slaves were brought from Africa to Mexico via the port of Veracruz). This was quite a cool interesting little village.

We did the same thing inviting people to a church service. The church service was good, many people received Christ as their saviour and healings occurred. Something humorous is after the service I was just chilling out at the back when I got chatted up by a 13 year old kid. Him and his 5 friends. Err, awkward.

Liz and Serena inviting a man to our service

Tuesday was a much more stress free day of driving, even if our conservative guesstimate of 5 hours of driving turned into 9. We're used to this though... We were treated to a yummy home cooked meal at the pastors house in Okapana, a small town in the province of Veracruz. Today's entertainment was me being introduced to the pastor as I'm South African (most of our team is American). I'm used to the look of surprise (which people usually try to hide) when they try to process the fact that I'm African but white. It happens often. One of my funniest conversations was being asked if my mom and dad are white to. Err, yes. I'm not sure how I would have come out this white and blonde if my parents weren't white. Anyway the pastor told me the next day we'd go to a village with black people. Okay.

Monday was the definition of a Blue Monday. Seriously. The whole day of driving was almost a comedy of errors, except it wasn't funny. It pretty much took us about 8 hours to do about 2 hours of our planned trip. We left the RV park late as some of our car tyres were a bit flat so we needed to sort them out. We hadn't been driving 5min when one of the cars did a wrong turn so that was a bit of admin getting us all back together. 10min later and a piece of our car fell off while we were driving so we had to stop to pick that up. 10min later we had to stop as the chain from one of the pop up trailers had to be put back as it was dragging on the road.

We were pulled over by the police (first of three times that day) for driving when we shouldn't be driving. Remember how one of my earlier blog entries said how we stayed in the RV park outside Mexico City because only certain cars can drive on certain days in the city? Well apparently there's no way of driving around the city when your GPS takes you onto a freeway you can't drive on. It didn't even take us 5min to be pulled over. It was a very uncomfortable situation, a team of 22 foreigners being pulled over in a country renowned for corruption with only a few fluent Spanish speakers. Three times they had us follow them and pull over in different places. Why? I have no idea. A summary of the outcome is after inspection of papers (drivers licenses and car registrations) one or two of our cars weren't allowed to drive that day. The police wanted to impound all our cars for 2 days, thereafter we'd have to pay a lot of money to get our cars released. Plus we'd have to stay in a hotel for 2 days, and I guess run the risk of one or more of our cars not being allowed to drive again when we were released. Or we could pay an on the spot fine. We phoned one of our team members uncles (he lives in Mexico City) and his advice was whatever we do don't go with the police to their station. So we paid the fine. It was a ridiculous amount but what could we do. 

We'd hardly been driving 20min and we had to stop again. This time not because we were pulled over. Yay. It turned out there was a riot or protest kilometres up the road  (we had masses of riot police and ambulances driving past us). Traffic was blocked up so far, like miles. Lucky we were only stuck there like an hour or so. It could've been the whole day...
So back on the road and 20min later we were pulled over again for driving when we shouldn't be. Aaargh!! This time we were lucky and didn't get fined. An hour later and we saw the familiar sight of 4 police cars flagging us. Flip. Luckily they were just curious as to why there were 5 cars pulled stopped on the side of the freeway, so no fine for us and we weren't really pulled over. By the last pulling over we'd started to get the hang of it and this time we insisted on a sticker showing that we had paid the fine - I as well as others were getting sick of being punished more than once for the same offense. As we were driving away we had to radio in (each car has a walkie talkie so we can communicate with each while we're driving) the RV to say the bumper was dragging on the ground as it was driving away. So out Jesse got, ripped it off and threw it off the side of the road, got back in the RV and drive off without a word. I guess we all hit those times when another is enough.

After the third time of being pulled over we learned that it's not just the city we couldn't drive in, it was the whole state. How do they determine who can and can't drive? Well we discovered the reason for us being pulled over is because one of our license plates ended in a 6, and 6 was the taboo number for the day. 

By this time it was about 4pm and we were uber irritated and hungry. An hour later and we had to pull over as the motorhome had run out of petrol. Lucky we carry extra petrol. Shortly afterwards we found a gas station so we stopped for a much needed late lunch. We also discovered we could stay the night at the gas station, so that was it, we were still at least 5 hours from our planned destination so we decided to call it a day. And what a day it was. What made it worse was we'd started the day with no coffee (it'd been lost short term) plus I'd got bitten on my forehead by something so special it left a welt so big it looked like I'd walked straight into a pole. Aaargh.

Saturday was our dump day. Seriously, we took the bus into and then out of town to go minister at 2 dump sites. The first one was quite quiet as it was closed for working that day - people work at the dumps by sorting through the garbage. As the dump was closed, we walked around the outskirts as there're people living outside of it to invite them to come gather at 1pm at the gate to the dump as we were giving away bread. The dump was interesting, in the distance I could see housing which looked better than the squatter camp shacks in South Africa, but I'm not used to people live in a dump site. The smell wasn't too overwhelming, and I was only grossed out when one of my friends pointed out a dead decaying pig and them a dog eating another dog to me, that was gross. I wish he'd kept his observations to himself!! 

The service was great, we shares testimonies, preached and prayed for people. Again people received Christ as their saviour and others were healed. It was great handing out bread to them as well, they really are so poor.

We then took another bus to a dump an hour away. This was pretty intense, the smell was overwhelming. Walking through it was tough, seeing children in this unhealthy environment was heartbreaking. We were breathing in natural methane gas from the ground. The air was full of a fine dust as we were next to a mine as well. So yes by the time we got home we were super stinky and dirty!! Plus exhausted. The people were so beautiful and friendly though, and so accepting of their situation of poverty. Ministering to them was so rewarding, and of course being able to practically bless them with bread was great to. 

Sunday was a little less eventful for me as I was sick so stayed in bed before we left after lunch to go back to the RV park where our cars were parked. 

Mexico City

Friday (30 Sep) we hired a bus to take us into Mexico City for a weekend of ministry. During the day we did some sightseeing around the city. An interesting city, I'm glad I've been but I wouldn't be in a hurry to go again. We stayed with a family in the heart of the city (friends of one of the ladies in our team). The family was great, pretty poor but so welcoming. The house was interesting, set on 3 floors with the roof being open with a view over the whole city. That was cool, on Sunday before we left we prayed over the city from the roof, where we could see out over the whole city.

A man in the city reading his bible

View of Mexico City from the roof of the home where we stayed

Thursday (29 Sep) was a day of driving to Mexico City. Driving into the outskirts of the city during rush hour traffic was quite chaotic - not knowing where we going, being lost and trying to keep 5 vehicles together as it's getting dark would be a challenge for anyone. Traffic in Mexico City is crazy, plus they have a thing where cars can only drive on certain days in the city (this is determined by your number plate), so we stayed in an RV park in the outskirts of town, which was 60km from the city. That's how big the city is. 

Wed 28 Sep

So today I learnt about ministering even when I don't feel like it. We left Guatalajara this morning to minister in a small village, where we're staying the night in the church. We lead a church meeting in the street. I didn't want to go to the meeting, I didn't feel like I had anything to offer, I just wanted to rest. I went anyway, and it was great, very Holy Spirit lead. As we were praying for healing, I had a vision for one of my team members (we were praying for his healing), people were healed - a lady had a growth on her neck which dissolved as Melissa (member of our team) prayed for  her, and others. I spent quite a lot of time praying for a mom who's husband left her 3 years ago and was having a tough time raising her children. It was good praying for her, encouraging her and sharing some words from God for her. It then got interesting when she told me about a dream she had a few months ago and asked me to interpret it. Err. No pressure. I was reminded of Joseph interpreting the dreams when he was in prison. So this was a time of stepping out in faith, and of course God was faithful in giving me an interpretation for her. So now I have interpreted a dream for the first time.

Christian leading worship

Ben prophesying over a man

This young girl was a bit too shy to join the service so watched us from the safety of behind her front door

Who could resist taking a photo of these little treasures :)

Another highlight was praying for a missionary we met today and being able to prophesy over him, a long download from God which really touched his heart and encouraged him so that was cool. Missionaries and pastors are often so tired and burnt out so I love praying for them to refresh them.

Dinner was provided by the church and was roast chicken and tacos. It was delicious, although it made me homesick for a dinner of roast chicken, potatoes and vegetables.

Slight aside is that the war is on between guys and girls in the team playing pranks on each other. They've been pretty impressive, such as the guys pushing a big frog through window of room where the girls were sleeping when we stayed up the mountain last week... I was glad I slept in another room. We also never found the frog so that's kinda freaky.

Tonight Christian (who I'll have you know is one of the leaders on the team) had me jumping when he brought over a cup asking for some juice, but inside the cup was a spider with hundreds of babies on her back. Gross.