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