Sunday

Yesterday (Sunday) was quite a spirit filled day. We started off by traveling to Lord’s Bank Community Church to worship with Pastors Jimmi and Sandra-lee. There was lots of singing, tears and alleluias. As one of our mission team members commented after the service “That is a spirit filled church!”.  For those of you who haven’t seen or heard about Jimmi and Sandra-lee, they are our ongoing mission partners here in Belize and previous mission teams have worked many hours alongside of them building a basketball court, paving a sidewalk behind the church, as well as helping to build a playground and a fence and teaching preschool. Teacher Scott shared that 9 kids just graduated from the preschool last week.  Brice Ehmig who is making her 3^rd trip to Belize was especially excited to go see all the previous projects and how well they are holding up!  After we worshipped Jimmi and Sandra-lee took us on a tour of the Tilapia and hydroponics farm on the property (the church, farm & their house are all on the same plot of land).  The tilapia farm is amazing! Jimmi is so passionate about raising the fish, selling them to locals and to markets and also feeding his community.  Jimmi & Sandra-lee have now reached a point where they can comfortably provide for themselves, give back and are also teaching others how to start a farm and be self-sufficient. They were even on the local news recently and got lots of calls from people wondering how they could start their own tilapia farms.   After we left Lords Bank, the 25 members of our team had a few hours of group ‘down time’ to recharge our batteries.  Mark who runs Praying Pelicans Mission outreach took us to Altun Ha which are ancient Mayan Temples (not ruins!). Talk about a beautiful and holy place!  Some of the brave amongst us climbed to the top of Temple of the Sun God which was about 60 ft tall. The view from the top was spectacular. Our guide taught us about the ancient Mayans that were buried there (Shamans) and shared that in 1500 BC up to 5000 Mayans might be at the market on the grounds buying spices and other products from India.   After our few hours of downtime, it was back to the Bakadeer Inn for dinner, our daily devotions and planning for our last 2 days of work at the Dorothy Menzies Child Care Center.