San Salvador

In El Salvador, the team stayed and worked with the Youth With a Mission base in the capital, San Salvador for 5 days.  It was nice to be cooked for and very nice to be able to use the swimming pool on site!  San Salvador seemed very westernized (read: fast food restaurants and shopping malls) although I did enjoy the doughnut shop!

The team was kept busy working in a drug and alcohol rehab, serving homeless people and local churches.  I got to visit families who live in a cemetery which felt bizarre (the road had been extended so the people moved to the cemetery when they realised their houses were due to become no more - all in the name of progress no doubt) as well as victims of a recent flood - we got to play with the children and bless the local church.  We also saw God answer our prayers and make sick people well which was amazing.  I felt ready and energized to move onto Honduras when we came to leave.

Headlice and the House of the Joyous Ones

Last weekend we had the most ridiculous journey through the mountains to reach our final destination in Guatemala (apparently on a major road!).  I managed to get two tyres burst on our trailer during my driving stint (well the road did!) and our 4x4 nearly fell off the side of a cliff…and that’s just one of our five vehicles!  Thankfully we nearly all managed to arrive in good spirits and all safely, although our vehicles needed some repair work!

Our last stop in Guatemala has been spent at the House of the Joyous ones (best translation there is), a home for children with special needs.  All of the children are disabled in some way and some have found their home here due to not being wanted by their birth families.  The team has been painting, preparing meals, gardening and doing carpentry whilst also getting our team vehicles fixed.  It has been fantastic to watch the children be cared for so well in such a loving environment and we have been so well looked after also.

About a third of us have had a bout of headlice and we are in the process of trying out various treatments (nit cream, shampoo, vinegar and alcohol at last count!).  My head has been the worse (apparently I had 1000s of eggs!!) and it has been a little infuriating as I asked somebody to check my itchy head a couple of weeks ago to be told I had dandruff….when I think I actually had nits!  Some of my American team mates have been horrified to hear that nits are not unusual in England, particularly when at primary school…I am still enjoying learning about the cultural differences!

Next stop: El Salvador.  Love and miss you all!

Sad times: You don’t speak much English, do you?

We had not been in Guatemala long when one of my team members, Dianne learnt that her daughter in law, Rhiannon had gone missing off the coast of Costa Rica where she had been swimming with her six year old son, Julian.  It was agreed by all, especially Dianne that I accompany her to Costa Rica to help with the journey and offer support.  Dianne and I were at the same missions school in Mozambique in 2011 and in the same activity group so we had got to know each other quite well.

Having had an early start and with the help of God, angels, Lonely Planet and a fast taxi driver (!) we were able to make the  journey from the north of Guatemala to the west of Costa Rica in about 16 hours.  When we got there, Dianne’s son sadly told Dianne that Rhiannon’s body had been found having been caught in a rip tide.  Amazingly enough she had been able to push Julian to safety.  Truly tragic and what a loss to her husband Norman and their two boys Giannni and Julian.

In the middle of such tragedy, I was made to feel very welcome by the family.  I spent time playing with the boys, especially in the sea and helping Dianne with arrangements.  Julian and Gianni definitely have a very special place in my heart and made me smile and cry a lot.   They found my English accent very amusing and did not always understand what I said.  Julian said at one point ‘you don’t speak much English, do you?’ much to the amusement of his family! 

Rhiannon’s memorial service was held on the beach at sunset where she had died – it was stunningly beautiful and had been decorated with lilies and candles.  The family were so pleased to meet Johan, a local teenager who had been out surfing and had managed to rescue Julian as Rhiannon had pushed him up out of the water.  Dianne returned to be with her family in the States whilst I journeyed back to join the rest of the team…via a cannabis smoking youth hostel and overnight bus from Guatemala city complete with an armed guard at the station!

During the whole time I found myself profoundly grateful for my social work experience and the whole time was truly one of the biggest privileges of my life.  I continue to pray for the family and was very blessed when I was reunited with the team as I got taken out for breakfast by ‘my girls’ (Liz, Rose and Caitlin) who also paid for a hotel room for us that night as a treat.  Hurrah!

Chocolate cake and Godfrey

Well I’d asked you to pray about Godfrey..here’s what happened and it involved chocolate cake – hurrah!  Our last full day in Belize was the 21^st birthday of Natalie on my team.  I prayed specifically that we would be able to get a cake for her at our final destination, San Ignacio before crossing the border to Guatemala.  So I went with the team cooks to the local market.  As we arrived I noticed a man, Bernard, selling chocolate cake from his bicycle basket. 

I asked him if he had a full cake left and when he said no I asked whether he could make one ready for the evening (you have to appreciate that in Latin America the English reserve has to go out the window!).  I brought a piece of the cake and when I tasted the heavenly cake I demanded  that he make a cake and said I was willing to pay the price.  After speaking to his wife on the phone he agreed that we could collect the cake within 2 hours.

When we got to his house (oh yes he found us on the street looking for his house so his guided us in!) we met his wife, Dana and 9 children.  Dana was getting ready to ice the cake and informed us that she gets up at 1am in the morning to make cakes and pies to sell in order to provide for her husband and 9 children (the eldest of whom is at university).  Actually Dana cooks and Bernard sells.  So we get a free piece of cake whilst waiting (much to the delight of my girl friends Caitlin, Rose and Liz) and Christian, one of the team leaders asks Bernard about the cost of renting a house for Godfrey.

It turns out that Bernard has a similar past to Godfrey, Bernard’s brother has properties for rent and that Dana goes to a local church.  So my prayers for chocolate cake and our prayers for Godfrey get answered all because of a divine appointment at the market.  If I didn’t think that God was interested in the small things before, I do now!  It was amazing to see God at work and how He used me and I feel so blessed by this whole episode.  As a team we are pretty sure that if God only sent us to Belize for Godfrey then that is fine by us!

We were all so excited that on the morning we left Belize that Godfrey had found somewhere to stay.  As a team we paid for one month’s rent up front and gave Godfrey a ‘home starter’ pack and the landlord said he will help Godfrey find a local church who can continue to support him.  This gives Godfrey sometime to find work and be able to pay his own rent and bills by the end of November.  Godfrey said as we parted that he had never met such a lovely group of people – I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house! 

Yeah man!

We are already coming to the end of our time in the beautiful country of Belize.  The vegetation, scenery, people and food are all lush and we will be sad to leave.  Belize really is quite a contrast to Mexico and I had not expected this former British colony (celebrating 30 years independence this year) to be so Caribbean in culture and have such a laid back approach to life!

We have stayed in both the towns of Corozal and Dangriga and have been made to feel so welcome.  We felt that we were to search out God’s ‘diamonds’ and while we were in Corozal, guys on our team came across Godfrey who had decided to give up drink and drugs two days previous.  Godfrey said that he had been praying for people to help him stay sober and so was very excited to meet us.  He has been with the team for 5 days now (we asked him to join us for our journey in Belize as part of his discipleship) and has been a real blessing (our cars are very clean – Godfrey said he wanted to stay busy!) as well as very helpful in terms of understanding  the local culture.

We are currently in the process of trying to link Godfrey up with locals who can continue to walk the journey with him when the team leaves Belize (please pray about this).  Those of us with professional backgrounds in nursing and social work have been able to put our skills to the test in helping to care for Godfrey (mine involved lots of questions and observations!)  It was therefore a massive privilege yesterday when Godfrey asked to be baptised in the sea as a sign that he was leaving his old life behind and now wants to follow Jesus clean and sober.  Kevin and Lisa, a couple travelling through Belize and staying in the same place as us also came to watch as they had never seen a baptism before and were curious.  The presence of so many ‘gringos’ in one place certainly draws attention!

We’ve also visited a local community hospital and the housebound elderly to pray and offer some friendly company.  It sure made me very grateful for the NHS and social care!  We’ve also run an event in the park in Dangriga with the Mayor’s permission.

Our work in Belize has certainly been more ‘laid back’ than in Mexico as we have not had any definite contacts.  This has certainly been a challenge for me at times as I like to be busy but I’m learning a lot about myself, God and others in the process…which I guess is all part of the experience.  Maybe you won’t recognise me when I return!  Next stop: Guatemala!

Miss you and God bless you Lizx

Mexico: Last Stop

    Greetings from Mexico!

Our last official stop in Mexico was in and around Oaxaca in the south of Mexico.  We split into two teams and my team spent time in two Maixteco villages in the mountains encouraging two small local churches.  One church had 5 families and for years they have been shunned by their local community for following Jesus so I felt very humbled to be able to spend time with them, sharing with them and helping teach their children English.

It was amazing to see a lady who was blind in one eye be completely able to see and a man who had been deaf in one ear be able to hear as we prayed for them!  The joy on their faces was so humbling and exciting.  We also had a few hours in Oaxaca city which was beautiful and I very much enjoyed a delicacy of Oaxaca- hot chocolate!

On the road leaving Oaxaca state, one of our vehicles’ transmission went at a petrol station (thankfully not on the road) and also thankfully there was a local mechanic who said he could fix it over the weekend and even allowed us to park our pop up trailers next to his garage!  There are definitely angels watching over us!  However as we were up in the mountains and some of us had been so cold previous nights (yes really!), about half of us stayed in a cheap hotel (about £6 a night!).  It was SO nice to have a proper bed for a couple of nights, be warm, eat chocolate, drink wine and watch some girly films (rather like my Friday nights used to be after a long week at work!).  Thank you to friends and family who made my hotel stay possible. 

The long drive to Belize continues…….

Its a dog eat dog world.....

Had a brilliant weekend in Mexico city (once we found our initial camp ground very late at night!).  Had our day off sightseeing so I got to check out the Metropolitan Cathedral and the park which were ornate and relaxing.  I always love being able to visit the capital city of any country you go to – it helps you understand a people and its country so much more.

 Then the next day we visited two rubbish dumps outside the centre where families live and try and make ends meet.  The second dump in particular smelled pretty bad and we literally saw dogs eating other dead dogs for food.  It really was a dog eat dog world.

My heart broke when I saw one family of three young children literally picking their way through the rubbish to see what they could ‘recycle’.  It felt like a very small thing to be able to play with them, give them food and pray for them but we are encouraged that the church will continue this work and build on it as this was their first visit.  My prayer for this family was simply that the parents would get a new job away from the dump as the little girl was clearly unwell.  I was trying hard not to come up with a strategic 10 point plan which would lift all the people living and working there out of poverty…Mexico City is the first place we’ve visited which I could live in.  Don’t worry, I didn’t and the journey has continued!

Since then we’ve visited and worked in three other towns/villages near Veracruz on the east of Mexico and have been blessed by the church we’ve partnered with.  They fed us so well and understandably made sure that we worked hard! 

We have just had a weekend off in a little town called Chachacalas on the Gulf Coast so I’ve been swimming in the sea and visiting a local pyramid relic.  This has also involved the local pigs coming to visit whilst I was on the toilet (they are my favourite animals!) and the local young people having a rave through the night where we are staying!

To be honest I could have kept going without a break for a lot longer but maybe that’s because I’m used to a slightly busier pace of life than some of my team mates!  I’m sure its good for me to rest though but I’m definitely ready to go again.  Will update again soon.  Thanks for reading and God bless you all lots x

Vital sleeping statistics (I will have to sleep in a tent at some point I know!)

Bed (of various descriptions):  10 nights

Trailer tent:  19 nights            Concrete floor: 5 nights                 Tent: 0 nights (hurrah!)