This month we are doing manual labor for ministry. It’s my first time on the Race doing this so it’s a nice change of pace. I don’t love Manual labor, to be perfectly honest. But it’s been cool to see others thrive in it who do love working with their hands and to hang out with the teams. We are with another team this month, New Kids on the Block, and so we live with them and do ministry and life with them! So that’s been neat to get to know them better this month!
We are living in a peaceful beautiful camp area. We sleep in bungalows/ cabanas or a house and have washers, warm showers, toilets, WiFi, beds, filtered water supply (GOLD), running water/ sinks. We have stoves/ oven/ fridge and our own kitchen and a couple stores and local food places nearby. So we are living large in Race terms! It’s very quiet and has been just us for most of the month so it’s nice to be alone and not have villagers peering in at us at all hours in the “privacy” of our tents. We even have hammocks- I know, luxury, right??
So the living conditions are great. For ministry, we’ve been helping out at a local elementary school that we can walk to. Side note: the fact that we aren’t confined to one room this month and can walk or run wherever we want without an escort is amazing! We’ve been painting school classrooms, building an awning for the cafeteria, building/ painting a basketball backboard, decorating picnic tables, helping move items, set up classrooms, and assist teachers.
We’ve also been working on a house that the local church is fixing up to become a rehab center. So we’ve been painting, balancing on ladders, cleaning window panes, removing and installing windows, and scraping paint off floors. We also helped one day building a segment of the wall at our host’s property with bricks, cement, and lots of sweat. Glamorous work I do say! We have done a couple children’s ministry events and visited a girls foster home (complete w cake for two girls’ birthdays) on two occasions. It was fun to be goofy with the kids, sing songs, do skits, and play games. I’ve helped my host translate for an elderly lady who lives nearby and she’s just the cutest 🙂 We’ve bonded with the local restaurant workers and store cashiers who see us on the regular. We hosted a dinner for local rehab center members and they really were the ones serving us by being open and sharing their testimonies with us. So inspiring to see what the Lord has done in them and see the Holy Spirit so evident in them. So, all in all, we’ve gotten to do a little bit of everything this month and bonded through it all and had fun memories.
Some random memories:
-My squadmate screaming her head off at 7 am outside our door because a tarantula is on her foot but she doesn’t want anyone to come out and help her because then the tarantula will get into the room
-squadmate running into a door placed horizontally on a bunk bed right at the forehead level and sustaining a concussion
-teammate traveling an hour to a dairy farm to get ice cream and some amazing sour cream
-teammates loving on our teammate for her birthday with fun-shaped pancakes, cookies, no bake cheesecake, handmade piñata stuffed with local candy, and weekend getaway
-waiting for Miss Dora’s yummy food: burritos, empanadas, tostadas, watermelon juice, etc
-water balloon fight and volleyball game between our two teams
-worship night and local ministry appreciation with all 4 teams at the other teams’ base
-seeing our Irish squadmate driving a van on the RIGHT side of the road and killing it
-cooking home-cooked meals together as a team this month: family nights warm our hearts
-holding onto the tarp so tight and trying not to get soaked and beat by the wind (unsuccessfully) in the bed of the truck on the highway in the rain
-chicken Parmesan made by my teammates using corn flakes: you gotta get creative 😉
-playing 6 rounds of Rummikub with squadmates and having a blast doing it
-having a massage circle during team time
-FaceTime chats with our teammate who had to leave for a week for a family emergency
-one teammate digging out a splinter from another one’s foot: baller nursing skills
So, sorry for taking so long to blog since the last time. I’ll try to post some more blogs concerning what the Lord’s been teaching me soonish.
Going into team changes this week so prayers for a smooth transition are appreciated!
Love y’all!
I love your blogs Raina. It sounds like you’re having an amazing year. Keep on keeping on. My prayers go with you
Sounds like y’all have been busy. Praying for you.
Sounds like Belize was a nice break from most of your prior countries! Enjoy your remaining time there! I know what you mean about manual labor. I worked on a project for Habitat for Humanity and now have an even more appreciation for construction workers!