A little more detail

Yesterday we where in transit when I made my last update and I didn't want to hold up the team. Today we're trying to make an important connection so we have a little time to kill in Orange Walk. So we've settled into a little internet place and will get a little bit of work done.

About the weekend... Church in Spanish Lookout was a really, really good. I'm always blown away how God provides strength in times of need. I really didn't feel like I could stand for much more than a minute or two much less an entire sermon but they got a full length feature! I was great to connect with a number of people following the service. It's amazing how supportive this church is becoming of this ministry. Walter Thiessen, a lay pastor in the church and one of our board members here in Belize, has been a great connection in this church and a huge blessing to us both as a ministry and to us personally. Several other people approached me after the service to share their support of the ministry. It was a very encouraging and fruitful time.

Monday the team spend some time together preparing for the training program (on Tuesday and Wednesday). They also took advantage of a local "blue hole"(a beautiful swimming spot) and finished the day off well cooling of in the swimming hole (a much deserved break for them, they worked hard cleaning and preparing). I had some time to prepare my sessions but stayed in Belmopan... my system just wasn't getting the "get better" message.

That evening I figured this wasn't just going to blow over so Alex and I zipped down to the clinic to check out some Belize health care and it was pretty good. They gave me a boost on a recovery and I bounced back very nicely! Best part was it was free!

Tuesday brought a great turnout for the training time. We were hoping for around 20 (which can quickly turn into 10 it seems in Belize) and 24 showed up! And 3 more came for the next day. It was such a blessing to share with them because you could see they were just soaking it all up. The next big task I believe is to keep these youth connecting as many of them are the "lone" youth in their church and it would be easy to get swallowed up. Like I said yesterday, when the opportunity was given to sign up for the weeks of the summer people swarmed Alex... He's well set for many of the camps.

After cleaning and packing up we travelled to Shipyard (a very conservative Mennonite community). We made a quick stop to repack, eat and email in Belize city and then made our way down the bumpy country roads. Alex was obviously tired so I offered to drive. The highway stuff is pretty straight forward so it's no big deal but when we got to the back roads I was glad to have Alex to navagate again. But then he said, "Oh, oh, I don't know this corner... Steve, did you take a wrong turn?" What could I say? I thought I did what I was told. Then someone pipes up, "I think I saw a fork in the road, maybe we went the wrong way." Oh, boy where was that? It was already late and very dark and we were in the middle of no where. Well, I guess we're sleeping here! Imagine our laughter when we turned around to discover we where there!

So we saw and awful lot of horse and buggies as we continued about connecting with pastors and making out way to San Phillipe and then to Orange Walk. Though we didn't have as much "success" as we would hoped it gave Alex and I time just the two of us to discuss the blessings of the past training and look ahead to the future.

Tomorrow we will prepare for the training (getting the church set up and prepare other aspects of the program). Saturday it will all begin. We're not sure what the turnout will be (it seems to be really hard to get confirmation of details like that!) So you could pray that the Lord would bless us once again that would be great!