Our daughter has returned safely to U.S. soil after a trip to Belize which undeniably had vacation elements.
While there was time set aside to lie on the beach and gaze into the Caribbean, the primary activity of her traveling party was mission-oriented. So, their inland water views looked something like this.
She has come home for one night and has been given us abbreviated stories as time and movement about town allow. She spent the majority of her time playing, rough housing, singing and eating with beautiful Mayan children.
She is a person of many strengths, but has been notoriously deficient in being comfortable around young kids, so this seems to have been a growth experience for her.
She and the others worked in and around a school, as well as in a farming community, where she got up close and personal with an iguana.
The thing is, the big lizard she was holding was somebody’s future lunch. The missionaries made a stab at immersing themselves into the culture by eating iguana, iguana eggs and other indigenous food. At least they can say they did it.
As long as they were handling potential food, why not pick up something more familiar, like bacon or ham?
Being exposed to another way of life will serve her well in the long run. The people she encountered weren’t impoverished, oppressed or victims of natural disaster; but that doesn’t make the trip any less worthwhile. On top of all that, she got that “Belize” stamp on her passport.
She hustled back a day earlier than the others because she attended a wedding here in the hometown.
After about 26 hours using the family home as a base of operations, it’s back to Texas and her real life. It was certainly nice to see her.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Iguana Meat and the Mayans
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
A Brief Dispatch From Belize
Our daughter is out of the country on a mission trip. We didn’t add any kind of international plan to her phone, so the information we’re getting about the mission is coming in the form of late night e-mails from the church staffer who coordinates college ministry. This is a young woman who is fond of using exclamation points!
We’ve seen one photo of our daughter so far, and if you know her it’s kind of funny. She is notoriously uncomfortable around young children, so maybe this will be a growth experience for her, not to mention a boost to our hopes of someday being grandparents.
Their work at a school continues, as does their beachside worship experience. Here’s what we heard about that: “In our small groups tonight, our lesson focused on the differences between false and true repentance. We split up into even smaller groups of guys and girls to spend some time being open and sharing about things we need to be repenting of in our lives right now and ways we've been avoiding that. I can't speak for the guy groups, but from my group and hearing from the other girls; I can say that it was definitely a great time of growing closer together and encouraging each other!”
I’d like to encourage them to send more photos from Belize. I’m starting to think that one fabulous dock with the grass hut at the end is the only landmark they’re seeing.
Maybe it is. I mean, after all, the primary purpose of the trip is the mission, not sight-seeing.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
A Worthy Spring Break Destination
On this, the first day of Spring 2012, our daughter finds herself on Spring Break. When you think of a college student this time of year, what comes to mind? Panama City? Ft. Lauderdale? Destin? Or, maybe a different climate? I know a lot of young adults have gone skiing (many people in the South feel compelled to modify this and say “snow skiing,” to differentiate it from “water skiing.” This is an important distinction between a place like Vail and somewhere like Lake Bistineau).
None of those apply to our student, who left Monday with several friends for Central America on a mission trip.
She’s in a pretty large group, which split up into four teams on day one. Nursing students saw 63 children at a school clinic under the supervision of the school nurse. Others prepared meals for malnourished children. Another group was on construction duty, working to build a pavilion at the school “where they can have large groups meet for assemblies and things like that.” They put in a full work day and plan to do so every day this week. We are told there was “a decent amount of exhaustion.”
No doubt they were tired. They’re doing good work, to be sure; but let me be more specific about this “Central America” thing. It’s Belize, which isn’t bad. In fact, here’s where they’re staying.
They had dinner on the dock after the workday. This is a church group; so much of their free time was spent on a worship experience, including singing songs of praise on the beach for an hour and a half or so. If you want to feel the Glory of the Lord, this is a pretty good place to do it.
I’m happy they’re able to enjoy a spectacular setting to start and end their days. As a parent, I’d certainly rather know they’re having a positive impact on young children as opposed to binge drinking and puking off a hotel balcony on the Redneck Riviera. Because you know that’s actually happening, to many of their friends. Go, Belize!
