My heart is overflowing with new insights into Belize, the life of the people, the culture, and the workings of the church. Today we began our work at the church.
The day started with a trip to a large hardware store to purchase a concrete
blade and some other supplies. Arriving at the site we met Peter and Santos and began our day with prayer. The living situation in the neighborhood is very poor and across from the church and next door, the houses are made of sticks with 
palm branch thatched roofs. It is exciting that the congregation of the church is expanding and people are being reached for God. Roger, our fearless construction leader, put us all to work. John and Ben volunteered for the difficult job of 
digging a trench 78 feet long in rocky soil to lay a water pipe. Others the 
assembled the white louvered windows and chiseled out the concrete to enlarge the openings in the block walls. We also began framing in the doors.
The day started with a trip to a large hardware store to purchase a concrete
blade and some other supplies. Arriving at the site we met Peter and Santos and began our day with prayer. The living situation in the neighborhood is very poor and across from the church and next door, the houses are made of sticks with 
palm branch thatched roofs. It is exciting that the congregation of the church is expanding and people are being reached for God. Roger, our fearless construction leader, put us all to work. John and Ben volunteered for the difficult job of 
digging a trench 78 feet long in rocky soil to lay a water pipe. Others the 
assembled the white louvered windows and chiseled out the concrete to enlarge the openings in the block walls. We also began framing in the doors. We were tired at the end of the working day, but decided to go looking for the Blue Lake of the Blue Lake National Park sign we passed on the way to the church. To do this, we continued up the rocky road in front of the church
headed away from the highway. Wow what a bumpy ride we had driving up into the countryside. We never found the lake, but we did follow along a shallow river through several miles of orchards. We saw oranges, grapefruit, limes and pineapple. We also saw the harvesting process with trucks driving up on the end of a pier to dump their load of oranges into a larger truck which would haul them to the factory. There were also 
large gardens with corn that was 5 feet high (this is February!) and just planted green beans. We saw some white Brahma cattle grazing in a fenced in pasture. Someone had tied a branch around the neck of one the cows to keep her from putting her head through the fence.
Tonight we went to the home of Pastor Ed and his wife Jane about 12 miles from the church. He is a bivocational pastor and teaches
religion during the week at the local high school and serves as their chaplain. Jane works in the office of the local processing plant which makes orange juice concentrate. They had beautiful flowers growing in their yard. We took showers at their house and then all went out to dinner together. When they started at the church, there were only 10 people coming and he and his wife and children were in that number. They are excited about the growth of the church and looking forward to the partnership with Trinity. 
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