Belize

First of all I would just like to say thank you to all of you who gave to me so I could go on this mission trip. We had a fantastic time during our 18 days in Belize. We spent our days at two locations, San Ignacio which is inland Belize, and Ambergris Caye, which is an island just off the coast.

When we got to San Ignacio on Friday we stayed at La Loma Luz Hospital, which is a SDA hospital. We had two amazing cooks who prepared our food every morning and some of the evenings and it was definitely the best “cafeteria” food I’ve ever had. Saturday after church (and of course lunch, cause we couldn’t miss any opportunity to eat at the café) we went to Xunantinich, which is a Mayan ruin. The nice thing about this ruin was that there were no “guides” taking us around, so we got to climb all over the ruins and go wherever we wanted to go. That night we set up in a village we were going to work at for the next two days. According to our local guide, Willhem, NO ONE drives out to this village at night because there are “bandits” all along the road into the village. So of course, we drove it at night because we had to be set up to go in the morning. Luckily, we made it with no problems.

We spent the next two days at this village, which was located right on the border of Belize and Guatemala. After that we got a day off and we used it to the fullest we could. We went to two different caves, an area with tons of waterfalls, and my favorite, a place called Barton Creek which had two rope swings, a 30 ft cliff jump and really cool cabana to hang out in right beside the river. The following day we went to a little village called Valley of Peace (which oddly enough had really high crime rate). While we were working there a guy came up to us begging us to come help him because his sister had been stung by some type of insect, and she was having an allergic reaction to it. So myself and one of the doctors grabbed an Epi-pen from our med kit and headed out with the guy to his house/shack. When we arrived the young girl could barely breath and was very swollen, but soon after giving her a shot of epinephrine she was breathing normally again. It was so lucky we were there, because without that shot, she would have died. She was still having problems, so we had to carry her to a car and she had to go to the hospital (2 hr away), but at least she could breathe on the way there. The following day we got the morning off and we went back to Barton Creek and hung out there for a bit. They also had access to a cave just upstream from them where we took canoes and went a loooong way back into the cave which was SO much fun. Then we headed back to the hospital and worked on the staff that worked there until 1:00 a.m.!!!!! We packed up Friday and headed toward the airport. On the way we decided to pack one more activity and we stopped off to go tubing down a river that ran through a cave (in case you haven’t already guessed, there are tons of caves in Belize. That was one of the coolest experiences of the trip. The rest of the day was spent traveling to the island, which was a long long day, and after several delays in the airport, we arrived 5 hrs later.

Saturday we just took it easy and after we had our own little church, we decided to go tootle around the island on our bikes,which was our only mode of transportation except for one golf cart which our primary doctor had.

Sunday was another workday at a local school, but since we ran out of patients in the early afternoon, we got to go on a little boat trip and do some scuba diving and snorkeling. We saw so much sea life. We saw nurse sharks, eagle rays, turtles, sting rays, an octopus, moray eels, and lots other awesome creatures.

Monday was just another day of work at the school, except that I ended up on the wrong side of things for a bit. The weird thing about this island is that it is really touristy, and in the main part of town it is really nice. There is a plethora of million dollar homes but as soon as you go just outside of the main part of town, it turns into a “3^rd world” looking place.

Tuesday was an off day for us and we got to do some more diving, which included a night dive! Night diving was so very cool, it was also very freaky. You can’t see anything unless you point your light at it, there is way more sea life out and about and when you bump into something, your never sure if its an animal, or your friend, or just some coral until you turn around and shine your light on it.

Wednesday we worked our last day on Ambergris Caye and then Thursday we packed up our stuff and took a water taxi to a neighboring island called Caye Calker and worked over there for a day. It was really odd because these islands are really close, only about a 20 min boat ride, but there was s definite change in the behavior and attitudes of the locals on the two islands, almost like two different country’s with the people on Ambergris being super nice, and grateful, and friendly, and the folks on Calker were,,,, well,,, none of those nice things, and ill just leave it at that.

Friday was another day off and it was a bit of a let down because it rained all day, but we did get to catch up on some sleep and a little souvenir shopping.

Our last Saturday was my favorite day of the entire trip. We went to a church and the front doors opened directly onto the beach. After lunch a group of us decided to take some sailboats. We sailed out about a mile or so and then anchored by a reef and went for a snorkel and did a bit of spearfishing.While I was out I went away from the group to look for fish and I got a eerie feeling. I had a fish in my sights, but I decided to turn around anyway and what was swimming directly at me??? A huge shark THAT’S WHAT!!! Im not kidding about that either. I had a few fish I had already caught on my hip and he must have smelled them or something. Anyway, once I turned toward at him, he swan away but I still decided it was time to rejoin the group. When I got back to the boat everyone was freaking out and I thought it was another shark or something, but it wasn’t, it was DOLPHINS! I just threw my fish and spear up on the boat and took off swimming toward them as fast as I could. They let me swim right up next to them, and then I got to swim within a few feet of these awesome mammals for probably 15 minutes. It was the highlight of my trip for sure; church on the beach, sailing, fishing, sharks, and dolphins all in one afternoon!!!

Sunday just was a bit of packing and relaxing and then we headed back Monday morning.

This was without a doubt the best mission trip I have ever been on. The entire group got along so well, we had a great time together. We were able to help 412 people while we were there which gave us just the right ratio of work-to-play so that I never felt guilty about playing. I can’t thank you guys enough for allowing me to take this trip. I hope you all get some joy from my letters and pictures. Feel free to ask if you ever want some more amazing stories from our trip. I love all of you guys.

Jesse