Ministering to One Another

 This is kind of an endearing story.  One of the children in the special education unit had to have his tonsils out.   He missed school for a few days and his classmates and teachers wanted to encourage him so we took a trip in my van to visit him at his home. 

 The children from Mikey's class made him get well bears.  The deaf class brought food that might taste good to him like fruit drinks and yogurt.  When we arrived at his house we found Mikey on the couch.  He has autistic-like behaviors and was a little overwhelmed by the outpouring of attention.

 Some of his classmates knelt beside him and rubbed his cheek and head.  They were just raining love on him. It was touching.

 Erica, who is also in Mikey's class started singing.  All of the children joined in.

 Mikey was still not sure how to respond but he wasn't hiding behind the wash cloth anymore.

 When his mother unveiled a tray of watermelon, he sat right up. He was all smiles for the rest of the visit.

I think he will always remember the day that 25 of his friends came to visit him and shower him with love.

(Thanks to Miss Susana for taking the pictures and sharing them with me,)

Eagles, Girl's Night and Learning to Soar.

"Once a year the female eagle lays an egg in a nest high over a bluff, inaccessible to predators. For the six weeks following its hatching, the eaglet has it "made in the shade": He can see lots of things from his vantage point.  He's fed hourly by his mother. Life is easy.

By week 5 he has grown quite large. Then something begins to happen. Unbeknownst to him, his mother designed the nest in such a way that sticks point inward (!) So as the eaglet gets fatter, the sticks start to poke into him. The eaglet probably wonders why the mother didn't make the nest more comfortable---never realizing that its design was all part of the plan to get him to do something he would never have done otherwise---step out of the nest.

One day around this time the mother returns to the nest and with her eight foot wing span and knocks the nest, bumps it, and rattles it until until the eaglet falls out and tumbles hundreds of feet toward the ravine below.  Feathers fly, the eaglet squawks, the ground gets closer, the rocks bigger---then the mother swoops under the eaglet, scoops him up on her back and drops him back into the nest.

"Whew!" the eaglet thinks.  "Mom needs to be more careful flying near the nest." But three days later the mother eagle stirs the nest once again sending the eaglet screeching and tumbling to the rocks below. And once again at seemingly the last minute she swoops underneath him and carries him back to the nest. The whole process is repeated over and over until about the 6th or 7th try the eaglet catches air in his wings, flaps them powerfully and....soars." 

(adapted from Jon Courson's OT Commentary)

Our Women's Bible Study ("Girls Night") is like this eaglet. I started the group about 6 years ago with a nudge from God and some selfish motives.   After coming to Belize I missed my Friday night fun night with friends.  We almost always went out to a restaurant to relax and gab after a long week of work.  I missed that here.  Also my house was becoming a full time restaurant.  Four times a week someone was coming over to my house to "talk" right at meal time. So I invited them in and shared dinner with them. I started thinking, what if I said this "restaurant" is open on Fridays, come, bring your female deaf friends and we will eat and Bible study together. That way I could gain a little control when I had visitors for a meal and could have a Bible study for deaf women on my previously boring Friday nights.  What a plan!

This worked well and like eaglets they had it "made in the shade".  I did all the cooking and Bible study planning.  All they had to do was show up and help with the clean up.

Yet there were these spikey sticks poking us: Our group has tripled in size.  Many of the women have children.  On a given night we have at least 3 but up to 5 or 6 children "playing" while we are trying to Bible study.   It was too distracting.  God was nudging us to move on.  Our Bible study couldn't go on like this forever.  How do I make it sustainable, I wondered...for several years....but didn't make a major change--until last week. It was time to jump out of the nest. Yikes!

Before we began the Bible study I raised the issue and provided this solution: What if we met during the day while most of the children are in school? Several nodded that was acceptable. We tossed around the pros and cons (chief among them being we would meet from 1-3 PM ...no food).  On our first Wednesday afternoon meeting we sat down and actually got to dig into the Word. It was good.  It was relaxing, it was working.  But there were murmors about missing the food.  I offered carefully, "Let's meet the First Friday of the month just for fellowship.  We can all eat together, bring the kids. We'll do something fun like make a craft, or play games, or have a pampering night painting each other's nails. Everyone relaxed a bit. I got lots of nods of approval. (BUT I did not want to jump back into the nest again... we had to learn to fly...) So I added, "Who will bring some food for the first Friday Fellowship?" Shoulders slumped and a brave few asked, "You mean you are not going to cook for us?"

I am not the "mother" of this group, but I understand the mother eagle must have hurt a bit when she saw the eaglet falling and feeling "I can't". At the same time she knew, he could.  I KNOW these women can share the responsibility of bringing the food. But we'll take baby steps.  I asked, "What can you bring?  I'll provide what you can't."  Angelica said she could buy bread (pan dulce... deicious varieties of sweetbread rolls) for everyone at the bakery.  Terrific.  I offered to make a fruit salad and bring some cheese.

We're not soaring, yet, but were out of the nest. We had a fun time.  The children wandered and played but they weren't a distraction because it was casual. It was just fun to be together and felt relaxing to chat.   It also helped to have Brittany choose to entertain Kristen.  I know Kristen loved Brittany's goofiness  At the end of the First Friday Fellowship last night I asked who would bring food for the next month's meeting. Kristel said she could bring the bread.  Alva offered her mother to bring tacos for the following month, others thought they could bring tortilla.  Thank God for those spikey sticks in the nest.  Without them we would never have chosen to try to fly.

Alva and her daughter Keylie (5)

They're signing Nahum 1:7 which they had memorized (!)

Kristen (8)

Brittany and Kristen goofing around.

Yelitza and Angelica

Martha is such a happy person.

  Her stories are so funny.  She has us all in stitches.

Alva and son Joshue (1 1/2)

Selena and Gane (2 1/2)

Kristel and Gineli

(NOTE: Elizanie, Sulmi, Reinalda, and Alma were absent this time)

The Annual School Fair

St. Peter's Anglican School holds a carnival-type fair in the end of February every year.  It raises money for the school.  Each class sets up some booths from which they sell food or have games children can play.

About 3 days prior to the fair, I took the Deaf class to the garden and we transplanted some of the smaller plants into pots to sell.  We sold rosemary, aloe vera, macolito (a soft potato-like vegetable plant), mint, epezote (a medicinal plant used to rid people of worms), a yellow iris flower, cilantro, cucumber seedlings,  and zinnia seeds.  It's time to get the St. Peter's Anglican Seed Company up and running again because we sold all but 4 of the seed packets.

In the picture below three of the Deaf boys are manning the PLANT table.  They are squinting because it was a beautiful day with lots of sun.  The temperature was about 90.

Misael, on the left is my garden protege.  He is always ready to help and seems to intuitively know how to do many things.  When we transplanted the seedlings he knew to put the plant in the pot and sprinkle the soil around it, rather than push the seedling into a small hole.

 Sulmi's regular ed Standard 5 (7th grade) class had several booths.  I offered to set up a ball toss for Mr. Valdez' class. Two of the girls from the class manned it.  They did a great job!!! I kept asking if they wanted to be relieved, and they said, "No, we like this."  They earned $26 for the school.  Every little bit helps toward the goal of each class earning $400.  Mr. Valdez' big money earner was a pony ride.   :-)  He had two horses at a dollar a ride.  Many of the children had never ridden on a horse before.  Everything went smoothly.  I thank God for a good day.

Ooops Virginia Mennonite Missions Alternative Giving Catalog

So sorry I never posted the link to the "Alternative Giving Catalog" that I mentioned in the previous post.  I never thought to make the link available here.  Should of done that last November.   The "catalog" is part of  Virginia Mennonite Missions' way of allowing people to give to the work of their missionaries for specific items that will help them minister.  So those of you who are wondering what that is about can click here to see the 2012 catalog. It's over, but if you are curious...this page will help you see what it is about.

When it comes around next year I will try to remember to make a link available here so you can participate if you want. It's a Christmas thang....

Thanks to all who contributed!

Thanks!

A BIG thank you to the people who contributed to Virginia Mennonite Missions Alternative Giving Catalog this past Christmas.  Some of you gave money so that we could make dental health kits for everyone in our Deaf Church. Below you will see Brittany and Angelica making the kits. We passed out toothbrushes, toothpaste, and dental floss to over 25 families.  There is enough money for us to do it all over again in 6 months.   Thanks You!

 

Some of you gave money for seeds and starter plants for the school garden. Below you will see Misael and Elizanie (both Deaf), planting tomato plants that we bought with the money you gave us.  We also bought fertilizer, parsley, and many packets of seeds.   Thanks for sharing with us!

 

Inconsistent Electrical Power and Internet

This morning I woke up to a power outage.  No electricity is something that we deal with maybe once a month here.  Recently it has been less frequent than that.  Sometimes it is more frequent.  Living in the US I take electricity for granted.  Just when I start to get used to expecting electricity here, I am reminded it is not a "given".  I started to think about what to do for my sermon tomorrow without a power point.  Preaching to our group without visuals is tough...Some know only a few signs.  The pictures really help make the connection.  So I got up to read my Bible and pray and .... 10:20 the electricity came on.  (Later Brittany told me she had heard some teachers talking about how it would come back on at 10:00.   So it wasn't miraculous but it sure was convenient.)  Just when I was starting my "we have electricity" celebration I realized we still did not have internet.  Hmmmm
My internet is always cutting off.  I think there are too many people connected to the line on my street?  I don't really know why, but we often have a problem.  Brittany wanted to check email and blog.  We decided to go to the school library and use the internet there.  Shoot.  They didn't have a connection either.   Next stop was New Balance restaurant...nope they were closed.  Last stop: the Maya restaurant.  The waiter assured us the connection was working...but we could not get it to work.  We could connect to their wireless but our computers said that there was no internet access.  Hmmmm.   With apologies for not buying anything  (yikes) we left and decided to just come home.  Both of us remarked how very dependent our lives are on internet.  Brittany said that without internet her list of things she had to do today dwindled to almost nil.
I was still thinking that I wanted to create a power point sermon with images.  I wondered how I could do that.

We decided to ask Kristel's mother if we could use their internet because they have a different server.  Maybe theirs was working.   I can pick up their wireless at my house if I have their password.  Camy generously gave me her password and I set up outside where I could pick it up with two bars. Not bad.  Phew!   I set up the fan, a table, a chair and had a nice view of the garden and all the people passing by.  What a comfy place to spend a Saturday afternoon in front of the computer!  It all worked out.  Praise God.

Getting to know the OW Hospital

UPDATE ON EDGAR: Edgar came home today! He's a little bit better.  I'm glad he is out of the hospital.

Edgar and his mom watching a movie on the DVD player.

The hospital in Orange Walk is a scary place.  On Monday I took Edgar and his mother to the hospital to find out why he has lost 30 pounds, has no appetite, and feels very weak.  My job was to give support and translate for Edgar. We arrived at 7:00 AM. At 7:30 we got a ticket (#11).  So there were 10 people ahead of us. We waited in plastic chairs in a crowded room where everyone around us is coughing and sick with something...I wished I had a mask.  At  11:30 we finally saw a doctor. The doctor poked a little and asked questions and then sent Edgar to the emergency ward to have his blood drawn and an x-ray of his liver. The Dr. never told us what she thought it was.  I think they are used to not explaining. The nurse took his blood ...not wearing gloves and not washing his hands between patients. Edgar was told to lie down on a bed with a soiled sheet.  We waited for the blood test results.  He was told not to eat or drink anything. At 2:30 the nurse came in and said he has the results of the x-ray and blood but we have to wait to see a doctor. Just about that time two people came into emergency with head wounds and gushing blood.  It took 4 people to sew them up and try to stop the blood flow.  Then someone else came in with a machete wound on the top of his head.  There wasn't a doctor free until 5:10.  When the doctor spoke to the mother he never explained the tests...he just said Edgar has "low blood". A lot of people here go to the hospital and the diagnosis is "low blood" (???) I think he probably has Hepatitis A. You just kind of get treated.  No one does much explaining.

At 6:00 Edgar was wheeled over to be admitted in the Hospital Ward.  There is one room for men (6 beds), one for women, and one for children.  There is one room they call ICU, one private room, and the isolation room for people with extremely contagious diseases like AIDS.    After Edgar was situated and eating something the hospital provided, I left.  The next morning when I returned he said the man in the bed next to him died in the middle of the night.  The family was called and came to pray for him and the hospital staff tried to clean up the diahhrea and vomiting. Edgar was "sleeping" three feet away. EWWW. 

  I asked for a pillow and they said they did not have one for him...but he had clean sheets.   Today I noticed a pillow on his bed.  I guess they cleaned them and he got one ...this his 4th day in the hospital.  Still I wonder if I would sleep on it.

So how is Edgar?  He is still weak and tired.  He is still thin, but he is more alert.  His palms are yellow and his eyes are white as if the veins are very dried out or gone, but he is definitely on the mend.  They are giving him a dextrose drip, along with food.  He is getting a vitamin drip (potassium and saline and other things).  I think they are giving him electrolytes because that is typical of this hospital.  He also has some antibiotics in the drip and oral iron pills. They said they will give him blood tonight. I dunno.  I'm not a doctor.  I don't know what's right.  I just know this hospital is a very very scary place.  I brought my DVD player and some movies for him to watch to help pass the time.  He liked that.  And I pray with him.  He likes that too.  The doctors said he can go home on Saturday. Please pray Edgar's body is able to kick whatever he has.  Thanks

God Answers Prayer

Our Church Sunday January 25, 2013

I've been praying for our church family that we all would grow more mature in our faith walk. I've wanted to have a series of lessons on spiritual gifts and serving Jesus, but if they are just coming to church to hang out with other deaf people, the jobs that they are given will be "duties", not an opportunity to give part of themselves to the work of the Lord. They will think the job interferes with their goal of socializing.  I don't want them to grudgingly feel obligated to help in some way. I want them to WANT to help so that in helping they are giving back to God.

I've also been praying that they learn to read God's Word. Since the new year began I have been passing out a list of daily Bible readings. These are thematically based on the readings we used for  Friday and Saturday night Bible studies.  Not many are reading the verses, yet, but I am confident if I don't give up, God will add to the number of people who are reading their Bibles and praying.  Spiritual maturity has to begin with listening and talking to God. I see some progress. Last Sunday Martha stood up at the testimony time and paraphrased one of the verses she had read that week.  Today Alva stopped by my house to get an NCV Bible.  It's hard for many to read anything, but just one verse a day and to pray, I think is doable.

About a month ago Phyllis and Galen Groff told me that the Mennonite Church in Hopkins is growing because, they said, the pastor is praying. I thought, of course the pastor is praying...
but I wasn't praying enough.  After seeing the number of men dwindle we got the women together to pray specifically for some of the men.  Some of us even fasted.   God is faithful  He wants us to pray because he wants us to know his power and love.  Otherwise, we think when good things happen it is just coincidence.  If we pray and see a difference we can say, "Look what God has done!"  It gives him glory and recognizes His faithfulness. So I continue to pray and testify to God's answers.

Please pray with us that we will all mature in faith.  So that next year when we celebrate 2014 we will look back and say, "Look how far we've come!".

Alma lighting a candle as part of our worship on Sunday.

I realllllly wanted to use helium balloons but I couldn't think of anywhere in Orange Walk that sells them. We have been talking about forgiving one another. This last Sunday's sermon was based on Matthew 5:21-25, the passage that is familiar because of the line "Leave your gift at the altar and go make peace with your brother."  I tried to talk about anger and conflict resolution. Part of conflict resolution is eventually "letting go" of past hurts and injustices and choosing to go on from this point where we are right now. That's why I wanted the balloons. Gee, the symbolism would have been great: all of us standing outside the church clutching our hurts and letting them go....up to Heaven.  Instead, though, I invited anyone who wanted prayer to come forward and I prayed for them to have the courage to face the conflict and talk about it with the person they were mad at....to try to resolve it.  Those who came forward were invited to light candles as a symbol of giving the conflict to God, or the hurt, or frustration.  It was just a beginning. The whole idea of resolving conflict instead of complaining about the person to a third party, or denying the conflict even exists is new.   Evenso, I am " confident of this, that he who began a good work in us will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:6)