Presents, staying up late and lice, Oh My!

This is our third time we have celebrated Christmas in Belize.  That is comforting to us. We kind of know what to expect, we are feeling "settled".  We have developed some traditions and adopted new ones this year.

Koinonia prays for us on a Sunday morning

To begin the holiday season we had a new tradition with friends from Stann Creek, the Groff family. They also serve with EMM, and it is a blessing to be in Belize together.  We occasionally get together. It is difficult at times, since their kids are in school during the week, and we have weekend commitments. We decided to get together for Thanksgiving but were unable to until closer to Christmas vacation.

playing a quiz game with the Groffs

Tim decided to call it Friendsmasgiving. It turned out to be the perfect name.  We had a great time eating a traditional American Thanksgiving Dinner, hanging out and playing board games.  Of course, we enjoyed Bubble Tea, our favorite Orange Walk drink.

Adults snuck out for a childless time of bubble tea and dumplings

Christmas Eve is what Belizeans celebrate as Christmas. It is often brought in with a "bang" ie fireworks.  We stayed up till 2am at Pastor Ed's house, playing games, eating and hanging out.

Dyna and I chatting Christmas eve. Zephaniah eventually fell asleep next to me

Christmas day we spent as a family. The brunch was awesome. For some reason, our dinner was kind of a flop. Everyone survived. ;)

Pastors Ed and Dyna

We had two cookie parties. One with local friends, and one with the Deaf Youth.  At the end of it all I was exhausted. Thankfully Anna came and cleaned/washed the dishes.

a wonderful family sent Oatmeal cream pies. Nathanael says they "made" his Christmas

While we worked on cookies, Nathanael and Misael took the three wheeler to villages. They invited the Deaf in villages to our New Years Eve party.

The van packed full before our first cookie party

the Deaf youth event 

One not so fun thing that happened in our house over Christmas vacation was lice. They were discovered immediately following the Groff visit.  I spent way more time than I wanted to picking out nits.  The good news out of all of this is I've found the best method that works for us! Now to get a nit comb that works! I had to pull every nit out by hand.  If you were wondering, that is why Ni lost his dreds. He is actually fine about it. Since kids here can't wear them to school, there are no boys his age who have them. I was probably more upset about him losing them than he was.

nitpicking takes hours

there go the dreds

Next week I'll share pictures and stories from our Annual New years eve party. Stay tuned!

Love Spring

Library fun

I have failed in my advent weekly newsletter. I have a pretty serious subject coming up next week for both the blog and the newsletter. ( I let it set in for a little suspense) :) I am still planning 4 weeks of letters, we will just have missed this week.

Zion and Zephaniah at the Library

I have written in the past about the library. It is actually in a building that was formerly a hospital. It was expanded by a man named Sandy Hunter (thus the name of the building)




The younger 3 kids were able to attend a library program over the summer. They learned about how oil was discovered on Belizean soil. They designed a shop with cardboard and other recycled materials.

Zion with the group project she helped make this Summer

We don't go to the library as often as we would in the states. Only the kids have library cards and they are currently allowed only to check out one book per card.  The other issue is that I am still not skilled at driving the three-wheeler. (I stink at it and my carpal tunnel kicks in, leaving my right hand numb; needless to say, I don't really drive it at all)

a rice dinner on the lawn in front of the library

We were blessed to be still invited to the Christmas program for the library.
The kids watched a movie then sat on the lawn for a lunch of rice and beans.

Abigail enjoys her cookie

They were given cookies, candy canes, grapes, and an apple to take home with them.  I consider ourselves blessed to be a part of the community.

rice and beans and plantain. The kids won't eat the plantain or the potato salad

How else do we get books you wonder?  We use our cards from Bucks County library to access them online.  Abigail uses Hoopla a lot (it has a wide selection of graphic novels). Selah and I use Overdrive which has books and audio books.  There is also RB digital which offers magazines.

Selah's cookie

I have to say I am very thankful to be alive during the digital age.  There are occasionally books that aren't available in both the library and electronic form.  I actually haven't figured out why this happens especially with a newer book.  I totally understand preferring the "real, physical" copy. For us, it is about access.  We are thankful that we can have access to books in whatever way is best for us.


Hope you enjoyed our fun and interesting library excursions.

Holiday preparations

Christmas wasn't our big holiday here. If you read my facebook, you would note we were invited to a party Christmas eve. The pastor of the Spanish church we've been attending invited us to his house. We felt like party poopers when we left at 10pm and some people were just arriving. I am not sure how I got on the subject, but I asked people when they were going to bed. One woman who looked about 20 years to my senior stated she didn't know when she is going to bed. I was floored.

Really I am not sure how I missed this part of the culture 2 years ago. I did know that Belizeans tend to celebrate things the night before. I remember Ben Martin being at our house Christmas eve only to be awoken by the 12am fireworks. I just was unaware that the party continues into the early morning hours!

That being said, our Christmas was quite quiet. We had family opening of presents and enjoyed a brunch.  We were thankful. We had sparkling juice. The cinnamon rolls didn't turn out the way I wanted them to (oh well)

Our big holiday was New Years eve. We invited the church, along with Deaf who don't usually come to the house.  I will highlight this next week.  :)

In preparation for the big party, we had two cookie baking sessions. One was the children's friends. It ended up being a jumble of people: our conservative Mennonite (cape dress wearing) friends, mixed with a sweet boy and his mom we meet at the park on Saturday nights.  Our Mennonite friend and I did get offered cheap cosmetic surgery in Cuba, all we have to do is get there!!

The children made cookies. Interspersed with the cookie festivities, they played games and ran outside. I was able to socialize a bit. Everyone had a good time!

The second party involved the youth.  Giving credit where credit is due, Selah did most of the coordinating. She pre-made all of the dough, icing and rolled the cookies. The 3 youth girls helped with decorating. I was left on the clean up they weren't able to accomplish. Man it is crazy how messy icing can be when it is spread everywhere!

Nathanael and Misael helped put up our temporary garage. This served in housing the food and children on New Years.  They also sampled multiple cookies.

May your New Year be blessed!

Look for a newsletter in your mailbox in the next few weeks. If you aren't on our list and want to be, e mail us and we will add you!

Blessings,

Spring

Friday busy day..

Friday was a busy day. Excitment was in the air.  We had been anticipating Ben's arrival for over a month.  The countdown was on.  

In the morning, I went over to People store.  They are the ones who sell butter the cheapest.  Nathanael left at 10am.  He had to take a bus then taxi to get to the airport.  

While we were waiting for Ben, we also had to make cookies. We had a cookie exchange to go to on Sunday. To shake things up a little, friends came to help.  There were lots of cookies.  

There was dancing, Christmas movies, Christmas music and play in the pool. 

Dance party!! 

We also had a dog :)

I made the kids go out to play so I could wash the dishes.  

Ben and Nathanael walked down the street from the bus stop. Shouts and excitement ensued!  Poor Ben must've been overwhelmed. 

Of course I enjoyed going through the suitcases! Thanks so much for all you sent us.  More to come on our experiences, and of course pictures!  We are about to spend the week on Thank you notes ;)  :)  

What we've been up to :)

Sorry for the lack of posting.  Last week my main focus was getting the newsletter out.  I actually mistakenly didn't send it to some people. I am sorry about that, and I think the glitch is fixed.

There has been a lot of activity to catch you up on in the Davis House.  Nancy wrote on her blog about the 10th Anniversary of the church.  I was able to make cookies for this event.  I shared some of the extras with a neighbor and our "taxi driver"'s family (who are also our friends) They loved the cookies so much, they asked if they could come and I could teach the wife how to make them. Problem is we only have a metric measuring cup, a stove that tells the temp in 1-5, and Zephaniah dropped some of the egg on the floor. 

Our first batch came out flat.  I am thankful to Nathanael who about 5 years ago was making cookies several times a week for his job with a student.  We made enough for them to take home. 

I have also been teaching Sunday School.  I started on the first week in October.  Here are some pictures from that.

Our children teach the others about Chinese Jump rope. 

The best thing about Chinese Jump rope is you need very little space to do it in.  :)

 

 

as a fun bonus here is a picture of one if the interesting ways Zephaniah has fallen asleep.  I am making a page in his memory book of all of the interesting ways he's fallen asleep.

 

 

Thanks so much for keeping in touch with us and praying for us. There's more to come this week :) 

 

Spring