Thank you for volunteering to stay

When Selah used this phrase last week, I told her she'd written a blog post for me. How blessed I am to have inspiration come from multiple venues!

Walking in Orange walk

Koinonia, the Spanish church we attend Sunday afternoons (after having Deaf church) has a missions team. The team was sent out this past Wednesday and Thursday. Koinonia was a church started from humble beginnings.  They began as a ministry exclusively for children. If we are honest they are pretty unique in that realm here in Orange Walk.  This was one of the huge draws for us.  As more children came, their parents wanted to come to church there.  The church began to meet.

The playground outside of the library

Pastor Ed's passion is to see children change the world.  They do children's ministry. Another part of their calling is to train others to reach children. They do several trainings a year at the church. 

Praying for the children happens every Sunday at Koinonia

The mission trip involves them going to countries in Central America and training the churches to do children's ministry.

I was asked to pray for the Pastoral family at Koinonia one Sunday

Selah's comment was about the people in Koinonia who stayed.  She thought they should be thanked. Staying is a difficult job.  There was a blog post I once read which talked about the friends and family left behind. They are the ones who must continue, who must love from afar, who get the "unexciting" parts of the ministry. 

A rousing game of bellz after stomachs full of fry jack

We want to thank you for being the ones who volunteer to stay. We could not do what we do without you. 

our welcome home in 2016 thanks to our MST

Staying is a difficult job!  Thank you for the support you give. Thank you for your prayers.

Zion's job was hanging out the wash yesterday

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

one month or two weeks, depends on how you are counting

Wednesday will mark the two week time for us in Belize. It also happens to be exactly a month from when we left the Hopewell Parking lot. (August 27th).  We have had many adventures in the process. All learning experiences!

How does being in Orange Walk 2 weeks feel to us?

This transition has been much different.

Two years it was a drastic change. We were walking basically into the unknown, with 11 suitcases to our name.  

This time we had a home with some things set up. We also were aware ahead of time the things that would make our house a home. 

Two years ago the heat was a shock to our Pennsylvania born bodies. 

This time we expected it. That doesn't mean we are less hot

Two years ago all of the food tasted strange to us. 

This time the first food the kids wanted to eat was rice and beans.

Two years ago we spent a lot of time trying to figure things out

This time we feel like we're on our way

Two years ago we had a one year commitment

This time it's indefinate.  Things are feeling like we are working towards finding home. We are building a place that we can celebrate as a family.  

Two years ago we were under different leadership

This year Nathanael is leading the church.  In some ways this is more difficult as we are stepping into someone else's shoes.  For right now we are following the order of worship and way of doing things that Nancy had set up.  

Thanks for joining me in the small comparisons of our transition.  Feel free to text us (we have internet numbers through google so it's free to do) email us, and even call us. Skype with our kids. We finally have good internet.  :)  My goal is to get into a regular blog updating schedule again.

I am so proud of myself! (and Sunday School Easter photos)

Is this really a post about how proud I am of myself you wonder?  Not exactly.  I have been trying to figure out how to do what I did last week on the blog for months.  Really actually I just hadn't taken the time to figure it out. When I finally took the time to figure it out, it only took a short time to do what I wanted. Success! For this Gen-xer it was a huge accomplishment!

So what is the accomplishment you wonder?  

If you will note at the top of the page, I added some "pages" This is so you can access the information about us as easily as possible.  I am hoping this streamlines things for people. 

I am also really excited about the prayer requests page.  We plan on working on keeping them updated weekly (about as often as I update the blog).  There is no list to sign up for, nothing to connect with, simply go to the blog and access them when it's convenient for you.

The pictures included in this blog post are from our small egg hunt.

It was a small turnout.  Most Belizeans go swimming on Easter.  My children were glad that they had more eggs to themselves!  

The plastic eggs were actually from the Kinder Surprise (or knock off Kinder) eggs we had collected.  Before you think that we ate all of those eggs ourselves, recognize we've shared boxes with Sunday school 2 other times :) 

I am planning on update you on what we've been studying in Sunday school later this week.  

Lucianna's guest post

Dearest Friends and Supporters of the Davis's

My name is Lucianna Alderfer and I have been a long time friend of the Davis's. The kids know me as "Aunt Lucianna" and even though we are not blood relatives, the connection we share is as strong as if we were. I had the privilege of spending my Christmas break in Belize with this amazing family and wow am I excited to share with you my experience!

My visit was a brief five and a half days, but I walked away with a very clear sense of what this family is doing, what their impact is and how God is using them and will continue to use them. 

We started my visit at the home of dear friends of the Davis's, a lovely Christian Belizian family who fed me a full course meal and welcomed me into their home. They also had Nathanael chop down a fresh coconut for me to enjoy! And boy did I! I was quite impressed with how quickly Nathanael is learning to use a machete! 

I arrived on a Saturday evening, so my first full day was spent at Jesus Deaf Church of Orange Walk (forgive me if I got the name wrong Nathanael!). What a privilege to meet the families that the Davis's work with and to get a taste for the ministry. Most of the adults were Deaf and most of the children were hearing, but there were some hearing adults and one Deaf child. It was clear they were a close knit community and had a strong connection with the Davis's.

After service we walked to by $1 tacos and as we walked to the taco shop it was amazing how many towns people knew the Davis's and wanted to talk with them or connect with them. I could see how the Lord had quickly knit them with this community.

While we were at a Taco shop we saw a family from the deaf church who I got to know a little (the hearing daughter). I found out later this family had great needs financially and if not helped would need to take measures that would put them in harms way.

While I sat at their home, people would come to the door asking for help or money. And clearly everywhere they went there was so much opportunity for ministry. They shared with me how it is so easy to just spend all day helping and to feel overwhelmed. They had to keep focused and be wise with their time to be effective in ministry and faithful to God's purpose there.

I went through bit of a culture shock while I was there. As you can see above, this is the Davis's make shift laundry room, on their roof. I watched Spring carry laundry up 2 flights of stairs and hang it all by hand. I took a cold shower every night and watched Nathanael take water jugs a mile away to a filling station (normally carried by bike) to get drinking water for the family. The kids picked up glass bottles on the road and exchanged them for penny candies and they have their favorite dogs that wander the streets. Many of the kids they know didn't get many Christmas presents if any and the living conditions are so much simpler than we have here. 

(we ate rat!!)

But it was a country of very loving and kind people. They are hungry for the gospel and the Davis's are clearly being used to reach a community for Jesus. What I love about the vision they have is that it's to work themselves out of a job. It's to establish a good work there that is sustainable and that is what I think missions should be.

When I returned home I was taken by how impacted I was by my trip. I wish you each could go down there and experience first hand what I saw and experienced. I'm proud of this family and so privileged I was a part of their lives for those brief five and a half days.