Belize Day One

Day One

Whew…

We really did not know what to expect and we got exactly that today! Julie fixed a wonderful breakfast for us this morning. Carol led out in devotions – with the thought that we are relying on God’s right hand --- and before the day was up we really were relying and praying for God’s right hand to move on our behalf.

We went towards the Sittee River area, met up with missionary Tom Pound briefly and then joined up with Jim Strawser, who was ready to take us out the river to Tom’s place on the island so we could help clean up the beach area. A lot of the debris and trash that had come down the rivers, ended up on the beach near Tom and Sharon’s home.

Here’s the thing though – in order to get to the beach, we had to cross the still partially flooded land, carrying our provisions with us and constantly swatting at the hordes of hungry mosquitoes! But before that we had to make our way across the lagoon, with the motor sputtering and stopping – and thankfully, being restarted by our incredible handy fix-it-all-man Jim!

But before that we had to go through the little canal that cuts thru to the lagoon. Ah…one thing though, the little canal was clogged with debris. Lots of bamboo sticks and logs of various sizes. They had spent 6 hours the day before clearing it out and we had to redo it today- only for an hour or so…on the way in – but on the way out…

Yeah, we had to do that again, from the inside this time…and that was while the current was pushing - against us – and we were pushing, poling and struggling against the debris and the hungry, hungry mosquitoes… - while – Jim and Mike tried to restart the motor that had died on us a ways thru the canal.

Thru sheer determination we made it thru the debris and managed to get to the river. Only to sit there stranded while they continued to fix the motor. It was then that the realization came that the tools that were needed ---- we left on the little dock on the other side of the lagoon….on the other end of the canal…which was probably clogged somewhere in the middle now since we released so much stuff digging our way thru. Yeah, not an inviting situation!

But…it did invite some serious prayers. We had been told that a tropical depression was forming and from the looks of the cloud over us – we believed it. No boats came anywhere near us and we did not expect any to since it was late afternoon and it would not have been a time to fish or snorkel or really even be out there…but we were.

So, we prayed, we sang, we prayed some more. We believed, Mike and Jim kept persistently working away while we prayed and hung onto a tree branch that extended out into the river so that the current did not take us out to sea.

Are you getting the picture here?!!

Julie was thinking about ‘worse case scenarios’ – which at that moment she thought it would be, we would sleep in the boat and in the morning someone would surely pass by at some point and we could get help. I reminded her of the tropical depression and potential rainfall that we would have during the night (I did not mention that hypothermia would set in if we did indeed spend the night in the rain)

Julie became inspired that we could row…! Only thing was – no oars! So she improvised, by pulling up planks that were on the bottom of the boat and 4 of us rowed while the other 2 worked on the motor.

Are you getting the picture here?!!

I sure hope so because it had to look ridiculous, like some bad version of Survivor! Well, we had some moments of struggle as rowing with these boards was not ergonomically easy, nor was going against the current, but we were making some progress…when all of the sudden, with a mighty heave and yank on the ripcord (which had broken and was being rewound by hand) – the motor sputtered….sputtered some more…and….sort of roared to life? Nah, roared is far too strong a word, but - it was running! Thank You Jesus!

Did I hear the Hallelujah Chorus break out? No, but not long after this Julie was quite vocal in her praise to God for helping us. Carol had already been saying repeatedly, that sometimes God helps in different ways, so the poling, the digging thru the debris, the rowing, all had been God’s answer to her.

We were able to sputter our way up the river for the next few miles and coast into the little dirt spot on the bank that marked our destination. As we came in Jim shut off the motor and we drifted right into our spot. But moments later Jim informed us that he did not shut off the motor – it died right as we were pulling in !!

Once again, Thank You Jesus!

Interesting first day all in all.

On the way back, we saw a rather large Blue Crab going cross the dirt road. We had seen a few of them but this was a big boy! Julie decided she wanted it so she and I got it and she grabbed a piece of bamboo and she and the crab did battle. I only helped a little bit as we tossed him in a box and took the trophy back to camp.

Day One was a success. We also found out that many of the people here have been helped by the Belize Defense Force, who came out and power washed up to 18 inches of mud out of people’s homes. The government has brought food and even stoves to some who had their belongings washed away. So things are moving along quite nicely.