Belize Trip, Part 3....the saga continues...

Wednesday morning, we woke up to a beautiful mountain sunrise.  We drove down the hill and joined the Bul family for breakfast again.

(Funny story:  On Tuesday morning, when we were eating breakfast with them, it was still somewhat dark inside the house.  When Ambrosia served us, I could see clearly what was scrambled with my eggs on my plate.   Dan, however, couldn't quite tell what his was.  He asked Marcus, "So, what kind of sausage is this?"   I could see Marcus struggling for the right word in English and he finally answered, very seriously, "Um, Brother Dan, we call this...hot dog."   Ha!  I couldn't help but giggle at the American asking what kind of gourmet sausage he was being served.   Good ol' Oscar Mayer.)

So, the men left shortly after eating to go start working on the church & I helped wash the dishes.  That one came naturally for me, lol.   It seemed like as soon as breakfast was cleaned up everyday, it was time to start working on lunch.   It took about an hour to hull rice by hand for the noon meal.  Whew!  Talk about hard work!   While we were working on the rice, their oldest daughter, Lisa, was butchering and prepping a rooster for lunch.   They even included the feet in the pot!  Apparently it's a delicacy to eat chicken feet? That was a bit of a stretch for me.  :-)
After working and lunch, Dan and Pastor Marcus went to go see a few local waterfalls, while I went back to the little hotel to catch a short rest.  I ended up spending the time in prayer and reading my Bible.  I definitely needed to spend some alone time with God at this point.  I felt myself questioning everything we had been thinking about. Like WHY He would call us here, HOW could we possibly do it, would it really be WORTH it in the end, etc. etc.  While driving around on Tuesday, I had asked Pastor Marcus, rather bluntly, "What is a need that you see that we could possibly fulfill?   What do you think we could do to help you and your church?"   I think Dan and I were both kind of surprised when he answered right away, "I think what we really need is someone to help drive an emergency vehicle.  When our people need to get to a hospital in one of the bigger cities, they have to charter an ambulance and it can cost over $400BZ for us to get there."  He gave us an example of when he had fractured his leg and had to charter a ride to the nearest hospital, 45 minutes away.  When they got there, he was told to go to the next city (an hour away) because they couldn't help him there.  His elderly grandfather had had a similar case not too long before that, where they had to pay large amounts of money to get to medical help.  
It was an interesting idea, especially since we were planning to bring our own vehicle to Belize anyway if we moved there as missionaries.  It was also interesting to me that getting to a good hospital had been one of my primary concerns.  If we became the answer to that problem, how ironic would that be?  God does have a sense of humor, doesn't He?

While I sat on the porch of the little inn, I poured out my questions to God.

"Lord, is it really worth it for us to uproot our family and move down here, just to drive a car??"
"Jana.  I can get anyone I want to drive this vehicle.  I'm asking you and Daniel to do it."  

"But, God, is it really worth it to call this a mission?  Is anyone actually going to think this is a worthy cause?
"I think it's a worthy cause.  I measure the stars, I measure the sands.  I know the hairs on your head and I weigh this cause to be worthy enough to move you down here."  

"But, God, how in the world can we do this?  I don't think I'm strong enough.  Will these people even accept us?  What if they don't like us and we're lonely here?"
"Jana, it's not a matter of how.  It's a matter of WILL you do it?  I will give you all the strength you need to accomplish this task.  It's a matter of you accepting my will as yours."  


Sigh.  Pride check.  

When Dan returned that afternoon, he could tell I seemed refreshed and more at peace with the idea of possibly living in this little village.  We decided to go have some time to ourselves and went to go stay in Punta Gorda in another hotel for the night.  While there, we watched cable tv, and went out for some pepperoni pizza, ha!  God seemed to be showing me that small bites of "American-style" reality were still going to be available to us even if we took the plunge.

Washing dishes :-)

"The ungodly...are like the chaff which the wind drives away..." Ps. 1:4

That thing was heavy!!

My thinking spot