Valley of Peace Mission Trip: October 2006

I thought I'd let you see what our place looks like. The kitchen/sitting room is right next door to our bedroom/livingroom. We have lots of room and the kitchen has everything I need and more. They have so many plates and pots etc because they need it all when the big work groups come down from Canada.

Dale has made us all kinds of things like tables, clothes compartments, pantry cupboards, he even made a "murphy bed style" ironing board that folds up against the wall for the sewing/computer classroom. Well I'll talk to you later. Make God your constant companion this week. Love Tammy

The other night for a fund raiser the students put on a fun and food night, some of the girls made flour tortillas and then made burritos. You should see them make the tortillas pizza men at home would be jealous!!!

They had a balloon popping game, volleyball, and basketball.

Quite afew of the community came out and the kids sold all that they made including juice and watermelon.

This was just such a funny sign we had to take a picture. Did you know that your local pharmacist was legally selling poison?

Kaylee and Leah have desks set up in our room which work really well then we also have our computer in our room so we can do some things for school on the internet. They are both doing well, and are learning alot about the country of Belize, it's people groups, landscapes, animal life etc. We're also trying to learn a little Spanish and a little Ketchi on the side.

Our principal brought this turtle to the girls one day that he had found on the road so they made him a home, found out what he liked to eat, observed him and played with him a few days then we sent him back to a pond.

Sorry about the last blog being upsidown, I'm sure you've had one of those days!! On that same Sabbath we went for a hike to see this wonderful creek in the jungle and also a very special tree.

Ever wonder where chewing gum comes from or where Chiclets got it's name? Here's the tree, it's called a Sapodilla tree and the harvester was called a Chiclero.

The chiclero would climb up the sapodilla tree with bare feet or wearing boots and spurs. He would cut into the bark of the tree to carve a series of "V" shaped formations that would feed into each other, forcing the running sap down into a sack at the bottom of the tree. This sap, like cane juice was boiled to evaporate the water content. The remaining gum was packed into wooden square moulds, called chicle blocks and then released for shipment to the United States. The Wrigley Company was the main buyer, with local Belizean contractors suplying the pproduction of the raw chicle. Now modern manufacturers make chewin gum from synthetic substitutes.

The top block is an actual chicle block, it's very heavy and was usually sweetened with sugar and allspice for chewing here. We tried some and it was pretty good.

Getting to the place was half the fun as the road went through all kinds of terrain.

It was a beautiful spot to come to worship. I always feel closer to God when I'm out in nature. He has created so many wonderful things for us to experience

This little cabin is a get away for a man we know. When we got there we had a really nice church service then lunch. There was an avacado tree right beside the cabin that was dropping the biggest avacados i've ever seen! They were aprox. 8 inches long and 6 - 8 inches around! Very good avacados too.

Last Sabbath we went with some of our church family out to a property in the hills west of the Valley. It was a beautiful day and we had two very full vehicles. We had 11 in ours and the other little pickup had about that many plus all the pathfinders gear, as they were going to stay for a few days. At this place in the road the ruts were very large and had some water in them and the truck got stuck but by cutting down some small trees to use as poles and with alot of man power we were able to continue on.

We had quite a time when we left as it was pouring rain for awhile and the water level in the ruts was twice as much . We stopped and picked up as many big rocks as we could and filled the holes as best we could. God was helping us and we made it through, very wet and laughing at our experience.

Here is cookie making class, the girls like to cook and sew so these are our home ec classes.

Kaylee made these carrying bags to carry the kittens in.

Here's the two new additions to our family. Shawna and Colten. The girls named them after the children of a friend of ours.

Of course the babies needed their own house!! Kaylee, Leah, and our secretary made up this wonderful kitty home.

This is our school staff. Clockwise from Dale we have Fausto who is our pricipal, then Maggie his wife is one of our teachers, next to her is Patricia who is our secretary, then Eric, another of our teachers. They are a really great bunch of people.