SEE YOU SOON BELIZE

Well folks this is the last blog that will be posted from Belize!! We leave on Monday the 28th for the US and then will fly back to NZ mid Jan.

We are very sad about this and can not believe that time has gone so fast.
Every minute we have been here has been a pleasure and an experience that has touched our hearts. We will never forget the place, the people, the smells, THE TASTES, the ministry, the congo, the love we have felt! To think we would have missed out on this if we had made other choices.

The future holds many options for us, which on we will take we do not know yet. Time will make that clearer, but we will keep you all up to date with what and where we end up.
So its goodbye to the bugs and the clear blue skies. Goodbye to our dear brothers and sister that have become like family. Goodbye to our bible students that are like our children. Well not goodbye but hope to see you real soon.

I still have heaps to post on here about belize so I will keep doing that, It will be a bit out of order but too bad, you will all just have to get over that, sorry.

So signing off from Belize for now. Love you all, see ya!

(ps, i wont forget to post the other days of the convention).

THE DELEGATES WELCOME

We had been travelling by bus for nearly 27 hours when we crossed into the Mexico City area. From up in the mountains you look down on the city which is mysteriously shrouded in smog. Although dirty strangely beautiful!

We wound our way down into the city where suddenly on our right appeared a group of welcomers. They held up huge signs saying Bienvenidos (Welcome). The buses stopped along side them and the ladies all pilled onto the bus. They handed out little Mexican lunch packages, which we greatly received by us all. We were then escorted through the city to Taxcoco where the Bethel is.

Driving through the city was quite an experience. We were in a bus so were quite safe but man if you were a little car of a motorcycle you take your life into your own hands! There were horns blearing in all directions, cars and huge trucks just pulling straight in front of you. There seemed to be no law when it came to traffic lights. We think the red light was just a suggestion! We got there safely though, phew!

When we turned the corner into the Bethel area we saw the streets lined with extraordinary color. It was our dear brother and sister all dressed in the various region cultural dress. Each area has its own little culture and dress to go with it. They were all wonderful and bright. The street before us waved as hundreds of people welcomed us and we were still just approaching the Bethel.

The bus came to a stop at the back of the Assembly Hall where we got off the bus and were lead along a path flanked on both sides by delighted Mexican brothers and sister, young and old and everything in between. They were holding signs and handing out small gifts to us all. Everyone wanted us to stop and take photos with us, to hug us to welcome us with a kiss. It was mind blowing! The chant "Bien-ven-idos" filled the air.

In a way it felt wrong, as it was almost like we were celebrities or something, but when we thought about these people and how long they had been working and waiting for us all to arrive from around the world you can understand why they were so overcome to meet us.

New Zealand had not officially been invited but we snuck in because of serving in Belize. We had NZ on our name badges so when they saw that we were given a little extra love! It was truly wonderful a marvel to behold! My heart and eyes filled with tears of joy and wonder for Jehovahs loving organization.

The path we took to the main auditorium must have been about 150-200 meters long. Both sides packed full of our new family members. When we approached the end we could hear melodious voices singing praises to our great God Jehovah. There were our brother dressed so brightly singing and playing instruments, the wonderful new world that awaits us so closely came directly to mind.

I could have stood there all night listening to them but we had to go and find out where we were all staying.

Delegates from Belize, Nicaragua and Guatemala were all there. They welcomed us again with words and then started reading the names of us out. They would call a family name from the visiting list and they would stand, then the name of a family from Mexico was read out to host them and they would meet each other for the very first time. What rally stood out to me here was that no one knew each other, but it was as though we were all long lost friends. It was a joy to watch them run into each others arms and cry on each others shoulders! Love, the quality Jesus said would identify the true religion shone through immensely! Some gave up their own homes and moved in with family so we could enjoy comfort. Each day, breakfast lunch and dinner was provided, great feasts indeed. Many gifts were showered upon us all. None of this was expected by anyone!

Due to my health we stayed in a hotel with delegates from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Cancun to mention just a few.

A brother we never knew and would never see again wanted to drive us the 1 ½ hour drive to our hotel. He could speak no English and we only a little Spanish but through sign language and laughs made our way easily. He was in tears when he dropped us off and said goodbye. He would take no money, he only wanted to memories and the chance to help! We thank him so much for his loving kindness. He then had to drive three hours in the opposite direction to get home! True, unselfish love, I think so!

So that was our first day at the Convention. We got to our hotel room at 12am and were very very tired after our long bus ride and wonderful welcome but joy was filling us and all we could do was reminisce the days events!

Next time I’ll tell you about the first day of the "Keep on the Watch" International Convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION '09

After three days on a bus we have arrived back to Belize! Neither of us have butts anymore, but that’s okay there was plenty to go round before.

I will try very hard over the next few emails to describe the wonder that was the International Convention of Jehovahs Witnesses 2009, "Keep on the Watch".

This experience gave true meaning to the term, "you just had to be there".

Dave and I have never been to an International before and of course we would choose the biggest one in the world to attend. Attendance started out at approx 80,000 on the Thursday and Friday. Then Saturday it jumped to 100,000 then on Sunday we had a peak of 115,000!!!!!!! Wow we were absolutely blown away! The count was done in the afternoon when a number of people had left. Looking at the morning season we think there must have easily been over 120,000 as there were no spare seats and they were bringing out cardboard boxes for people to sit on as there were no more seats.

Everything went smoothly except for the swarm of bees that decided to take up residents around the main speakers podium! At first they sprayed them with a fire extinguisher to frighten them away, which worked for a short time. However those bees did not want to be removed from their new home among the beautiful flowers the brothers bought in to decorate the stage. They came back and as you watched the huge monitor of the speaker you could see they flying all around him. Finally they were to dangerous and started stinging people around the speaker, the guy that was filming etc. One person was taken away on a stretcher and the program was stopped while they got rid of the bees for good. Local firemen came in and dealt with them. The program then carried on as normal and all was well.

So anyway, I’m jumping all over here so let me start at the welcome we received at the Bethal Assembly Hall on the Tuesday. That will be the next blog for ya all. Please be patient with me, as usual I have come home sick so am doing my best.
Love ya all!

YOU WILL NEVER GUESS WHERE WE ARE!!!!

Well as the title says, you will never guess where we are!

We are at the International Convention in MEXICO CITY!!!!

Todays attendence was approx 80,000 people and this was on the quietest day! They expect 110,000 plus people on the Sat and Sunday!

Our minds have been blown away by the hospitality and loving kindness of our dear brothers and sisters. Everywhere we go we hear "bienvenidos, bienvenidos"! This means welcome!

The bad news is that our camera died a few months ago and we now have to use our video camera to take photos. It is doing its best but we cannot take photos when the light is getting dull. We are searching for a new one at the moment so we hope to have some wonderful shots to share with you all soon.

The convention is being held at the famous Estadio Azteca. This is the biggest stadium (seating wise) in the world! World Cup football is held here normally.

I am in the process of writting up some blogs about our trip through Mexico to get to the city and other adventures we have had in Mexico.

Our days are very very long and although we are both very exhausted we will not stop enjoying this once in a life time experience. We want to make the most of every second we have with our wonderful brotherhood here!

So please be patient with me, I know Im slack at this blog thing, but thats what you get when you live in Belize, slack technology. Here in Mexico its much better so I will try to find time to make the most of it for you all. But you will have to excuse me if our enjoyment here takes priority, sorry!!!! he he he

Lots of love to my brothers world wide!!

CREOLE LESSON ANYONE???

Creole is one of the many languages spoken here and although it is predominately made up of English, to the untrained ear it is foreign indeed.

So here is a lesson in Creole people.

- You greet people by saying “How de do?” Or “How you de do?” Please speak as fast as humanly possible.
- You never say “I don’t know”, replace this with “I no know” or “me no know”, again at great pace.
- Replace “us” with “we” all the times for example, come with us becomes, come with we.
- Never say “him” or “her” replace these in a sentence with “he” or “she”, ie, Im going with he.
- In many cases you preface what you are about to say with “Makeame”. For example, Makeame show my homework, or makeayou get homework. Generally this rule applies if you are about to do something or you are asking some else to do something.
- Rather than saying “other” or “another” say “next”, ie, do you have another one? Becomes, do you have a next one?
- When giving directions you don’t say “there”, “here”, “left” or “right” you would replace these with “So”, ie, when you get to the mango tree, go down “so”. I went down there, becomes I went down “so”. In effect you could end up saying “ Go so then so and then straight then so but don’t go yonder” they really direct you by pointing as they speak but, hmmmmm you wouldn’t want to be blind!
- At the end of a sentence when describing something or making a statement ie the grass is green you would add “No true” so you would say in Creole, “the grass is green, no true” This is not a question it is a statement.
- To say “can I have some please” you would say “Please some” and that’s it.

An example of a Creole conversation is this, try it out and don’t forget to speak super fast and with a slight Jamaican accent:
“Where you de go?”
(Where are you going?)

“Me no know, makeayou show me”
(I don’t know can you show me)

“You go down so at de first street and then go straight, then go so and then so.”
(You go left at the first street, then go straight, then take a right and then a left)

“Is there de next way?”
(Is there another way?)

“I no know, just go so! When you de get there, you meet we, and we go”
(I don’t know, just go the way I said. When you get there you will meet us and then we can go together)

“Ya maan, you have some drink? Please some pop?”
(Oh, you have some coke, can I have some?)

“Naah maan, this be mine, you get de one from de Chine”
(No, this is mine, go get one from the Chinese store”

“The Chine down so on de corner, no true, me go go”
(The store on the corner, I’ll go get one.)

I hope that gives you an example of Creole, well sort of anyway. We laugh cos its so fast and very foreign sounding. So folks, that’s your very first lesson in Creole, please try it in your vocab and see what reactions you get and then let me know what happens.

A COUPLE OF HIGHLIGHTS

Again a little late sorry!

Here are some of the outstanding things that happened at the Special Assembly Day.

-There was a bus that the congo hired to take the brothers and sisters and bible students to Punta Gorda (PG). This bus seats 82 people at a stretch. The bus had to go through a number of villages here to pick everyone up and soon they could see that every seat on the bus was going to be full and then some.

By the time they had picked everyone up there were 115 people on the bus! There were people standing in the aisle, in some case three people to a seat and if they were children there were four to a seat. It was so full that they ended up waving down a public bus and commandeering it to take the extra people to PG.

These people are all from the Dangriga congo and the new Hopkins group. Majority of them were bible students!

-There are only 230 Jehovahs Witnesses in the area that attended the Assembly in PG but there were 514 in attendance!!!! How is that for potential growth!! Yeah you could say there is a need here.

-Our congo had 2 baptized, Emily Samiento and Oscar Polanco.

THE RAIN CAME DOWN AGAIN

Hi folks,

This is a little out of date but thought you would enjoy it.

The night before the Assembly in Punta Gorda one group of brothers and sisters had come in from Big Falls (a little village about 15mins drive from PG) for dinner. There were 7 of them which was fine coming in as it was not raining then and some of them travelled in the trailer of the pickup truck. However on the way home it was raining so heavily they could not go in the back out in the rain, so they all piled into the cab and its back seat.

There was the driver and then a brother who had his wife on his knee in the front passenger seat then all the others were in the back seat. ( good thing there is no law in Belize ha)

The air con in the truck was not working so the windows all fogged up and the driver could not see anything. On top of that the rain was so heavy even if he could see out the window he wouldn’t have been able to see through the rain. So the brother in the front passenger seat was wiping the fog off the window so the driver could see a little and his wife had to open the window and hang her head out, yelling back to the driver to go left or right a little or go straight and when to turn etc.

On arriving at the hotel most of them were soaking wet as the window had been down the whole way so they may as well have sat in the trailer anyway. They all laughed about it and had fun anyway.

Again all I can say is just as well there is no law in Belize!

THE FRIGHT OF MY LIFE!!!!

I was at a bible study of mine the other day and we were talking away after the study. We had
talked about everything under the sun and were generally have a great time.

She explains to me how she is having some people around for dinner in a few weeks and that she is going to make them some traditional Belizean food as they are from Nicaragua.

She asks me if I have ever tried Cows foot soup. I tell her yes I have, it was the very first thing I had for dinner in Belize. She was delighted to hear this.

Then to my absolute horror, she excitedly informs me that she is going to make some extra and save it just for me!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just smiled and said how lovely that would be, but she really didn’t have to go to so much trouble. That it would be difficult for me to get it home without spilling it, bla bla bla bla. I tactfully managed to get out of that one, phew!

Oh man I got the fright of my life that day and no spider or scorpion was involved!

FUNNY THINGS THAT GO BY

I have to tell you all of some of the funny things we see here. These things are all very common to us now and we often don’t even notice them anymore.

You can be sitting down in an area surrounded by concrete and then suddenly a huge crab will just wander sideways past your feet. Or you ride down the road and have to swerve around the giant crab that is crossing the road. At first we would grab each other and say, check this out, and watch for ages, now we just say, there goes a crab.

Driving home on the bus, we had to stop while a bunch of horses crossed the road. We were on the main highway at the time, but the horses have right of way. Or while in the middle of Belize City we see a horse walking along, all by itself. While driving home from Belize City we pass 5 horses asleep on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Again now we just say, there goes a horse.

The scorpions that walk through the house. I remember the first time I saw one I nearly died right there on the spot. My heart jumping out of my chest, adrenaline pumping through my veins. Now one will walk past centimeters from my foot and I just say to Dave, there goes a scorpion.

Massive bread and butter sized spiders that pop unexpectedly out from nowhere and run across you toes as you sit outside, even inside sometimes. Now we just say, there goes a spider.

The people constantly trying to break into our house in the night, even three guys at one time. Now we hear a noise and go to see what it is and say there goes a burglar.

These are just a few of the things that at first amazed us as to us it was rare to see if ever, but now we are so used to seeing the unusual we don’t even notice.

THE BARKING SPIDER!

Today we were wandering along the street and we heard this very strange noise. It sounded very similar to a dogs bark. We listened again and then there it was. This spider ran across in front of us making this weird barking kind of noise. It was running so fast unless you heard it coming you would have missed it.

So it turns out that we got to see and hear a very rear spider. Its called an African Barking Spider. Its only around at certain times and they are very rare here in Belize. In some countries they abound, but not here.

We are very proud to say we have been graced by their presence. If only we had the camera we could have take a picture of one. They say there aren’t many pictures of them because they are so fast. They sometimes sound as though they are in two places at once, kind of like throwing your voice. Amazing!

I will keep an ear for them again, you just never know when you might hear a Barking Spider.

THE WEATHER IS CHANGING

Its now mid to late October and we have been here for 5 months, man time flys! The locals have been saying that the weather starts to get cooler toward the end of the year and with this in mind we have been wondering if we would notice the change.

Well I have, not sure about Dave, he thinks the current temp is just perfect. I though am starting to get very cool and have been wearing long pants and occasionally breaking out a long sleeve t-shirt too!

While on the internet the other day we looked at the current temp and saw that it was 32 degrees, this was at 8pm and there I was with my long pants on and goose bumps on my arms! (true story)

Still not that much rain considering it’s the rainy season, which when it comes is quite refreshing. The days are normally long and extremely hot. Top it off with the fact that we bike everywhere from dawn till dusk, we arrive home covered in sweat, quite delightful really, NOT!

When there is no rain for weeks on end the roads which are mostly dirt get very dusty and when a car goes by it showers you not with water but clouds of dust. This is also delightful, NOT! So its after periods with no rain for weeks that we all start hanging out for the rain, even just a little would be nice. Even me with my polar bear exterior cant wait to be cooled down a little.

So yes the cooler weather is approaching and soon it will be cold. We are adapting to the weather very well and now don’t think its that hot now at all. Even on days when the locals are dying from the heat we aren’t doing too badly, that’s good, but not good when it gets cooler as we then think we are dying of frost bite, well okay its not that bad. Funny how quickly the body can adapt to new surroundings.

THE BURNING BOAT!

So we are sitting at the “café” (where we get internet) and suddenly Dave says “look at that, what it is?” We both sit there looking at what looks like flames way out on the horizon.

Slowly its getting bigger and Dave exclaims that it must be a boat on fire.

Then it all becomes clear. What we can see “burning” was in fact the moon rising! It was bright orange at first glimpse and huge and as it rose it slowly morphed from orange to gold to light yellow to cream and then finally to its brilliant white, taking on its normal size along the way.

The moon was full and a gem hanging upon nothing. The light from it glistened across the surface of the Caribbean as though guiding us. I couldn’t help but think of PS119:105.

Since we have been here we have been hoping that we will be at the beach at the right time to see the moon rise and there it was before us. Stunning!!

A VERY FULL MOON

As we were biking toward Pelican Beach to sit on the pier and eat our dinner we realized how full the moon was and wondered what it would look like from the beach. This we were soon to find out.

On approaching the beach we could see the moon sneaking a peak at us through the fronds of the palms. Full and bright it was, sending beams of light toward us. Our view changed with each step, giving only more appreciation.

We sat with our feet dangling in the water, surrounded by towering palm trees swaying softly in the breeze. The sound of the Caribbean waters gently lapping the sandy shore tickling our ears.

For ages we sat there just staring up at the bright night sky. The stars gleaming, the bright moon standing resolute among them. Awe inspiring you might say, I definitely would!

Photos were taken but, they really do the sight no justice, neither do words really. We only hope our memories can contain such delights.

As we left we hoped that we would be there one night to see the moon rise from behind the vast sea. One can only hope.

TRANSLATOR PLEASE!

Check this out, its funny.

Dave was talking to a group of sister at the hall the other day. The sisters were all Belizean. Dave says to one “Hi Sister Lewis, how are you?” she says “what?” so Dave repeats himself, to which she said “what?” again. He slows down his speech and says the same thing again at which point she leans over to her daughter and asks her “what did he say” the daughter explains and then the lady answers Dave, everyone is laughing. Dave then jokingly says to her “you need a translator ha!” To this the lady again says “what?” Dave just looks at the daughter smiling. The lady leans over to her daughter asking what Dave had just said. The daughter repeats to her that Dave asked if she needed a translator,
at which point everyone in the room erupts into laughter including the sister who now finally understands.

This sister is not deaf or old, she just simply couldn’t understand a word that was coming out of his mouth!

Poor Dave, this sort of thing happens quite often to him, but he and all of us have seen the light side of life and we all just laugh at each other.

Hmm on reading this, it doesn’t really sound that funny, “I guess you just had to be there!”

SPECIAL ASSEMBLY DAY

On Oct 11 2009 we had our very first assembly to attend. It was the Special Assembly Day to be held in Punta Gorda, Belize. Punta Gorda is a seaside town just above the Guatemalan border.

We went down the day before to help with cleaning and setting up of the stage and seats etc. We had such a blast. There were brothers and sisters from all over who came to help and the atmosphere of love and unity was thick.

The COBE of Dangriga congo was given the assignment of painting the sign that held the theme scripture for the programme. This brother was struggling a little with this and when I asked him if he would like some help he was ever so grateful. So I went along after him making the edges straight and realigning the letters slightly so that it was as uniform as possible. We had to do the whole sign by free hand as there were no stencils or rulers or tape to use. I have to say it came out pretty well. The brother later told me that when he was asked to do the sign he was freaking out as he didn’t really know what he was doing, so had a quick prayer to Jehovah for help. With that I came along and offered him help, how Jehovah provides aye.

The building itself starts at the ground with tin and then thatching above that, then a small gap with nothings covering it and then the roof which is also tin. As you can imagine it can get very hot in there. Weeeel, hot it was! The day of the Assembly the sun was fierce, it beat down upon that building melting all that were within. The poor brothers with their long pants and jackets (for the stage parts) were dead on their feet. It was not a strange thing to see one go past with not a dry patch on his shirt. There were even brothers that did not have speaking parts that were wearing light colored pants, this was not a good idea as even the butts of the brothers were soaking wet from sweat. You could not tell this with the brothers with the dark pants on, but the light pants, oh dear!

The speakers were all very good and the interviews and demos were wonderful. I have videoed 90% of these so I can share some of the experiences with you all. There were a number of ones from our congo that were interviewed so it will be nice to show you them too. Kind of an introduction of sorts.

The night before the Assembly we went out to dinner with some of the brothers and sisters. The place we went sit out over the water and in the distance you can see lights from both Guatemala and Honduras! This night there was a massive storm and the thunder was shaking the building we were in! No kidding either. The rain was so heavy you could have sworn someone was out side dropping buckets of water on the roof. One of the brothers was saying that back in his hotel room, when the lightening would flash it would arch inside the room over the walls where the appliances were! Hmmmm how safe that is I don’t even want to wonder! Don’t tell Marlene about that part!

All in all, we had a wonderful time. It really shows that even though we are on the other side of the world, Jehovahs organization is exactly the same. We were taught the same things we used the same books, even the program was exactly the same! Don’t think you can say that about many other religions.

This has given us a little taste to keep us going for a while again and we cant wait until we go to Ladyville in Jan for the District Convention. I don’t think I will have to paint any signs for that one, well not yet anyway.

A SIGHT TO BEHOLD!

I just had to tell you all about this one.

I was out in Pamona village doing studies on Friday and before heading home I was waiting for the bus. (No rain this time!) The sun was setting behind the mountains and the sky was clear apart from one or two whispy clouds guilded in pink and gold. A glow rested just above the high grass waving slowing in the breeze.

As I look out over this beautiful sight my eye catches something glorious.

Flittering just above the grass were hundreds and hundreds of dragon flies. The setting sun was catching the wings of the Dragon Flies, winking golden lights across the field. Gracefully bobbing from one grass head to the other.

All I could do was sit there in awe of another of Jehovahs creations. If only a camera could do this sight justice.

I love the end of the day here, especially out in the valley as the land comes alive with all this little creatures. They have no idea how wonderful they are or the joy they can bring onlookers, what a sight to behold!

IT ALL STARTED WITH THE CRAB

Im sitting out on our porch the other night and something moving caught my eye. On further inspection it was one of the many rather large crabs that wander through the section (forgot to mention them in the animal blog). I watched it until it disappeared into the shadows.

A while later after going inside we suddenly hear this scuffling, banging, crashing, scrapping noise on the corrugated iron outside the window. We thought, here we go someone trying to look in the window. But nooooooooo.

The noise carried on and on until we finally thought we had better investigate what was making such a racket. Dave exclaims when I arrive that a cat had just caught the crab that was wandering around. We tried to see it but could not for lack of light. Dave goes and sits back down again, not having to attack anyone with the machete tonight. I however was still curious.

I went inside and got our little torch and went exploring as now I could hear this crunching noise. I thought to myself, surely cats don’t eat crab here!

I snuck around the corner all stealth like so as not to frighten the cat away. I found a good spot and shone the torch back and forth in the general direction of the noise, fully expecting to catch a greedy cat in the act with crab all over its face. But Nooooooooooo.

I shone the torch and there it was, caught in the light, not a greedy cat at all, but a large Opossum that visits each night! He has to be the ugliest, mangy looking thing Ive seen in a long time. He looks up at me with this, “oh a moon” look on his face then shys away like he didn’t want his photo taken. In his little paws was a very crushed very munched very dead crab. Now that I was not expecting!

I watched him for a while and called Dave to come see the “cat”. We just cracked up laughing as we had just been saying to each other that we wonder what land crabs eat! We still don’t know but we sure know what the Opossums eat!

I tell you from our porch there is all sorts of strange wild life entertainment, something we will really miss!

AND THE RAIN CAME DOWN!

So I was out in the village of Pamona Newsite the other day after an 11 hour day of bible studies (no I’m not kidding or exagerating).

Im standing at the little bus shelter waiting patiently for the bus to come along. I had about 20 mins to wait. As I was looking around I noticed that there were some rather larger extremely black clouds building on the horizon. I think to myself, man I hope that bus gets her soon, cos Im gonna get wet if that keeps coming!

Im waiting and waiting and still no bus but the clouds are now massive and the sky has turned black around me. Next thing I hear is the pitter patter of rain drops creeping closer and closer. The they are upon me. At fist not too heavy but wet, yes. Within just a moment the rain is pelting down and coming in sideways under the shelter. It is now so heavy that I have to move to the very far corner of the shelter that has no sides to try and get some kind of protection from the rain. Still no bus.

The rain now is no longer falling in droplets, its falling by the bucket and slicing right under the shelter and right across my back. Im not getting too wet just yet but if I have to stand there much longer I will be quite wet.

While standing there, hearing the rain get heavier and heavier Im wondering how Im going to get from the shelter out to the roadside to alert the bus to stop and pick me up without getting absolutely soaked. It appears that there is no chance of that! With that the bus rounds the corner in the distance and I have to make a mad dash for the road. I had not stepped even a whole pace before I was a drowned rat.

The rule in Belize is that if you are getting on the bus, you have to wait for the people to get off before you can get on. Makes sense right, WELL NOT WHEN YOU’RE THE ONE STANDING THE TROPICAL DOWNPOUR!!!!

Anyway….. I get beckoned onto the bus and don’t have to wait for others to get off, how kind of them. But even in the short space from the bus shelter to the bus, I managed to get every little possible speck of dry on me, absolutely drenched to death. Am talking you have never so wet in your life wet. When I took my seat I was glad the I had the seat to myself as I was so wet there were little rivers running off me in all directions. I ran my hands over my hair at least 10 times and every time great streams of water would run down my back and onto the seat. I ended up sitting in a puddle or water that felt as though it was at least a foot deep, well okay that’s an exaggeration maybe it was only a cm deep! A foot sounds better though.

I have to say that I was laughing my head off and thinking to myself how different it was here to home. Not that you can make comparisons, but I couldn’t help but think that at home I would have just sat in the car and waited for the rain to stop before getting out. Or how I would have just driven the car around instead of having to catch the bus in the rain. I really did laugh and believe me so was everyone on the bus! At least I wasn’t the only wet rag on the bus.

The funniest thing, well now its funny, was that in town there had been no rain at all, so Dave was perfectly dry looking at me like I was a freak walking to the door dripping from had to toe, oh and so were the locals!!!!

So yeah, that was my day last Wednesday, how was yours?

WLDLIFE

Some of you might be wondering what type of wild life we have around here, well heres a little list of some of the animals that frequent our house and property.

In the house:
- Scorpions!
- Geckos
- Massive wolf spiders
- Ants teeny tiny and HUGE
-Rather large silver fish that actually look like little fish
- Oh yeah and then there’s that Rat we had to kill


Outside the house:
- A white owl
- A strange looking pointy nosed opossum
- Squirrels
- Hummingbirds
- Spiders again and geckos and more and more and more ants big and small
- Parakeets
- A chicken hawk!
- A great big iguana
- Beautiful butterflies
- Big turkey vultures


So folks, that’s just some of the wildlife we get to see from our porch each night and on the wall if you happen to open your eyes in the night.

Sometimes we have bets on which way the Opossum will go when it run along the top of the fence, left or right or straight ahead, it’s exciting stuff folks!

Still waiting on seeing a real live Toucan , but will keep you posted.

CELINE DION??????

So the local entertainment here is Karaoke. Yes that’s right! The very very sad thing is that there is no one here who can actually sing! Therefore most nights of the week there is a Karaoke group somewhere close by and if you like it or not you have the wonderful privilege of listening to it, yippee.

But wait there’s more! The only songs they seem to have on the selection ore high pitched Celine Dion song, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Not only do you have no choice but to listen to it, but you have to be subjected to murder by voice over and over again, yippee I say again.

HIDE AND SEEK

Today some of the neighbourhood kids came by to play with us. I organised a game of Hide and Seek for them. It was hilarious!

There is one kid who has just turned six (Garreth and Lisa, this is little Jaheem from across the road). He has the most delightful giggle you will ever hear. He doesnt really understand the rules yet so this makes for an interesting game.

When he goes to hide, he manages to stay quiet for about 10 seconds then erupts into this giggling fit. He cant stay still in one place for more then 15 seconds so he leaves his perfectly good hiding place and runs out into the open, where of course he gets caught!

Another little girl who plays, runs and hides and waits patiently for the counting to stop and the seeking to start. The counter then calls, "ready or not here I come" she then answers him by saying, "okay, Im ready"! Of course in doing so, she gives her hiding place away!

This happens every time and she and Jaheem cannot figure out how they keep getting caught! Its so cute and funny. You just have to laugh right along with them.

They are having fun and thats the main thing!

Rules are made to be broken after all!!!

I BAKED TODAY!!!!!

I had my first attempt at baking cookies here the other day, hmmm that was funny since i didnt have an oven try or anything! I used good ol, Kiwi Ingenuity and made one out of tin foil, worked quite well i have to say! The biscuits, however we another thing.

They werent burnt or anything, in fact they came out looking quite good although a little pale. They tasted alright too but i feel there was something missing in them. I think next time i will put more golden syrup in them and see if that makes a difference.

It was funny though, cos inside our house during the day its boiling hot, add to that the heat from the oven and you have more than any sauna you would pay to sit in! Oh man, I had so much sweat running off me it was quite ridiculous, hmm on second thought maybe thats why the biscuits tasted funny! Nah, just kidding. Normally i dont sweat a whole lot, so for me to be nothing but a great big pile a sweat is something. Yuck yuck yuck!

I will have another go when I feel i can brave the heat in there again. Man i wish i could bottle the heat and send to you all so you could feel what its like.

Garreth and Lisa, Im sure you know exactly what I mean!

HOW THEY RIDE HERE.

Here in Belize, most people get around on push bikes, there are somecars around but they are very expensive to buy.

We saw this lady go by on a bike the other day, try to imagine this:

The lady is sitting on the seat, on EACH hip there is a small child maybe about 1-2 yrs old,standing on the bar in the middle is another little boy, then there is another boy sitting on the handle bars. The boy that is standing and occasionally the lady are steering the bike!

Oh man I could not believe my eyes! Thats 5 people on a push bike!!! Anyone game to try that??

A Snakes Tale

We were at one of my studies on Wednesday. Her house is up on a steep hill and we sit outside under a huge tree over looking the valley. It is just magnificent from up there, you can see for miles. Anyway, during the study out the corner of my eye I see something move. I look a little closer to see a Coral Snake (only one of the most poisonous snakes here? go slithering off into the long grass. This no longer bothers me as its a fairly common occurrence at this study. Man I have seen some weird animals up there!

Also during the study some of the little kids were playing in the sand behind us, only a few feet from where we were sitting. Suddenly one of the kids comes over holding this little egg. She shows it to us. The sister I was with thought that it was an iguana egg but Anna the student says rather tensely, "No its a snake egg"! Neato!!!! Then next thing the kids start hauling all these eggs out of the ground. About 10-15 in total. Some of them even have these tiny little snakes hatching out of them!

The kids find great delight in killing them all and smashing the eggs. This of course is very wise as they are tiny little versions of the Coral Snake I had just seen. We tell the kids to stop digging and leave as the mother snake might still be there under the surface of the sand. If she saw what the kids were doing to her eggs she would attack and defend her nest. (When was the last time you had this problem at one of our bible studies?) The kids just ignored us and carried on anyway. I guess in their world this is quite normal and the do this all the time.

The stink thing was that right at the start of the study I had taken my camera out to take a photo of the beautiful view and for some reason it would not work. It turned on but I couldnt get it to take a photo or turn it off, nothing. I was really worried, thinking, great now we have to camera for the rest o our visit! So when all this drama erupted I had no camera to photograph it!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so annoyed.

How often do you have a snake nest next to you, not every day!

Strange Events!

We saw this guy the other day that was walking down the road with this weird looking animal on a leash. As we got closer we see that its actually a Racoon! Yes that’s right. It was quite happily walking along like it was a dog, it was the strangest thing.

Oh yeah then there was the day. There was a guy riding his bike in front of us and then suddenly the sack that he had over the handle bars fell off onto the road. The sack starts moving around and almost getting up and walking away! What on earth was happening we thought. Next thing a chicken sticks its head out the top of the bag! Believe it or not, thats not that uncommon here! Just uncommon where we come from!

The Innocence Of Youth

Well this was a funny experience I had with a little girl the other day. She is about 7yrs old.

We were studying the bible stories book and were doing the story about Adam and Eve being put in the garden of Eden. I asked her if she would like to live in a beautiful place like that? To my surprise she shakes her head no! I asked her why she wouldn’t want to live there. She points to the lions and says “its not safe to live there, the animals will hurt you”. I then told her that in Gods new world, children and animals will live together and that no one even the children will have to fear the animals. She looks at me with these wide eager eyes and says “ What did you say?” I said it again and she says “are you serious? Promise!” I said “ yes I promise and so just does Jehovah”. She then looks sideways at me with this funny look on her face and holding her little finger out to me asks me to “pinky swear” on it!

How cute is that!!! I have to say that is the first time I have had to pinky swear on the bible! I thought you would all enjoy that experience of the innocence of youth.

PELICAN BEACH

So this is how we spend a night each week.

We get on our trusty bikes and ride down the road towards Pelican Beach. This is a lovely spot where Dangrigas only real resort is (Its not really that flash or resort like but it is nicer than most other places).

On the way there we go past a place called Amigos, this is a little shed on the side of the road where you can buy fried chicken, Belizean style for $3! We grab two of these and carry on up the road to the beach.

At the beach, there is a pier that heads out over the Caribbean Sea. At the end is a hut with no sides and three hammocks hanging under it. This is where we sit and eat our chicken, mmmmmm paradise you might say.

Sometimes we sit in the hammock and other times we sit with our feet swinging in the warm waters of the Caribbean. From here we look out over the town of Dangriga and in the distance we can see storms raging on the horizon. The storms are often so far away that you cannot hear the thunder, just see the lightening. It is quite beautiful. Most nights there is a storm out there somewhere, so we can watch it from a far. Most nights also there is a pink tinge to the sky as the sun sets on the opposite coast to us. This lights up all the sky in the most magical way. I have put a little picture of our spot on here for you, so you can imagine us sitting there. Don’t get jealous now!

PLACENCIA

We were asked by a brother and sister the other day if we would like to come with them to a place called Placencia. We had heard of it and seen photos that Garreth and Lisa Collard had shown us from their trip so we were very excited to be going there. Rene and Teri had asked us to go and Mandy also came along with us.

We piled into their pickup truck and headed off. Dave and I never having been there had no idea what the road would be like and thus it became quite an adventure. I wish we could have a permanent camera rolling so you could all experience what we have been.

Most of the way the road was good by Belizean standards. We headed toward a bridge that was washed away some time ago in a massive flood that came down the valley. There is now a couple of planks really that span the river that you very carefully drive over! Neato! We made it safely to the other side. On we went again. We drove past some of the cutest little villages where the kids would run along waving at us. We past banana plantations, orange groves and vast jungle type bush. We then turned off the main highway into the road out to Placencia.

This was where the fun began! They are trying to pave this road, which is taking years and as a result of all the huge trucks travelling the road there are now massive holes and ruts all along it. Just as well we were in a four wheel drive! There has been no real rain in weeks and thus the road is extremely dusty. The points where we were travelling directly behind a truck were ridiculous, you could not see at all to pass them and the road was so rubbish you couldnt pass in any kind of a hurry either. Here we would take life into our hands and hope that there was no one coming and that they we travelling just as slow as we were! Neato again! We reach the tip of the Placencia spit and man is it beautiful!

On either side of us only meters away is crystal clear water! Placencia is at the very end of a spit that is not wide at all. It is lined with palm trees swaying in the gentle breeze.

This is quite a tourist spot but the wonderful thing is that it is no commercialised at all. There is a Gellato ice cream place which I have to say we went to TWICE! mmmmmm.

We had chicken nachos with a block of cheese on it for lunch. The little place we ate at was right on the beach so we had an exquisite view of the Caribbean from our table. We then went and sat on the beach and watched Dave and Rene swim in the warm water! How weird is that. The water really is warm, like a lukewarm bath! It is however still cooler than out of the water so still somewhat refreshing.

We spent the day here just relaxing and wandering through the quaint little shops. We have decided that we will make a trip there every few months to have a break from the very busy pace of life we now lead, he he he

We will try and put some pictures up for you all, but the "cafe" does not have good speed, so this could be a problem. We will see what we can do.

All in all, we had a wonderful day, good company, great view, great food, the good life!

INTERNET CAFE

Howdy all,

Been crazy busy the last few weeks and we have had a little trouble emailing etc.

Here is the story of our "internet cafe".

To check our emails here in Belize we go to the educational centre which is right on the beach (Garreth and Lisa, its the one behind the market next to the social security building). If you go there after business hours you can tap into their wifi connection for free. Yay free internet. The speed is not very good but its free and at least we can send and receive emails. Most of the locals come down here to use the "net"too. The staff are quite happy for people to do this, so we will use and abuse it along with the locals.

Picture this:

We put on our backpacks and get on our bikes. We ride through town waving and saying "goodnight" to the locals (thats what they say hear after about 6pm as a normal greeting, it feels weird saying it when Im not about to go to bed). We ride over the river and head off behind the market. We ride toward the beach with the sea breeze blowing in our faces, delightful! We come around the corner and often find one or two other people already at the internet spot. We see the same people most of the time so we all know each other quite well now. We all sit in a long row along the top of the stairs tapping away on our keyboards. Little giggles erupt among us every now and then as we each read funny things we have been sent. In fact we must all look quite hilarious sitting out there with the wind blowing on us and only the light from our computers lighting us up.

We have named this spot our "internet cafe" or "Cafe", so if you hear me mention that, now you know what Im talking about.

We would love to hear from you all, as we miss everyone heaps. We have heard from a couple of ya, but would love to hear from more.

Take care you guys, may Jah bless you all!

Today I was off to visit Whitney again, again she was not home. This time a young lady comes out. I have spoken to this lady a couple of times before but not about the truth just about whether Whitneys is home or not. So I decide to talk to her about the truth. I see her more than I see Whitney, so why not.

I ask if she has seen Miss Ann’s or Whitneys book? She says "Yes I’ve seen my mums one but she loves it so much she won’t let her read it." I said "well that’s okay, you can have your own one if you like". She accepts a copy too.

I asked her the six questions in the front of the book and ask if she has ever wondered any of them. She said she had wondered them all but that she would really like to know what happens when we die. I ask what she had been taught. She said she had been taught that if you are good you go to heaven and if you are bad then you go to hell and burn forever.

We go and sit around the side of the house in the shade and we get out the bible and the teach book and see if we can find the answer. She said she worries where some of her friends and family are because you don’t really know if they have been good or not so maybe they are in hell and she wonders what will happen to her if she dies, will she have been good enough not to burn in hell. Also here in Belize there is the Garifuna culture where they believe that the dead can come back and hurt you, so she worries about that too.

This is how our discussion went.

We read par 5 and 6 from chapt 6 in the teach book. I say to her. "What we will do is get the bible out and have a read of these scriptures and then see what the bible teaches about the condition on the dead.

Let’s read Ecc 9:5, 6, 10" So she read them. I ask "So what do the living know will happen to them at some point?" "They will die" she says. "Right" I say "so what does the bible say the dead are conscious of?" "Nothing" she says. I then say "If you were to go to heaven or hell do you think you would know about it?" Definitely, what would be the point of going there is you didn’t know you were there?" she says. "That’s exactly right" I say, "so if the dead are conscious of nothing then how would they know they were in heaven or hell, they wouldn’t would they?" "No" she says nodding.

"Now let’s look at Ps 146:4 and see what it says. She reads this one too. I ask "so what does the bible say happens to our thoughts when we die" "They perish" she says. I ask "so what does that mean?" "That they can’t think or know anything" she says. I agree with her. I go on to say "so we have seen that the bible teaches that we all die but that when we die we cease to exist, we are conscious of nothing at all and that our thoughts perish. It’s just like a candle, when you flick out the flame it just disappears, it doesn’t go anywhere, and it’s just gone. So let’s see what Jesus said about death in the next paragraph".

She reads par 7 about the account of Lazarus. We also use the bible again to read the account of Lazarus and I ask, "What did Jesus say about death here?" She replies, "He said that Lazarus was asleep". "That’s right" I say "now lets look at Acts 7:60 and see what it says" This is the script about Stephen being stoned to death and saying that he fell asleep in death. We also read 1 Cor 15:6 which also says that some faithful ones had fallen asleep in death. I ask "so what does the bible compare death to?" "To sleep" she says with wide eyes, she then exclaims "but if we go nowhere when we die why do we die?"

So we skip over to par 9-11 which talks about Satan deceiving Eve and then Adam etc, I explain that if a cake tin has a dent in it all the cakes will have dents too, that’s the same with us and imperfection. Cheyanne then laughs and says "so we are all dented with imperfection!"
I go on to ask how long Adam and Eve were supposed to live, forever of course, so if they did not sin where would they be today? Still alive here on earth we say at the same time. Her eyes get wide again and she says ‘so that’s why we die!?" "Yes" I said.

"Now look at Gen 3:19 and see what it says about what happens when we die" She reads this too. "So what happens to the body when it dies?" I ask. "It just goes back to the ground, so there is nothing scary about hell there!" she says. This time I say "That’s right. When you think about what you were taught about heaven and hell. Where would you have said Adam and Eve went, to heaven or hell?" "I would have said hell for sure, but the bible said that they just went back to the dust where they had come from, no mention of heaven or hell!"

Then all of a sudden she goes off on a rant that went something like this, I can’t remember all she said but this is pretty close, "I can’t believe that the Garifuna people and all these other religions teach that about hell. Why God that loves us, even the bad ones would put anyone in hell and burn them forever. Why would anyone teach that? It’s not even in the bible, I don’t understand, why would anyone do that, it’s terrible!" She went on for quite some time to herself about this. This young lady is about 17-19 I think and amazed me with her reasoning skills.
So I go back and ask her again. "What does the bible really teach about the condition of the dead?" She explains back to me using the bible herself this time just what she has learnt. The bible does not teach the when you die we all go to heaven or hell. It teaches that God is Love and that he would never torment not even people who hate him in hell. That when we die we are conscious of nothing and that we simply go back to the ground from where we were taken. There is nothing confusing or scary about this teaching, which makes sense when you think about our loving God. He wants us to understand him.

There is also not really any other way to interpret those scriptures, maybe you could if only one scripture said that, but not when the bible is full of them and we had only looked at a few of them. I asked Cheyanne how she felt knowing this. She exclaimed "I feel so much happier. I don’t have to worry about any dead person hurting me and I don’t have to worry what will happen to me when I die. I know what the bible teaches know, I know what Jesus said about death now. I feel so much better!" She held her bible to her chest, just as her mother had done a few days before and thanked God for showing her the truth.

What a wonderful experience. She then went on to ask if there was any hope for the dead, so we will discuss that next time I go for her study.

She said she can’t wait to tell her mother that she is studying the same book.

I can only imagine the wonderful talks they will have together musing over the new things they learn.

AMAZING EXPERIENCE!!

Have been having some awesome experiences, here is one.

I had the first study with a young lady in this house but have since not been able to get her home. However, when I went there the other day a lady came out with this strange look on her face. I thought "oh, Imp going to be told off or something" I explained who I was and why I was there and she just looks at me and says "are you the one that gave Whitney that little yellow book?" Yes I said thinking again that she was going to tell me to go away and not to bother her family. Turns out Whitney is going out with this Lady Ann’s son. She goes on to say "I’m so pleased to find you. I saw Whitney’s book and fell in love with it. I didn’t know where she got it though and I wanted one. I even thought about just taking it and pretending it had gone missing!" I laughed and handed her, her very own copy of the "teach" book. She literally jumped up and down in enjoyment!

She then went on to explain that she is a teacher in a Catholic school and that for some time had not been feeling good about what she had seen going on at the school. She explained that they teach the kids the 10 commandments but that the church has taken out the command not to worship idols! This would make 9 commands you would think. But to combat that they have taken one of the other commands and split in to two so it still appears there are 10. I was amazed at hearing this, she was quite distressed that this and other things have been going on. She explained some other things and my jaw dropped again. Her words were "I can’t believe that they claim to teach the truth from the bible but they don’t even use it, and if they do they change it to suit themselves". She was very angry about this, but did not know what to do.
When she saw the teach book she could see how often the bible was used in it and was delighted at the prospect of being able to see what the bible says about different matters. But of course she could not take it from Whitney.

She asked me if I could help her to pray as she had been having difficulty doing so. I showed her Matt 6:7 which clearly says, not to be saying the same thing over and over, I then showed her the rest of the chapter which talks about the model prayer and that this was meant to be a guide as to how to pray, not something that should be said over and over. We then looked at Ps 65:2 that Jehovah is the hearer of prayer, then John 14:6 and 14 which say that we must approach Jehovah in prayer through the name of Jesus Christ and then 1 John 3:22 which says whatever we ask in accord with God will, will be given us. I explained what this all meant and how it would help when she formulated her own heartfelt prayers to God. She was so excited.

I asked if she had her own bible, to which she said no as she has never had to use one at her church! She asked if I could get one for her. "Of course" I said, "but until then would you like me to write down the scriptures we just read so you can look them up again when you get a bible of your own". She says"well do you have one now?" I said "not on me no, but I do have one at home I can get for you". She says "can you please go get it now, I have learnt so much already that I want to be able to read more, right now! I have been hungry for a friendship with God and feel I can have one now" So off I went. I came back in about 10 mins with a new bible for her. Again when she received it she literally jumped with joy, she had tears in her eyes, she was so thankful and excited. She clutched it to her chest and would not stop thanking me.

She then asks me to come inside as she has some more questions she would like to ask. We go inside and about three hours later I leave. In that time she asked, where are the dead and can they hurt us? What is judgment day? Does the bible teach that the wicked go to hell and burn forever? Could I explain the Trinity and much more? I made a point of using the bible to answer all her questions so she could see that I wasn’t making things up and that she could trust what she was learning because she read it in black and white in the bible. This was very important to her, because she has seen over the years religions claim to base their beliefs on the bible but not using the bible to prove them.

Very quickly you could see the relief in her face when she learnt that Ecc 9:5,6,10 say the dead are conscious of nothing, so how could they know they were in heaven or hell anyway. Asked her where we were before we were born? Were we somewhere else waiting to be born? Of course not. So then when we die we don’t go of somewhere either, we go back to being nothing as we were before birth. Death is the opposite of life. I showed her Act 7:60 and 1 Cor 15:6 that refer to death as sleep. Then showed her Gen 3:19 which says that we came from the dust, so back to the dust we go in death.

She was amazed that nowhere in the bible does the teaching of hellfire exist and that even the Catholic Encyclopedia states that the Trinity is not a bible based teaching that is based on man made doctrine from hundreds of years ago, that the word Trinity doesn’t even appear in the bible once! This was blowing her mind.

She learnt from the bible that the wicked do not burn in hell but that they are asleep in death as are most who have died, she learnt that the bible teaches in John 5:28,29 that our dead loved ones will be bought back to life right here on earth when it is a paradise again as God originally purposed for Adam and Eve. That there are 9 examples of this in the bible, none of which mentioned they had just been bought back to the earth from heaven. She also learnt what judgment day is.

I could see that strange look on her face again and asked what she was thinking. She said "I can’t believe I have been teaching these thing, it’s so clear the bible doesn’t not teach them!" I agreed with her. She then said "this is why you must use the bible to prove what you believe. Sometimes we just think that we would never be lied to by our churches and that priest would always tell the truth. But if they have never been shown the truth, how can they teach it" We spoke some more and she thanked me for showing her from the bible the answers to her questions.

We arranged a time to go through the Teach book and she wanted to know if I could come twice a week as once would not be often enough.

I went home and told Dave all about her and how excited I was that the bible has the power to reach the heart of rightly disposed ones. I also said to Dave "I wonder what she will do. As she learns more she find other things re not quite right either, will she stop or will she keep going?"
The next day I went to visit Whitney again, but again she was not there. Ann came out again all excited, she says "I have not been able to put that book and my bible down. I have marked and read all the scriptures in the first three chapters. I went down and bought a note book, I have written all the scriptures in it along with the main points from the book and when school starts again (its holidays here) I’m going to use my note book and that book and my bible to teach the kids what I have learnt. I have been teaching those kids lies and they need to know the truth!" I said "well that’s brave of you, but you might get in real trouble for doing that" She just said "I don’t care. I have found the truth in the bible and that’s what those kids need to be told, not lies."

She asked me if we had any books specifically designed for children of all ages that she could use in class. I told her about the Great Teacher, the Bible Stories and the Young People Ask books and said she was welcome to as many of them as she needed. She asked if I could bring back one of each so she could look at them. This I did and she took the YPA book for her teenage children at home and will have a look at the others for the younger children at school.

Miss Ann got rushed to America the next day as she had pressing family issues to deal with and wont be back until the 6th Aug. I will eagerly await her return so I can share more good news with her and you readers. There is now another part to this experience with Cheyenne, Miss Ann’s daughter. That I will explain next.

What a wonderful privilege it is to know the truth, it really does set you free! John 8:32

NOT JUST YET!

Sometimes I would wonder at home why Jehovah has not brought an end to this system yet. There is so much apathy. Now I can see why. There are so many new ones flooding into the truth in Mexico, Central and South America its crazy, in fact quite hard to believe.

An experience we heard the other day was from one of the remote areas of Mexico. They were saying at an assembly how much the work is expanding there and they said " In our area there were no English congregations 8 years ago and now there are 85!" the audience yelled and clapped with excitement. Then he said "5 years ago there were no Spanish congregations in our area, now there are 1100!" the audience was speechless and all mouths were open.

Can you believe that!! I too sat there with my mouth open when we were told. Isn’t that amazing?! Yes there is a lot to do and Jehovah really does have all things in hand and really does know when the right time will be.

Sobering thought though, ha.

GRADING BIBLE STUDIES

There are so many people wanting to study the bible here you literally can not fit them all in your week. So this is what you do. You have to grade a persons interest. If they show interest but not "enough" then you dont go back! Can you believe that??? How strange, it feels so wrong! It is quite true though that there is a very big difference between those with real interest and those with extreme interest. If they mark their book and are always there for the study and look like they will start coming to the meetings, then you keep going, if not, you stop and start with someone that will! Man that is hard to get used to.

In the congregation at the moment there are 219 studies being conducted by 42 active publishers, that’s an average of about 5 studies per person!

Regardless of the amount of studies, we still had a part on the meeting the other night about the need to support the day we simply offer bible studies. Can you imagine what happens when the congo goes out and just offers studies? Well NZ you would get very little response, but here 90% of the people you ask want to study.

Its best to demonstrate a study right then and there as we still have problems getting people home again, but again, if they are really interested they will make sure they are there when you make an appointment.

So one of the main challenges we have here is being able to study with all the people who want to. Imagine having that problem! That though can be quite worrying, as we are concerned about the lives of these people and it just isn’t possible to teach the truth to them all. That’s where you trust in Jehovah’s ability to read peoples hearts. If they are so inclined he will draw them to the truth regardless. That I think is the biggest stress here!

My how different things are!

CULTURE SHOCK?

Not really suffering from culture shock at all, although we are suffering from withdrawals from how readily available things are in NZ. Here if you want something you have to walk or get on your bike a ride into town to get it, that is of course if they havent just sold
out of what you wanted. That happens all the time.

Here in an idea of what the cost of things are there.
Butter comes in a can (made in NZ) and costs about $8-10! Its not even a kg.
A big packet of chips ranges from $7-12.
A box of corn flakes $8.
A tiny tub of ice cream $3 if you want 2 ltrs of ice cream be prepared to pay $15-20.
1kg of tomato sauce $6.
250grms of pasta $3.
We bought meat the other day. We got 2 tiny packets of schnitzel and 2 packs of mince a small roast and it cost just over $50!!

So you can imagine we are trying not to eat too much meat but you have to get iron from somewhere as buying green veges here is almost impossible. (Not that I would eat them anyway) mmmm such a lack of things green, what a shame! He he he.
Lobster however is in season and you can get a pound of fresh tails for $10. That’s great. But we still don’t eat much of that either.

Rice and beans seem to be the main meals here or beans and rice which is actually something completely different. However I have no idea what you do with the beans!

No movie theatres, no Tv, no radio, no malls, no coffee shops, no aircon, no car, nothing like that. What we do have is no stress, no hurrying, no time frames, time, lobster, laughing kids, friendly people and millions of bible studies, so really what more could you ask for?

THIS WAS A NEW ONE!

We do bible studies a little differently over here. This is what happened on the very first study I went on.

I went with a sister on a study with a 15 year old girl. We wandered along this dirt path until we got to this falling down house. Once there a lady came to the door. The daughter came out next and we went and sat under the house for our study. That might sound strange but here a lot of the houses are raised off the ground and are on stilt like things. They often sit under the house as its cooler there.

We sit down, on what? well I was perched on a pile of wood that would move each time I did, so getting down onto it and back up was quite a mission. Just as well I have good balance!
We start the study and Im looking around just generally noticing things. Over to my right I noticed there was pile of puppies, thats right, puppies. They looked like they were about 6 weeks old. They were sitting in a little hole one on top of the other, cute as pie. Every now and then one would get up and walk over between the three of us and have a wee or poo. There were about 3 or 4 dogs that lived at this house and they would wander through the study too. Then they would chase each other around our legs, hmm that was a new one! Then along came the rooster who had decided that 2pm in the afternoon was dawn and it should tell the world, so off it went, crowing at the top of his voice right behind me. Man it was so loud! After about 10 crows the rooster decides to go annoy someone else, phew. So then we do another paragraph and then the rooster comes running back through the study, why was he running? He had another rooster chasing him, thats why! They ran around and around and around us, it was hilarious. They would jump up in the air and fly a few feet and then run again. I sat there mouth open, quietly giggling to myself, while acting like this was normal for me, yeah Im an old pro this happens everyday in my world! YEAH RIGHT!

The funniest part was the study carried on like nothing had happened, that no dogs had run past, that no rooster crowed for 10 minutes, that no puppy pooed right next to my foot or that there was a rooster chase.

So yeah thats how we roll over here. Thats one for the books I think.

EXCITING NEWS

We have bikes at last!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Its like the best things since sliced bread! Another story of Jah looking after us. We have been stuffing round about what to do about getting bikes since we got here. While we were staying with our brothers we used their bikes, that was great, but we have now moved. We walked everywhere yesterday and thats how you go crazy here, Its tooooooo hot to be doing that!

People had told us about this second hand place you can buy bikes, so we look and cant find it, we ask locals and they have never heard of it. So we ask the brothers again, yeah its down there by the mango tree bla bla, you know how directions go round here. So we look again, still nothing!

We think well we will just have to buy new ones. They cost $200 each and then you need to buy a basket for the front so you can carry your bags etc. Me and my stingy self dont want to pay that so Im putting it off. Anyway we had to do something, so Saturday afternoon we go into town to a place that was recommend to us and its closed. Very strange for this time of day and week. So we go back Sunday morning and its still closed. What, we think, this is weird! We will have to wait until next week now. Anyway while out on a study Dave tells the sister about our bike dramas and she says why dont you get one from that second hand place! Daves like yeah but it doesnt exist. She said yeah it does I'll take you there. So she does and now we have bikes.
The funny part, is he is in fact a bike repair guy and doesnt normally sell bikes. He just so happens to have a ladies bike and a guys bike available today no other bikes at all! How cool was that? Better though is that he will sell them BOTH for $200 yay two for one, hand em over! He will fix them if we have any problems and is a great guy. He even gave me mangos. Oh yeah and when we leave he said that he would buy them back if they were still in good condition!

Awesome, thank you Jah, again!!!!

THE TERRITORY

There no letterboxes here and therefore no street numbers. There are often no street names either! This makes writing your calls down very difficult and directing people to the territory even harder. You kinda have to say something like this:

Go over the canal and take the second path on the left, but you might not be able to get to it that way as there was a huge puddle in front of it yesterday. Once you get into the lane go to the fourth mango tree and turn right, then find the single story house next to the two
story house but not the pink one, the white one and start from there.

Then this morning we get to the group and the brother very carefully assigns the territory but as Im listening Im thinking that sounds exactly like the territory we did on Sat morning. What do I do? Do I say something and sound like a know it all foreigner, or let us do the same territory again, or hope we are going somewhere else? I told Dave it was his job as the brother to explain, phew, got out of that one! Just as well though, as it was the same piece of territory. Mind you, here you could call on the same person ten times in one week and they wouldnt mind as long as you have a different subject each time.

Strange how different it is.

BUS ADVENTURES

Riding the bus here can be quite an experience. The buses are like the old yellow school buses you see in movies. There is hardly any space between the seats for your legs, theres no suspension so watch out for those potholes and there is often standing room only, oh yeah and their is NO air-conditioning. You dont pay when you get on the bus like you do in NZ, but you wait until the "conductor" comes around and takes the money from you. As you drive along the road there are people standing by the roadside waiting for the bus. You dont need to be at a station or even a stop, you just have to look like you need a ride and the bus will stop for you. If you need to get off the bus, you tell the conductor when you pay him where you would like to get off ie just past the burnt down house past the factory and he remembers and tells the driver to stop. So far he hasnt forgotten once where someone has needed to stop! These guys have amazing memories as they can tell which are the new people on the bus that need to pay and which ones have already paid. He remembers exactly where everyone wants to get off no problem at all. Its quite interesting to watch.

Our first bus trip was a blast as we had no idea what to expect, now we are old hands and just act like the locals. Sometimes there are people singing their hearts out, children crying, people chatting and the odd chicken here and there (thats not too common). You have to have your wits about you so that you still have bags when you get off but apart from that its quite safe. Our first ride was on an extremely hot day and as there is no air con everyone was melting. The seats are vinyl and you stick to them, that trip was 3 and a half hours long.

One brother was telling us the other day out witnessing that he was sitting next to this lady and her little baby one day. Suddenly he felt this warm wet sensation on the side of his butt. He looks over to see that the kid and peed itself all over the seat and it just so happened to roll his way! He didnt know what to do. The lady didnt even notice, so he stands up looking like he just wet is pants and now what does he do, stay standing and risk losing his seat? He could hardly sit back down, the seat was covered in pee. He just laughed and chalked it up to another Belizian bus trip.

We often meet the group in the morning at 8:30 and if there are no brothers with trucks out, we have to walk down to the bus terminal and take a bus out to the territory. This can be an adventure if you have your witnessing bag, your umbrella, your lunch bag and its raining cats and dogs. We witness to everyone at the bus station while we wait for the bus.

As part of our schedule we have a day we spend out in the Pamona/Newsite village. This is about a 15-20min bus ride for $2bze. We spend all day doing bible studies out there. There are so many studies in this village there needs to be meetings out there really. We love that day, but it can be tricky if its rainy. Everything is done on foot this day. There is often driving rain and wind and there's no car to sit in and sometimes theres no point in using an umbrella as it will blow away too. Mud and running water are everywhere on the ground and sometimes you have to jump new streams of water that block the way to your studies homes. This is stuff you read in the yearbook. Despite the inclement weather, we still have fun and you just have to laugh at yourself. The locals love that regardless of the weather you keep coming. We also find that it shows the students how important the message we have is and that they should take it just as seriously. It really does have an impact on them.

All in all we love our little bus trips and although it might be hot and sticky our message is refreshing! LOVIN IT!!!!

OUR FIRST NIGHT IN BELIZE!

Dell, our sister, looked after us well and took us to meet a family she has tea with every Friday night. We were invited for dinner too and we sat down to soup. I asked Dell, what sort of soup this sister likes to make and she told me "oh she makes chicken sometimes and sometimes beef" I thought, okay that doesn’t sound too bad. The pot came to the table with an unusual smell coming from it. As guests we have to be served first, Great! NOT! I lift the lid thinking, whats going to be under there. I put the spoon in and pull out this huge bone with what looked like wads of gooey fat hanging off it. I act like it fell off the spoon and take another reach. This time I bring up some normal looking vegetables so I put them on my plate. The soup has a strange taste but it wasn’t bad. I was looking at the bones that were coming out and on to peoples plates and thinking, "this looks like foot or something" well it was!!!!!!! We were eating COWS FOOT SOUP!!!!!!!!! Hows that for a baptism into the culture! We hadn’t even been there 3 hours and we were eating feet! I told Teri, Renee, Heike and Luis and they have been here for 3years between them and none of them have ever had to eat foot soup! That’s sooooooo very unfair!!!! And after the day we had, couldn’t it have been KFC or something!

We had a good nights sleep and had decided that we would take the bus to Dangriga rather than the plane. As we were now in no particular hurry, we had time to do the bus thing. The bus ride takes about 3 hours but it costs $20bze for both of us to travel there. To go by plane was going to cost $250bze, no comparison, so straight away we were into saving mode. The bus ride is a whole other story which you will laugh at too. We had a great time with Dell and learnt that we would meet her mother who serves in Dangriga as a Speical Pioneer. We had a good nights sleep and were lookng forward to getting to our assignment. The bus ride is to follow, stay tunned!

FLIGHT DELAY! (June 12th 2009)

Today is the 12th June and today we are due to fly to Belize. Yay!

Our flight left at 10:20am with no hicups at all, accept we weren't on it!

Long story short, we could not get to the airport at the time we needed to. We arrived at the airport 9:20am. We jump out of the truck, throw our 6 suitcases together and run into the terminal (I think I said thanks for the ride). We go straight to the self check in thingy. Its now 9:30 we punch in our details and it tells us, "Im sorry you are to late to check in please see an attendant" AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH we missed the stupid thing by 10 mins!!!!!!!

We go up to the normal check in and tell the lady what happened, shes like, whatever, "you have missed this flight we will have to try and get you on the next available flight, we can put you on standby but you might not get on that flight either". She then told me that the next flight didn’t
leave until 1:15pm! As you can imagine I was not a happy camper. We checked our bags and went through security and headed off to try and find a phone to call Teri and Renee (this is the couple picking us up in Dangriga).

The only phone we could find was a big walk and when we got there it would only take coins, which we had none of. I tried to change $2usd into coins but no one would, so we had to walk all the way back to where we came from to buy something to eat and ask for change at the same time. Finally we get some and the first phone we use eats the money and doesn’t connect the call, the 2nd phone we wouldn’t connect either but at least it gave our money back. The third phone, we think connected to Teri’s phone but then cut off as she answered, so we lost that money too! Meanwhile $4nzd had been spent and we hadn’t been able to reach anyone. We had no more money left at this point so we gave up. We had tried our best and could do no more. We just had to hope that Renee and Teri would figure things out and not panic.

We went up to the counter and told the staff we were on standby and did they have any seats. They did and we actually got reasonable seats. 12:30 and we’re sitting waiting for our flight to board and there’s an announcement. "Flight 2173 to Belize has been delayed and we will let you know when boarding will start". Well an hour went by and then another and still no boarding. Another announcement "passengers flying to Belize on flight 2173, we are experiencing delays as the plane from Dallas, which is to be used for your flight to Belize has been delayed, we expect the plane to arrive at 2:45 and we will let you know as soon as it arrives". More waiting. 2:45 comes and still no plane. 3:00, an announcement, " Thank you for your patience, the plane from Dallas has now arrived and we need to wait for the aircraft to be cleaned, as soon as that is done we will start boarding all passengers" More waiting. Another announcement, "Thank you again for your patience, we are sorry to tell you that although the plane is now clean we have no crew to fly the plane so we are trying to arrange for the crew from Dallas to take you through to Belize. We will let you know as soon as we do, when we will be boarding" 10mins later, " We are pleased to inform you that the crew from Dallas will be taking you through to Belize and we will start boarding the plane now, stating with group A". We jump up as that’s us, we get on the plane and it fills up, nothing strange there. However 20mins or so goes by and we are still on the ground. Why? Everyone is asking. Another announcement, "Hi folks, this is your captain, we're experiencing a slight delay as there is a change of ground crew and we currently don’t have anyone to help back the plane out" OKAY NOW WHAT ELSE CAN HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!!!! Soon the plane starts moving and we are on our way, the time is about 3:45pm. Only 2 and a half hours late departing that’s all. Oh that’s if you don’t count our missed flight! If you do then it was only a 5 hour 15min delay!

Time travel set in going to Belize again, as we arrived at about 3:15pm after a 1 ½ hour flight. It just so happens that because we were so delayed in leaving Miami two planes arrived in Belize at the same time. This is highly unusual as the airport is tiny and there really is only room for one flight full of people at a time inside. We all stood shoulder to shoulder like cattle in blistering heat, no air-conditioning in this part of the building. We are in the line to get to security for just over 45 minutes! (this might have been the longest wait out of all our flights) We get through customs and are hoping that our bags managed to get on the right plane, considering the standby thing and that they aren’t in Africa somewhere.

As two planes came in there was not room on the baggage carousel for all the bags so they are thrown all over the floor, piled against walls, etc, quite funny really. We found our bags and then, not so funny, one of the bags has been ripped open down one side right through to the lining and the metal wire that runs around the outside of the bag is pulled out and almost off! WHAT ELSE CAN HAPPEN!!!!! So we take the bag to the American Airlines lady and said this isn’t good enough, what are you going to do? She said that if we can get the bag back to them they will try and fix it, if they cannot then they will replace it. Okay that sounds good as long as I can get the bag back to them! HOW I DON’T KNOW. She says "how are you getting to Dangriga?" We said,
"Well we had a flight booked for 12:30 but we missed that so we will have to try and get another one". She says, "well you better hurry, the last flight leaves at 4:20! If you travel with them you can put the bag back on the plane at any stage and they will fly it back to us to fix". So we start running, the time is 4:10 (sound familiar) we get to the dude who wants to know do we have food to declare, we say "yes we have coffee, chocolate etc" he says " that’s fine but do you have more than $5000 BZE dollars on you?" I actually laughed out loud and said " we would love to have that much but no we don’t". He very skeptically let us through. Again, of all the airports, this was the only one that asked about that stuff. So we get through the whole customs thing and are heading to the Maya Air check in.

The time is 4:15. We tell the guy who we are and what had happened, he was wonderful and very helpful but told us that as we had missed our earlier flight we would have to go on standby for the next available one, which was the last one of the day and that it was unlikely that we would be able to get on it. We just looked at each other and laughed, what else could go wrong, well every little, possible thing! We went to Tropic air and they said the same thing, we asked about catching a bus and they were finished for the day too.

Now we were thinking, okay now what, we have no phone to call Teri, we have no way of getting to Dangriga and we have nowhere to stay, oh and we’re in a foreign country where the world stops literally at 4:30!! We asked the very nice man at Maya air if we could please use his phone, he said yes, so we rung Teri and got her straight away. She said she would try and figure something out for us but we didn’t have a phone so she couldn’t ring us back! Bad to worse, hmm yes! The nice man said that she could ring back on the same line and he would come and get us when she called. About 10mins later she called and told us to catch a taxi and go to such and such address, a sister lives there and we can stay with her for the night. From there we could call her back and arrange how we would get to Dangriga the next day. We jump in a taxi and go to the sisters house. She is delightful and welcomes us in with open arms. Its as if we have known her for years! Her house is beautiful, a palace by Belize standards and Teri told us not to get used to it as they have nothing like that in Dangriga! We laughed and told her we weren’t going to Dangriga anymore we were staying with this sister forever.

That was our delightful adventure trip into Belize, not one I would like to repeat in a hurry. Mind you we have just had 6 flights in three weeks and this was the first one we had any problems with, thats pretty good going.

We had a wonderful night with Dell and her family, that story will come next. Dont miss it!

MIAMI, THE REMAINDER (June 10 &11th 2009)

Back in Delray Beach now. The rental car had gone back and now we had Javiers car to run around in if we wanted to see anything. We would love to have been able to drive down to the Keys and see the many bridges and the highway running straight over the water. Never mind maybe next time.

We took Javier to work each morning and picked him up each night and during the day we went and explored Delray. The beach here is beautiful but still not a patch on our lovely long, wide, white sandy beaches. If you want to sit in a seat on the beach you have to pay! The water was quite warm the day we paddled in it.

We drove past house that were so huge, thy all have their won little canals and their own boat ramps etc, oh how the other half live. Us with our 6 suitcases and all! He he he

As we only had two days before flying out to Belize we laid low a little and tried to get some rest. We went and got a few little grocery items we were encouraged to bring, ie BUG SPRAY and had a famous Philly cheese steak sandwich for lunch, man they are awesome, the best thing since sliced bread possibly.

The night before we left we went out for dinner with some brothers and sisters. We all laughed and had a great time enjoying each others company. It was a great way to spend our last night in so called civilization and we loved every moment of it.

Not too much adventure as you can tell, but that was nice. The adventure however was just about to begin and that it did on the morning of the 12th June. Yes that’s the day we were to fly into Belize and arrive in Dangriga also. That story will follow, so keep posted!

TAMPA (June 7th 2009)

We wake up bright and early AGAIN, whats with that, anyway, off we go. We have the GPS set and we know where we are going. Well that is except for the fact that we are driving on the wrong side of the road!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Driving on the right is a very strange feeling to say the least. As a passenger you are in constant fear. While driving on the freeways, you start feeling like you are drifting into the lane beside you and ohhh you are! As the driver, you feel the white line should be on the other side of you so your brain automatically starts leading you that way. It tales time to relay to the brain that at the moment it is okay to be where we are. It all very weird and unless you have done it, its hard to imagine. So we are driving down the road and Im going " a hmm, ahmmm Dave!!!!!!! Get in your own lane!" He goes, "oh yeah" Not so comforting! After time he thought he was getting better, I didn’t think so. We did however make it in one piece and no one was killed or driven off the road.

The trip to Tampa was very interesting as there was so much to see on the road side. It is so different to our landscape. Well there wasn’t a whole lot to see actually, lots of the same thing for miles, but it was different and that made it interesting to us anyway. We went off the freeway and headed off on the I60 across to Tampa. This road is similar to the road between Christchurch and Oamaru. For those of you who have driven it you know how long and extremely straight it is. Now imagine that but multiply the length by about 4 and you get an idea of what the I60 is like. If you have not been from Chch to Oamaru then let me tell you the road in loooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng and straaaaaaaaaaaaaaaight and feels as though it will never end. We got a couple of pictures of the road but they don’t do it justice. On each side of the road for as far as you could see were orange groves. You could see people with ladders leaned up against the trees picking the fruit. It was quite beautiful. Every now and then a huge open trailer truck would roll by loaded to the brim with oranges, very cool, and very different to the trucks full of cows and sheep in NZ.

While travelling we pass these towns with the weirdest names, we were cracking up laughing trying to pronounce them, try these : Okeechoobee, Thonotasassa just to name a couple. This one made me laugh, Yeehaw Junction!

This whole area is flat, flat, flat. Canterbury Plains got nothing on this area! Quite unbelievable.
Finally we get off this road and are back on a freeway not far from Tampa.

As we drive along Im looking out to my right and what should I see? A huge assembly hall of Jehovahs Witnesses! Not only that, but there was an assembly on and there were brothers and sisters everywhere. It was lovely to see them all going about their worship as we whizzed by. I quickly tried to get the camera but was to slow and missed that Kodak moment. Never mind.
We made it into Tampa at about 12pm and weren’t sure what to do with ourselves as we couldn’t go to Dons sisters place yet. They were going to be out until about 3 in the afternoon. So we decided we would see if we cold find Busch Gardens so we knew where to go in the morning. We found it no trouble and my memory jumped into play. I remembered from my hours of research, that if you buy a ticket you get a second day for free. So we decided on the spot that we would go right then and there. Hows that for spontaneous? The park is open until 9pm so we had plenty of time. We called Lyn and told her where we were and that we would not be home until late. She was not worried and said to go enjoy ourselves which we fully intended to do! Lyn loves Busch Gardens and the roller coasters and couldn’t wait to hear our stories.

If you have never heard of Busch Gardens, which you probably haven’t if you’re a kiwi, then check it out online. It’s the coolest place, often recommended over Disney and Universal Studios! www.buschgradens.com I think is the link. Here they have kind of a zoo amongst the thrill rides. The park is in sections based around particular African themes. In each area are the wild animals related to the theme and then rides that are just as scary as the wild animals. The rides here are among the tallest and fastest rides around!

They have done an incredible job of making you feel like you are in a different country. They also have done a magnificent job of the animal enclosures and the way they string the place together is marvelous. We have tried to capture in on film but again, you just have to be there.

You can take these safari rides through the African jungle. You actually get into a four wheel drive and head off on a trail through the Rhinos, Giraffes, Water Buffalo, Antelope, Elephants, Zebra and so many more. If you want to you can even have an animal encounter! While in this area, you can hardly even see the rides in the park. All there is around you is, Africa, it really feels like you are there.

Our plan was to spend the rest of the day checking out the animals and the park in general and then we would come back the next day and do all the rides. This we did and then at about 6pm there was a massive rain storm. The storm lasted ages and many people left. This was great as it meant that there were heaps less people waiting for the rides and in lost cases you could just get straight on. Yay.

We spent the rest of the day on the Sheikra coaster. This coaster is very cool. This is Americas first dive coaster. It takes you 200 feet into the air and then slowly tilts you to 90 degrees over the edge so you are looking straight at the ground and holds you there for 4 seconds. You are literally relying on the safety braces to hold you in as you are hanging from them. You cannot feel the seat at all! You can not even see the tracks of the coaster and the track inverts under you slightly before in plunges you to the ground. Yeah that was cool! Dave screamed like a girl!!!!!!!!! As there was no line we went on this a number of times and then went and did some of the others too. We left the other big ones for the next day.

We wandered around the park until it closed and then jumped on the little shuttle back to the car. Off to Lyn and Eddies place for the night.

On arriving at Lyn and Eddie place, we were greeted with open arms. What a lovely couple they are. If Don is anything like Lyn then he is treasure too. Experience with Don so far tells me he is. We were encourages to make to home our own and to be comfortable. We were so tired we spent a few hours with them and then headed off for some much needed shut eye. Tomorrow was to be another full on day and we didn’t want to miss any of it.

Dave slept like a baby and I got up the next morning feeling like a zombie. I had not really slept for about 4 days at this point and was death walking. The last thing I wanted to do was walk around for another 12 hours! I pulled myself together, slowly but never the less did and off we went for another wonderful day at the Gardens.

This time we rode every ride in the place and did so over and over again!

At one point it started to rain again quite heavily so we went and bought two ponchos to keep us dry. They are sun yellow and you cant miss them! The rain eased off after a while but again, heaps of people left the park, yipeeee for us again. Today was not that busy anyway so you really didn’t need to wait that long for anything. Another bonus over Disney etc. Oh yeah then there was the survey thing I did that they paid me $75 usd to do! Thank you very much Busch Gardens that just paid for one of our tickets!

These are some of the other rides:
-Kumba, 100 foot plummets and 360 degree spirals all at 130 kmphr
-Montu, you dive and loop in and out of darkness on one of the worlds longest inverted coasters.
-Scorpion, 60 foot drop and three 360 degree loops on after the other.
-Gwazi, the Southeasts largest and fastest double coaster. Its wooden and has 7000 feet of track.
-Tanganyika Tidal Wave, A jungle journey that ends in a drenching 55 foot plunge. Be prepared to get wet.
-Stanley Falls Flume, A splashing trip that ends in a 40 foot drop thats sure to get you soaked.
-Congo River Rapids, Brave a 12 person raft ride through swift white water rapids. (you can pay to try a surprise drenching on people on this ride)
-Rhino Rally, An off road adventure filled with up-close animal encounters and unexpected twists and turns.

There are many more but these are some of the ore exciting rides. We did them all, again, and again.

While on these rides our ponchos came in very handy, everyone came of saturated while we were quite comfortable and dry. What we did get wet, was quite nice as it was a very hot day again. Floridas temperatures were in the high 80’s to low 90’s most days, that’s about 26-32+ degrees Celsius, high humidity, made it hotter.

Overall we loved Busch Gardens, in case you cant tell and would recommend it to everyone. We had so much fun and laughed and screamed our heads off. It was great. We had missed out on a number of other things we would love to have been able to afford to do, but we decided that this one we would folk out for and so be it. It was worth every single penny! We would love to go back there again. There is still so much to see and do, we simply did not have the time to see it all.

We stayed with Lyn and Eddie for only two nights, but we enjoyed their company very much. We would also love to be able to go back there and see them again. They were so welcoming but we really could not spend a whole lot of time with them, that was a real shame. Much love to you guys if you are reading! Thank you Don for arranging that one too!

Just remembered, while at Lyns place, Eddie was telling us about these two alligators that had been living in the pond in the back yard. The pond is quite large and the gators measured approx 8 and 5 feet each. They had to get rid of them as it was believed they ate a neighbors dog!!!!! True story!!! There is now a new alligator in the pond.

Back home to Javiers it was for us. Leaving us just three days in Delray Beach before we leave for Belize, yay!

Here are some funny things we saw on our trip to Tampa:
-There were fire hydrants all along the freeway.
-An alligator living in Eddie and Lyns pond!
-Raccoon road kill.
-Alligator road kill, for real!
-State Prisoners working on the roadsides (there were signs announcing it)
-A sign that read "child swap" ??????
-A house with the street number 20405!!!!! and they kept going!

A useless piece of information for you all: While in the water you can only see an alligators nostrils and eyes poking out. You can tell how long the alligator is by guessing the distance between the nostrils and the eyes in inches. Each inch is a foot of body length, ie nose to eyes = 5 inches = a 5 foot alligator. You just never know when you might need to know that!