Monday, July 20, 2009

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

Friday, July 17, 2009

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?

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

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!!!!

Monday, July 6, 2009

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!

Friday, July 3, 2009

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!

MIAMI ADVENTURES BEGIN ( June 6th)

It all started when we left JFK for Miami Int Airport. As we neared
Miami we could see that the weather was very bad. Soon we were in a
holding pattern high above Miami waiting out a lightning storm. We
were holding for about and hour when finally the captain announces
that we had been holding for so long we were running out of fuel.
Yipee! So he said we were diverting to West Palm Beach Airport where
we would refuel and wait out the storm. So off we went. By this time
we were already late and had no way of contacting Javier the brother
who was meeting us in Miami. Just a side point, Javier actually lives
about 20mins from Palm Beach which was where we were diverting to,
so we could have just gone there and saved him time and us time and
worry, instead he had driven an hour south to pick us up! Ho hum.

Once in Palm Beach they gave us the chance to call people and tell
them what was happening, which we did. We didn’t know very much
as they kept saying, yes we will let some people out here but then
they would say, no there is no gate for us to disembark the aircraft.
So we told Javier that we would eventually be going back to Miami as
planned but at this stage we did not know when, as the storm was still
raging. He was quite understanding, which was good. Long story short
we left for Miami about 2 hours later making us about 3+ hours behind
schedule. We rang Javier to let him know we were on our way back
and that we would call him once we were out of customs. This we did.

We got outside where it was stinking hot and called Javier. Told him
we were at concourse D right under the huge D sign. He said "Im there
too but I cant see you, where are you?" We said "where are you?
We are right where we said". We described the cars driving past
and he didn’t seem to be able to see any of them either, what was the
problem?? This went on for about 30mins between Dave and Javier. I
began thinking there must be something wrong here, why are we
supposedly at the same place yet we cant see each other? I began
thinking maybe there are two levels or something. I went and asked a
security guy if he could help and he said yes there are two levels,
you are at one and he will be at the other! So I went back and
said to Dave which level is he on? We then found out that we were
on different levels, thus the reason we could not see each other! So
finally we got into the car and off we went.

As we were driving along Javier was telling us about the storm. He could tell straight away that there was no way we would land as it was a very violent storm that shut down roads and highways due to flooding. He was very understanding and we all laughed about it.

Once we got into Delray Beach which is where Javier lives he took us to a Cuban Restaurant for dinner. It was about 6pm. There was another massive thunder storm us, it was quite something to experience. The sound of the thunder was so loud at times it was deafening and the flashes of lightning so bright you had to turn away. Hopefully Marlene isn’t reading this part. But while we were sitting inside eating away, there was what sounded like a huge explosion and lightning hit the ground just out in the car park!!! Luckily it didnt hit any cars or anything, just the ground. It was scary and exciting all at the same time.

Dinner was wonderful and again our dear brother would not let us pay. Once finished he took us to meet some of his friends, Pablo and Lilly. We spent a little while at their place and then headed off to Javiers place where we would spent the night.

The next morning we were supposed to be heading over to Tampa which is on the opposite coast to Delray.

Now heres another experience of a loving brotherhood. Dear brother Don, who I think I have mentioned before, had arranged with Javier that we borrow his car for the week so we could get around and see some of the sights, including going to Tampa to go to Busch garden (A Theme Park) and to see Dons sister. However, Javier felt that his car would be too unreliable and we could risk breaking down on the way to Tampa (a 4 hour drive). He was so worried about that happening that he hired a rental car for us and would not let us pay him for it!!! Can you believe that?! We were dumb struck and kept offering to give him something but he would not let us. We had the car for 3 days total, which got us to Tampa and back with perfect timing. We are very, very, very thankful to Javier for his generosity and really don’t know what to say but thank you! Again, what a marvelous organization we belong to. He did not know us from a bar of soap and did that for us!

After a nights stay at Javiers we left for Tampa. Yipeeee, roller coasters here we come!!!!!!!!! Tampa story to follow.