We've Moved!

We are almost three weeks here in Belize. Last week was a very busy week for us which was a welcome change to our previous one! We had a busy week cleaning and moving into our NEW JUNGLE HOME! God has been soooo good! This is how He works in wonderful ways. To make a long story short we found a home to rent that is bigger than we had anticipated, on a property better than we though we would land, and in the budget we needed to be. It was a long string of contacts that lead us to find this place that started a year ago when friends from our church in Canada mention that a friend had parents living in Belize. Since we really don't know anyone here we contacted this lady (Belen) the week we arrived and paid a short visit at her 500 acre citrus farm. A lovely lady and just so happened to mentioned someone that was looking for a house sitter a few weeks back as they were needing to go back to Canada. We proceeded to contact this home owner only to find she had a house sitter already but her daughter's house on the same property was available for rent. Our not so busy schedule allowed us to go visit the house the next day....and what do we find? Hmmmm, the pastor of the church to which we have been happily attending is the housesitter. The property is 15acres of thin jungle with a 4 bedroom home, a play set, a shaded yard, and it's the home of a mission team facility. Wow! From the outside it was too good to be true....and so we walked in the house. Welllllllllllll, the glamour for a few moments was gone! The home had not been lived in for some time and we needed our eyes to see past the dust and dirt. The space and set up was great and we knew a little elbow grease would put this place in working condition.  6 days of cleaning later and here we are. Moved in today! We had mattresses delivered and we get a couch tomorrow. What a great feeling of "home" we have now. We are so excited to be here. A safe, convenient, kid friendly location. We are now on the east side of San Ignacio. Closer to the coast, airport, church, and Spanish Lookout (the mennonite community where we do most of our hard goods shopping).

We have some organizing in our home to do yet this week. Should keep us busy unpacking bins and getting set up. We are starting to meet people and in a country this small it seems we are already "bumping" into some familiar faces. This Sunday Chad invited a couple from church over to our new place next Sunday after church. "Great", I said....."Guess that means we need to buy plates before Sunday, eh"! The church has a pretty even mix of Gringo's, Belizeans and Mennonites.

Saturday we did the local market and got a few more comforts of home like home made yogurt, cheese, and butter and picked out some new tropical flavours to try. We've now had breadfruit a starch similar to potatoes but softer and a bit sweeter and a dragon fruit. I'm getting my crafty fix by experimenting with new produce!

In closing, here's what we are learning and resting in. REST. This is a completely different pace and schedule that what we ever could have had in Canada. It's amazing! Both Chad and I are so thankful for time to reorder our days. We pray and do a devotion with the kids every morning, we work together with them....we pretty much do everything together! I know it may not remain like this as we will need to work on our business plan but for right now we are thankful for this time God is giving us to put Him and our family as the focus. It's so peaceful and laid back and refreshing and FUN! I am finding the quietness and slow pace of life giving me a great awareness of what fulfills me. I find I desire more and more prayer time and it's just easier to live each moment in the Holy Spirit.

A truth that rings close to home that I read this week. "Challenges keep us well seasoned, but to be profitable our struggle must have purpose. Once our life gets a little difficult we get consumed with trying to make it comfortable again. But by doing so we miss a great spiritual opportunity to grow". (Gary Thomas: Sacred Marriage)

I see the truth in this and I'm marvelling in growing and trusting more as we walk this unfamiliar path!

 

Things are going great here in Belize.  We certainly hope all is well back in Canada as well.  We keep trying to share some of our warm weather so we hope it reaches Canada soon!