Discover your Laminin

Ok, so you're going to have to stick with me to the end of this one to answer the question I know you all have...."What the heck is laminin".

So, I realized when viewing my last posting that the pictures I though loaded of our house apparently didn't load. So here's a quick look it up top.

 

Let's see, what have we been up to the last week and a half. Well, moving out to Unitedville has been wonderful. It is much more central to all the places we need to go in a week. The market, grocery marts and church. We are very quickly becoming familiar with the shopping hubs of the country. FTC (Farmer's Trading Centre) is our Walmart/Target equivalent. It is the same inexpensive quality with a little less quality at times than even Walmart. The single bed sheets we bought don't even fit a single mattress. But hey, we have sheets!

We've had a few people ask what our mailing address is now that we are at a place we hope to stay. To give you a true flavour of this country here's our address....

The Dietrich's

Unitedville, Cayo, Belize, Central America

 

Or a more specific location: In Unitedville turn left at the Vietnam bar/Belkin Beer sign, travel about a 1/4 mile on the gravel road and turn left at the stone piers....that's us!

I LOVE IT! That's all you need in this country apparently.  We need to visit the Post Office next week to see how the mail system really works hear.  Haven't got a clue how to send or receive mail. 

 

We are feeling really settled in our new home and very safe in the area we are in. We've got most of our bins unpacked, bikes put together (although not quite tuned enough to ride yet), and Chad and I are now feeling ready to move on to some business planning. It's exciting to have a vision that incorporates your passion and your husband and family. We are hoping to enlarge our flock....get some chickens soon and get some tropical fruits planted.

Here's another "flavour of Belize".  We took a trip to a local resort and did a butterfly farm tour with the kids. While touring the beautiful resort we found all these stunning flowers laying freshly fallen. What else would a florist do but use her 3 kids to collect as many of them as possible so we could smell their sweet fragrance and let our eyes take in their beauty. Apparently these flowers are the same flowers used to make leis. Low and behold as we drove in our gravel road we noticed Frangipani tree right on the roadside to our house. We were having dinner guest that night and we thought a  Frangipani flower would make a lovely garnish to our fresh coconut lime dessert. So out we went for a walk thinking that we could ask to pick up some of the dropped flowers from under the tree. As with most places here the house is a mere 20 x 20 wood box on piers and native family was leisurely keeping themselves busy about their house. I approach and ask say that we were admiring the tree (that was rooted on their property but overhanging the roadway) and wondering if we could take some fallen flowers. The worn older woman responded with Spanish words that are not in my 15 word vocabulary of "kitchen items" so I had no idea what she was saying. As anyone would I speak a little more slowly and use some actions to ask my question again. To which I get a nodding as the woman ways to her son to come over to the tree. He....is carrying a machete! Looking back we maybe should have had a moment of fear but her words seems willing and after even though we only wanted a mere flower or two from the ground he proceeds to cut us off two whole branches of these beautiful flowers. Wow, we were thrilled! Through broken language and hand gestures the woman communicated that we can just stick that branch in the ground and start your own tree. So, we've planted two Frangipani trees and had a lovely vase of flowers for the day.  Lovely people with not much to give but made our day special. We don't always need a lot to be able to bless someone else.

 

 

I don't think Chad is missing the routine of work! He got his power tools this week because in Belize a machete is your friend and your lawn mower. For us it's also our sharpest kitchen utencil and was our successful tool to cracking the coconut. We made coconut milk, coconut butter ( something had to replace maple syrup) and fresh coconut flakes.

Chad was not only the hero of the coconut war but he also defeated these guys below! I bowed out of this one before it even started! Thanks to his crafty screening stapling and cardboard shield we now have a wonderful storage shed  that is only inhabited by us.

This is US! This is our new norm. We work together, play together, cry together and do live together. This picture holds a beautiful memory for me of our Saturday market  day. We came home with our fresh groceries for the majority of the week and this is what happened. No asking, no refusals, no whining. It's almost a rhythm already. We each tackled a task of either washing, cutting, putting away and we sang and talked 2 hours away in the kitchen together. Priceless!

 Class of 2014!

Need I say more, they were eager as anything to start the school year.

 

Had to have first day of school picture in front of some tropical greens.

 

I'm closing I promise. And I will tell you about laminin.  You know for the time before we left and the first few weeks it was our constant prayer that the Lord would unfold and reveal to us the purpose he had for us here. It was sometime last week I came to the subtle conclusion that I don't need to pray that. For some reason, I think we all feel like we have to be going or moving to accomplish something. I wasn't anxious about the "what" we are supposed to be doing here but for some reason I had made it into such a mystery. I see now that we ARE doing what we are supposed to be doing. Right now our season is REST. And I am thankful and basking in it. Our days are now filled with many of the normal home duties and teaching however, we have more time to study God's words than we've ever had both together as a family and as individual. That's what we are supposed to be doing! I'm done wondering what God is going to do and resting in what he is doing today. He's allowing us time to "be still and know that I am God". It's wonderful and I see that when we slow life down we can see so much more of God's hand around us.

I've always struggled with the understanding of how we are supposed to love God more than our earthly family.....I get it now. Take away the comforts that this world give you. Your wonderful parents, your siblings, your home, familiar surroundings and you have only one things familiar and comforting left to draw close to. Do you know Him. I do and I desire His presence more than ever. For now, that's what we are here to do. We are in a season of rest and diving into His word. He's the glue that is holding us together.

Glue....that's were laminin comes in. I'm attaching a Louie Giglio link that we watched called "How Great Is Our God". Make 40 min. in your week to watch it, it's great and he taught me about laminin. Here's the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAzCP8SEKwc

and here is laminin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 

 

 

Look at the molecular structure of this thing. Now look at it's definition. The laminins are an important and biologically active part of the basal lamina, influencing cell differentiation, migration, and adhesion, as well as phenotype and survival. It's job is to bind together.

Some might call it ironic or chance that this protein of the thousands of protein molecule we are made of is the one that binds proteins cells together. It's job is the joining molecule...it keeps us together, it holds us in one piece, it's the foundational protein that makes us stay together!

I don't say it nearly as well as Louie but what a mighty Creator we have!

Love you all.

Stephanie