Testimony

Mind blowing eh, (still have some Canadian in me!) I'm posting twice in a week!
That's because  I have  a testimony. You know that thing we all want a Testimony but we rarely want the "test"....we just want the "imony".
Let's face it, we all have tests. Daily, weekly, some even hourly! God is a god of promise and he promises that in this life there will be trial of many kinds ( 1 Peter1:6). He keeps his promise all right. But I'm learning that trials can be great, when you are on the side of the victor or the winning team. (2 Peter 2:9, James 1:2-4) I actually get a little excited when we face a trial now. I still get anxious or scared for a split second but I know that it's just an opportunity to have God show up in a big way!

If you gathered from my last post about the delivery truck it was a huge leap of faith for us to buy that truck. We knew we needed something a bit bigger but this was a lot bigger and it seemed overkill. However, we'd been needing, desperately needing something because every week we struggled to get all the products fit into our Explorer. That was the test. Waiting. Struggling each week to fit the puzzle together. Asking and prayer without ceasing for another vehicle or trailer. So here is my "imony" after the "test"!

That empty truck that God provided and we claimed He was going to fill up....guess what. We have doubled our online orders this week. We have been steadily growing adding one or two customer every week to our orders but this week what an increase! Double 18 order two weeks ago and this week 39! Seriously, God is soooo great! He is the provider of all good things, in His perfect time. We just have to wait patiently on Him (Psalm 27:14 Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord)

So, it's short and sweet. My testimony is that GOD IS SO GOOD....ALL THE TIME.
Thanks you to those who are praying with us and loving us from a far. We are excited to see the continued increase and continue to pray without ceasing for the other areas we are waiting to see God move in.

Blessings to you all.
Stephanie

A Day in the Life of Thursday

I'm going to make this a little different than the past. There's just too much to update you on completely. So, I'm going to give you a little tidbit of our Thursdays.

Oh, man this is hard already.....I want to start you back at Monday. Here we go.

We are in what I think they call cool season? Season are just not as "black and white" here as at home. But for sure it is comfortably cooler than the past 6 months. Our days, like most of yours at home are shortening.
Thursdays.
South and coastal delivery day.
Chad and I wake before the sun rises. 5:30 starts our day to pick orders, pack coolers and load for delivery. I miss the days where the sun awakes before me, but it's not awakening long after us. This Thursday has a rather grand excitement in the air for us. Yes, the loud squawking of the brilliant green parrots in trees overhead create anticipation that the day is arising but this, this is a Thursday to rejoice just like those parrots and shout from the tree tops in our human voice!
You see business has been steadily growing. Wow, I look back to it's short birth only a year and a half ago and seek nothing but provision and answered prayer and even fulfillment of words prophesied over us! Last year we were sinking in work and prayer for a someone to work for us. We still have that answer to prayer with us today. Leroy continue to work 2-4 days a week to keep us a float. Now, since June or so we've been struggling to fit the rubix cube of crates and coolers in our bursting Ford Explorer on Thursdays for our Southern Coastal deliveries. So, we've been asking the Lord to show us what is our next vehicle. We've considered many. Passenger vans, trailers, trucks with no back doors, you know the usual good condition for Belize! But, each one as we considered it has fallen through for various reasons. Which the way we saw it was great! Yes, great. God closed the door because He had something else in mind for us. All it really was taking on our part was patience to wait.
So, this Thursday there was no rubix cube solution. We got our record breaking number of orders packed and we barely covered the floor our new dig for deliveries. She's a beaut Clarke! As the Dietrich boys would say. A 16 foot cube truck!  No photos today but you can see some if you go to our FB page. (Shoots Alive)
Although the truck is not officially ours we know we have received favour to be able to drive it today and for the seller to take our very small payment offer. So, we are believing this to be what God wants us to have. That however leaves room...pun intended for sure, for us to wait on God to fill it up! We went from no packing room to an echoing  box! It's going to be awesome to see what God brings our way.

Back to Thursdays. So, Keaton is delivering with Chad. Usually we are home doing school work but NOT today! Keaton is the co-captain for deliveries today. The kids love to go and do "real life school" with Daddy but the past months there has been no passenger room. So, today Keaton learns, order picking skills, customer service 101, on the sport accounting and receipt writing! This school is so great!
For us ladies today is a not a school book kinda day either. It's a homemaking day. What's that saying, when the boys are away the girls will play! It's a beautiful overcast, 84 degree  day to get to some fun sewing projects. Paige has become an expert sewer. Wait till you see what she made herself! Grady is now sewing as well and driving that machine with no fear. The kids continue to sew for their non profit organization they started and they still can't keep up. They continue to sew at least a day a week to fill orders of aprons, hanging tea towels, coasters and many other fancy creations.

Thursday evening are quiet and calm as it's a late delivery day. The boys will return somewhere between 8 and 10 pm tonight. A long day on the road, but Chad never complains. I bet right now they are already planning their tomorrow. You see because Thursday are planning days for block making! (I had to work in more details about our life somehow) So yes, they are likely planning every detail about how they will start by sifting the 3 truck loads of clay that got delivered to the land yesterday. Actually they're likely strategizing about how to get the 3 truck loads of clay to the top of the hill. You see hill life has a breath taking view....but challenges when truck can't get up your hill! By next week we hope to be in full swing making compressed earth blocks.

Diversion from Thursday........Most of you don't know that we are needing to move. The property we have rented for the past 2 years (what, we've been gone for 2 years already?) has sold. It's too has been an answer to prayers for the family that owns it. We knew it would come so it was not a surprise. So, we will be moving sometime between December and January somewhere between our property and Duck Run II. That means we don't know yet! We are asking that the Father expedites work on our house which is presently an unfinished cement pad. It's nothing short of miracle that will allow us to get our house at least walled to live in with water and electricity but hey....God's in that business! But we are open to going where ever He wants us.

Still diverting .....We had a fantastic visit with my little sister and her family who was here for 2 weeks. What a blessing. We loved every minute of it and were so, so, so blessed to have time with them. We still wait on residence paper before we could even consider going home so please pray with us for favour on this paperwork process through a very corrupt government.

Back to Thursday. Wait that's it. The darkness will fall early here in Belize especially for us who are slightly nestled in some jungle trees. By 6:00 it will be dark and we will pull out our books to read and likely listen to some rain falling on the loud tin roof. Cool seasons brings many evening rains that sound like buckets upon buckets of water falling on your roof.  Peaceful.

There is so much more to our days here and the are all so uniquely different. Maybe next time I'll write you about Monday harvest day or Tuesday delivery day, or Wednesday harvest day, or maybe Friday work at the property day, or Saturday our new REST  or Sabbath day or Sunday....our new half work day! Either day, no matter what we do we are always , always in awe of what is happening here in Belize and how the Father reveals new mercies, new blessings and overflowing love on us! May you all seek His riches and His glory and live in His benefits as well.


Love to all
Stephanie

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House progress

I know, I know it's too soon for me to write, but we are sooooo excited to have progress on our hill! The road work is being finished this week so we have a decent road to drive up to our hill and the cement pad is in the works. We had a bulldozer level the top of the hill where our house is going to go. It wasn't the original plan to doze it and flatten it but necessary once they found the elevation was too great for our budget. I actually really love it now with a nice flat space for the house to sit.
The view is amazing and I am finally feeling excited at the reality that I know God is going to provide for us to be us there sooner than I thought!
I'll try to keep you posted on progress as we see it.

This is the road heading up to the highest point of our land where our house will be. Mom and Dad your place is directly to the right and Phil and Marlene are directly left of this point.

Wow, this is the jungle portion. This looks completely different with a road in. The road splits the two ponds which are on either side of it. Sad to see those trees pushed down but most of jungle still remains. Saved a few palms to remain in the middle of the road bed.

This was the original set up for the house. We planned on a 4 ft elevation at the front......turned out the slope was deceivingly greater! It was about 9 ft. Time to call in a dozer.

Preparation for cement mixing. They are hoping to just haul water from our ponds out back in the jungle to fill this tank and use to mix the cement. You can see the white marl ground or caliche as they call it. It is abundant on our hill which is blessing because it's great material for building and road bedding and earth block making!

The bulldozed and new foundation set up. Isn't it going to be awesome!

We are loving watching  how they build so simply and rudimentary. Back to basics and no fancy tools. The string line is up and they just used a hose bent in a "U" shape and filled with water to level the string lines.

 

 

On a side note: We got a wheelbarrow yesterday. It was like Christmas for Keaton! Let's see he raked the yard and hauled all the leaves to the compost pile, he and the girls collected hundreds of soap nuts (that's right all you greenies out there we discovered a soap nut  tree where we live....we are collecting as much as we can!) and then he decided to turn it into his school desk. He is quite the guy!

Grab a coffee....it's a long one!

Wow, it's time. Past time. A good time to give a long overdue update! There has been so much that has been transpiring over the past several month and we are just catching our breath. As I laid in bed this morning...wish I could say it was a quiet morning but the parrots and toucans were seemingly having an argument outside my window.

Ok, so since I've left writing so long your gonna get the "coles notes" version because I got me so much to tell you. If my language seem to be changing it's the melting pot redneck Texans and local Creole that are gettin' to me. Hope that's OK with 'yall!

Here we go.

We have recently ended our run of 4 months of visitor. Guess that's what we get when we come from the North and move to the perfect winter get away. Truly, truly, we have been thankful and blessed to have our house full of family all winter long. December my parents and another close couple came. My parents stayed for 3 weeks. At this time our micro green business was just advancing into the start of busy season so we were happy to have a few more hands for two days a week that we harvest. In January, Chad's Uncle Doug came for 3 weeks. We had a great break at the coast for a few days and the kids got their gaming pride put back in balance after gaming with him for 3 weeks. What great fun it was to have him with us. Then, 2 days after we took him to the airport home we picked up Chad's parent. It was great they gave me just enough time to get the sheets washed! Wow, we worked those two to the bones. They were troopers! Helping us through what was our first "busy seasons" for micro greens, helping me keep my head above water with meals and housework. I couldn't have done it without them. Love how God send us help even before we know we need it. Although we didn't do any exciting adventure with them we had so much fun doing our "real life" together. Papa agreed to help Keaton work on a wood working project which was his schooling for 3 weeks. They build us a beautiful mahogany coffee table right from a pile of raw boards. Memories for both those boys they won't forget. Said goodbye to them and 4 days later pick up our good friend Tyler who was coming to torture himself and Chad in a 4 days canoe race. It's an iconic race here in Belize the country prides themselves in this 170 mile river race every year.  Long and gruelling and the boys have confirmed it. Was great, great fun though. They didn't trail a whole lot...nope, nope they didn't. But tough as nails they made it to the finish. The kids and I had a grand time driving to empty place of the country that I never would have discovered before. Felt often like driving to neverland. We love having Tyler here. He is like a big little brother to me and we are so thankful we had the gift of having him with us!

And so the end of March marked the end of our guest. We went through family withdrawl for a few weeks after that!

Day trip to Placencia

Fun times at the beach with Uncle Doug

Keaton and Papa working hard in woodworking class

Hey look....they are IN the boat!

Top of the ruins with "little" bro.

BUT now it was GO time as we said! Not that you guys held us back but we did have some business that we couldn't get done while staying up late just so you could try to beat me in Quirkle! 

I mention our microgreen business. We are almost at our 1 year anniversary coming up the end of May. Wow, looking back what God has turned this into in less than a year is amazing. We currently harvest 2 days a week and run two delivery days a week. One day inland here in our local area and Thursdays Chad delivers a long day to the coast hitting all the large resorts. We grow, harvest, package and sell about 200 containers a week. Once family help in the middle of busy season I was feeling SWAMPED! Couldn't keep up to schooling (that wasn't really happening), business, meals, house work. God knew we needed help and actually we didn't even really ask Him for help because He first gave us a profit word that assured us, "Help was on the way". So, stayed strong. Low and behold we know have wonderful local employee. Ok, for those of you not familiar with Belize culture, having someone who doesn't drink, steal or not show up for work when the weather isn't right is RARE. Leroy, is a young believer, soft spoken, hard working, skilled, and trustworthy young man. We are excited to have him on board with us and pray God will increase our territory so we can provide more work for him.

Word about our business has been slowly funnelling through the resort and we also fly our product to some private islands for special orders. So cool.

The last two weeks we've been seeing somewhat of a slow down in sales and the resorts say they are starting to enter slower season. In the past I'd do worthless worry about what now, how will we make our living. But God has proven to me that he has new things in the works that our eyes can't always see. So we walk in faith. So, freeing! Just this week as we assuming "slower" time is coming Chad come home with reports that several large resorts want to INCREASE their business with us. Tell me God is Good!

The next thing we wanted to get moving on was our property. Don't remember if I reported that we have drilled a well....just a shallow 400ft deep well! But we have water! Next was a road. The road just got dozed about 3 weeks ago and wow it looks like we could actually live there now. We celebrated the day we could drive up the hill and say goodbye to hiking that hill! We are anxious to move up there and if I think about how long it could take to get a house finished I get defeated so I have to choose to trust in God's timing. We have been blessed with some help to get the first step of a house put in and contrary also to Belize culture where things always move slower than you want and expect we have a huge praise that today our cement pad for the house is getting started! You and many others ask us, "When will it be done? When do you think you'll be up there?" On our own finance and will.....could be along time but we are always open to miracles and provision that God provides so to answer the question, "When the Lord wills it".

Interest in the property continues. My parents have purchased a lot and we have another purchasing couple from the States coming in this weekend and several other local people interested in being neighbours too so we will be sharing our breathtaking view.

Do you believe the desire in your heart are created by God? Those things that get us giddy, bring us joy and yet benefit other. Those desires. They are God given. My improvement to better health over the last number of years has turned into a passion. For me it's a lifestyle and I love to share with those are interested in hearing but I long to share it with those who need health improvements. Well, God is birthing a new thing in our path. Long, amazing, non coincidental story of how our path has been aligned with a couple from Texas who we in the early stages of setting up an alternative health clinic here in Belize. We all know North America has very tight regulation with what kinds of alternative treatments can be performed, however, here in Belize we ain't got them rules! (that's the redneck)

So, we are working with this friend to achieve the vision of international headquarters for his already existing clinics in the State and Africa. This puts Chad and I at the very front line of helping people to seek better person health and treatment for all kinds of illness and disease. So, so overwhelmingly exciting! Stay tuned.

Kiddo's. They are doing awesome. The word thriving come to mind. I recently had someone give their definition of prospering and thriving.

Prosper - succeed in material terms; be financially successful

Thriving - (of a child, animal, or plant) grow or develop well or vigorously.

Now, I can confidently say our kids are THRIVING! I look at them and even I who sees them every day can see how they have grown like the weeds the last 6 months. We have a year long growing season here so they grow more, right! Truly they are so wonderful these kids. They have entered the business world. Along with 2 other young ladies the kids have a not for profit business called Kids 2 Kids. Check out their facebook page if you want to see their handy work. They sew and sell and use the funds to support local kids.

I see the kids growing spiritual which is my biggest joy! They pray over people, they sing all day long and we are really seeing their gifting come forth in each one. The kids are eager and diligent school worker. I will agree the sitting and teaching is not a strength of mine but I the kids just sit down and as we Dietrich's say, "Getter done!

You all would be amazed at little Grady...she is blossoming into a grown up little girl! Loving all thing pretty and fancy (Corrie you would be so proud of her!) Grady dances and sings all day, loves crafting and is still dreadfully afraid of all animals. To give you a little glimpse of her fears still she freaked out some time ago because two butterflies where fluttering around her! Seriously.

 

Keaton. I remember when he was 4 I would tell him to stop working so I could have a break.....I think I now say that every day. He has God given gift of work. Truly a servants heart he has. He is joyful and enthusiastic in everything he does. We are just trying to slow him down a bit so he can avoid the possible carelessness incidents! He sings, he sews, he prays, and works like a horse. Amazing.

 

 

Paige. She is no longer a kids. I just noted this week that she is now starting to turn down play time for hanging out with the adults. Grady still drags her to the play yard and because of her soft heart Paige gracefully obliges but she rather would be on my lap listening intently to the adult talk. This girl is my right hand helper. In the case that I need her to she can whip up a healthy, hardy meal for the family on the fly. She's becoming a kitchen master. Still she can be found at the crack of dawn with her nose in a book but I love that about her. She has ready every book we have at least 5 times and tells me they are so good I should read them. She is an aspiring author and has 3 books on the go that she one day hopes to publish.

 

 

So, that's them in a nutshell. They are treasures. They rarely fight, they mostly choose to sleep all in the same bed, they work hard, they never complain.....just the average kids you see!

 

Ok, time to stop. Took me two days to write this so it's ok if it took you two days to read it.

I will end with a word that I told someone yesterday that sums up how we feel here in Belize. This was very articulate and profound for me to say by the way.

" To say that I love Belize is not really the truth, I don't dislike Belize but my love for Belize is not why we stay here. We are staying here because we are confident beyond a shadow of a doubt that this place, not a location place, but a place in God is exactly where we are to be and choose to remain. Because we are abiding in God he has shown us that this is the place, Belize where we are to remain and continue in the work he sets before us. So, my contentment is not found in the tropical beauty but rather in the peaceful presence of God. And in Him I find my rest.

 

 

Love you all. Drop us a line, we love to hear from ya'll!