September Newsletter 2006

September 20, 2006

Dear Friends and Family,

Hi, everyone! We hope you are all doing well. We wanted to write to you all earlier, but things move a little slower here. We had no idea how long it would take to get our phone and internet up and running! We now have a somewhat reliable internet connection at our house, but not a good phone service. This has been very frustrating but getting better each day. We are investigating home based cell phone units as there are no land lines here and our internet phone service – Vonage does not work well at all.

Jeff arrived in Belize on the 15^th of August only to find out that the house we had rented had been given away! This was a very discouraging way to start out. After several days of looking in the area, he found another rental house. Would you believe it was right next door to the other one, had the exact same floor plan, but was in much better shape?

New House

We were aware that there would be no appliances or furniture in the house when we got here. We sold most of our furniture before moving and only brought items that would fit in the truck. We found the Mennonites make inexpensive, solid wood furniture. The only problem is we have to drive 2 ½ hours to go get it. In fact most everything we needed was that far away. You can start to imagine the inconveniences here!

We decided tile is the most economic and most sanitary flooring for us to put down in the house. Tile is very inexpensive here in comparison to the States. Most houses in Belize have linoleum flooring, but the concrete floor was so rough, that it would tear.

Jeff spent the first week in the house pulling up the old linoleum and laying tile. He also had to make several trips in the rental car to buy furniture, because it took much longer than we expected to get his truck here. Imagine driving over two hours to get one or two appliances at a time because your truck has still not arrived.

Flooring

Tile

Before After

Ann Marie and I arrived on the 31^st. Although Jeff had been working on the house non-stop, there was a lot more to do. We stayed in a hotel for a couple of days while we got the rugs for Ann Marie’s and our bedroom, the bedding and curtains in place and Jeff ran the gas line to the stove. We didn’t have hot water for two more days and bathed Ann Marie in a Wal-Mart tub. She loved it and giggled the whole time! Although those first few nights were rough we could at least live in the house while we continued to make improvements. It has come a long way now as you can see.

Now that the house is beginning to shape up, we can focus more on what God has sent us here to do. Jeff is teaching Religious Studies at the high school to the entire ninth grade class ~213 students. He taught orientation the week of August 21-25^th had a week off and then resumed teaching on Sept. 5^th and has been teaching 3 days a week since. This is a wonderful opportunity to reach an age group that often does not know God. I will start teaching English in San Juan, the village where we live next week to adult ladies and possibly primary school children later. I have been asked to help open a preschool here, also. We are so excited for our talents to be used and praise God for the doors he is opening for our ministry here. Progress is still being made on land for the orphanage. Please continue to pray for that project as well as what we are currently doing.

We thought you might like to see some before and after pictures of the house. We are just about settled. We still have a broom as a shower curtain rod and we do not have cabinets under the kitchen sink or den furniture (sofa or chairs). But hey, its home!

Bathroom