My jaw dropped when I looked at the date of my last post!! November 19, 2012!! Unforgiveable! I don’t know if this old brain is even capable of recalling all the noteworthy happenings in our lives since then, but I’ll try my best.

Remainder of 2012

Have I ever mentioned the Henderson family that moved here from Mississippi shortly after us? Dad is Dennis, mom is Dion… two pikni (creole for kids) Gavin, 7 (who sometimes goes by ‘Julian’ depending on his mood) and Isabella, 8 (but we call her Bella). Anyway, they bought a piece of property on the back of the island from bro. Buddy Magana and are building a little home for themselves.  For the house plan they chose a ‘Katrina Cottage’… so-named because they were designed as quickly-built homes for the hurricane Katrina victims… they are adorable cottages! I can’t wait to see it when it’s finished! I’ll post some pictures soon.

Bible studies continue to increase!

I think I’ll let pictures tell their ‘thousand’ words instead of trying to put everything in prose 😉
November (click to enlarge)

December

1. Rich went to Elder’s school in Ladyville
2. 16th – Brother & sister Falk (Rick and Donna) threw a great ‘let’s get aquainted’ get-together. (see pics below)
3. 21st – The world didn’t end, but there was sure a lot of relieved people partying around Belize. Many tourists actually wanted to be here (in Maya country) for the big ‘end of the world’ event!

(click pictures to enlarge)
A ‘get aquainted with Spanish congregation’ get-together at Rick & Donna Falk’s seaside property

Random Photos from December

I’m going to post the happenings for 2013 so far tomorrow… it’s after midnight!

Love and miss you all – blizzards and all! 😉

Just a quick update. We had a record Sunday attendance today of 44 for the Caye Caulker English! There were only 4 vacant seats… so if this is going to be a trend, we need more chairs!! ‘Course, we’re still only about 1/2 way to the Memorial attendance of 83… where ARE all those people anyway?!!

Oh yes, and we’re excited about the un-announced arrival of two young brothers from British Columbia, Canada who have come to help us out for a few months. They are Luke who is from Kelowna and Hadrian, from the Surrey area. It’s so nice because we have young ones in our congregation who could benefit from their good spiritual example and association.

They were on the mainland for a while before deciding to come over to Caye Caulker. I think they are really enjoying themselves so far, but we’re trying to find them some inexpensive long-term accommodation so they’ll be able to stay with us longer.

 

And, here is a sunset shot taken this evening from the back bridge.
I was actually too chilly to stay there with bare arms. The temperatures have been awesome the last couple of weeks (as you can see to the right)… Nice and cool at night for sleeping and not so scorching hot and humid in the daytime. Just perfect! It’s such a relief!

 

Oh, come on now… hey Sandy! remember us down here in ‘hurricane alley?’ What’s with the sudden interest in heading north? I much prefer to only have to worry about ourselves… not the friends and relatives up in ‘nothing ever big happens’ Canada! Mind you, they are predicting Sandy to make landfall south of the 49th parallel, most likely New Jersey or New York, but hey, Nova Scotia is only a skip and a jump away for Sasquatch Sandy… or as other reports have dubbed her ‘Snor’eastercane Sandy’ or, because of her timing right at Halloween… ‘Frankenstorm’!

Yup, I woke up this morning and turned on my Android phone and pressed the little icon for my hurricane app just to check on Sandy’s projections because when I went to bed last night it was showing her as a Category 2 hurricane and was going to head into the north Atlantic later on in the week. But what a shock to see the red line way closer to the US coastline and then turning sharply left smack in between New Jersey and New York City!

…”some computer forecast models indicated Sandy had the potential to unleash “the heaviest October rains ever reported in the northeast U.S., Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.””

All I can say is I hope they’re wrong like they were about Leslie and Michael!

I’m staring at a blank page…hmm writer’s block. I call to mind step one for overcoming this malady… Just start typing. So that’s what I’m doing 🙂 Okay, so this is working! Yayyy! Now what… well, first thing that pops into my head is ‘I’m sorry’… yup, it’s been over a month since I wrote anything on here. Well, there is the prime reason I have nothing to say… it’s because there is *too much* to say… so, where do I start?

Ok, the last thing I wrote was on Sept. 6th about the hurricanes Leslie and Michael that were headed north to the Atlantic seaboard. That fortunately turned out well… wow, there have been Nadine, Oscar, Patty and Rafael since then!! Inexusable! All in all, the ‘hurricane season’ here has been zilch.. nada.. so far anyway, although October, which is the month that saw Belize’s 3 worst hurricanes Hatty, Keith and Mitch, is not yet over 😉

Ok, my fingers are really on a roll now… boy, this really does work! Ok, enough about the weather.

The weekend of September 16th we travelled to Ladyville for our district convention… what an amazing feast that was! So much good direction and encouragement, especially for young ones and married couples! Jehovah certainly has ‘His eye upon us’ and really cares about each and every one of us, no matter how young or how old! And that drama ‘What is True Love?’ !!! All I can say is wow… Jehovah is observing what is happening to couples these days and knows exactly what is needed to help them! We need to pull together if we’re going to make it through!

 

 

Oh, by the way, if you’re wondering why my badge card is different than everyone else’s, it’s because we on Caye Caulker were not an official congregation when the badge cards were ordered, so Brother Hagerty printed some up for us on his computer… but he didn’t know what they were going to look like… we all got some questioning stares (are they really brothers and sisters? Their badges aren’t right) 😉

I was really pleased that Vanessa, one of my bible studies attended. Her mother, who is in the truth but lives in Punta Gorda was also very pleased to see her daughter there! Like so many other bible students on Caye Caulker, the biggest obstacle is their jobs. To make ends meet here they need to work very long hours and usually 7 days a week!

(Which reminds me… although I’m going out of chronological order for a moment… I’m thrilled that Lara (you wonderful grand daughter you!) surprised us by announcing she had been accepted as a regular pioneer!! (we didn’t even know you had applied!)

Ok, back in order of events.

We stayed over an extra day after the convention to do a little shopping and although Belize City is not a place I like to hang around for any length of time because it’s not the safest place to be… it does have its old world charm. We stopped on a little bridge and snapped a photo. It turned out a little dark for a perfect shot, so I did a little ‘tweaking’ and this was the result. Any comments on which version you like better? (first one is the original photo and the next 2 are effects to make it look like a painting). Tip: you can click the ‘FS’ for full screen or ‘SL’ for a slide show.

 

Maritze, another of my studies had her baby…a healthy handsome little hombre. His name? As she said in a text message after the birth “I was going 2 put him Neymar bt knw i wil put him Justin Jaymar”.

A day before he was born she sent me a text from her mother’s where she had gone to have the baby. “Hi Virginia, hw are you? on tuesday they will operate me because my baby is 2 big and i cant hav it normal, an something is tied in his neck, plz pray for me.”

On Tuesday morning I sent her a text telling her I had been praying for her, etc. and she sent back this message: “Tankz, my baby born frm sunday, sry i didn’t let u know bt bot of us r fine. lve u”

She loves what she is learning so far and looks forward to having her study each week. Her husband was raised in the truth, but has never been baptized. He has no interest in the truth at this point, but hopefully it will be rekindled now that Maritze is showing an interest!

The ministry continues to amaze us here on this tiny island! Our regular pioneer couple, Rick and Donna Falk have over a dozen studies between them, a few of whom are attending meetings already. To the right is a picture of  one of Donna’s studies, Tracy, who sells her handmade jewelry from her stand right on the beach. Her daughter Kaya (who is taking the picture with my camera) also has her own separate study after school.

Rich, my Rich (we have 3 Richards in our English congregation) has a few studies also… some pretty interesting characters too… a couple of Rastaferians… but one of his studies, is a man who looks after the nature/wildlife preserve at the far tip of the north island. Rich had waved to him once a couple of weeks ago when he was passing by the Kingdom Hall. Then the next Sunday, the man (Evan) had come down to attend the Catholic Church and was at the water taxi asking directions and a brother told him he should come to the Kingdom Hall instead. So as he was walking toward the Catholic Church he suddenly decided to turn around and go to the Kingdom Hall instead. After the meeting, Rich went to talk with him and he expressed so much appreciation for what he had heard in the talk and the WT study and particularly the loving conduct of everyone and the children commenting. He had many questions so Rich offered to visit him at his home to answer them. He said “Oh yes! that would be wonderful because I want to continue this discussion.”

So during the following week Rich rented a kayak and headed out to his place, about a three and a half mile trip. I was slightly apprehensive of his going up there alone, especially since he didn’t get away early because of the heavy rain in the morning. Plus it didn’t seem to me the weather was going to change much. Anyway, about 5pm I started to worry because I knew it would be getting dark within an hour, so I tried calling him on his cell… no answer. Well, I didn’t want to be the worry-wart wife, so I let it go thinking he’d be walking in the door any minute, but when I started hearing thunder and the sky got totally black with storm clouds and it was now heading toward 6pm when it gets dark, I went upstairs and asked Brother Hagerty “Ok, so when does a wife decide it’s time to be worried… when it’s almost dark, or after when it’s too dark to do anything about it?” When I explained Rich was out on the sea in a kayak, of course he said “Ummm… right now”. So off he went to see what he could see. Rich’s bike was still at the kayak rental which meant he really was out on the water. It had now started to pour, and thunder and lightning. Diane took me in and made me a cup of coffee while we waiting anxiously for the phone to ring. Larry found a local guy with a boat to take him out and head up along the north island to look for Rich. Don’t worry, the story ends only 15 minutes after they left the wharf. They spotted him coming toward them. Larry gave us a quick call to let us know they’d found him and then hauled Rich and the kayak aboard the boat and everyone lived happily ever after 😉

Anyway, here is Richie’s own words (stolen from an email he sent to Bro. and Sis. Cabeldu):

Hey, looks like the tables have turned… *we* are the ones that now have to worry about all you friends and family back in Nova Scotia!! Not to mention our house! If Leslie and Michael continue on their collision course they could meet up in good ‘ol Cape Breton!

Even if they don’t, you’re probably going to feel some effect from one or both of them as early as Sunday! Yikes! That’s the day Lara is flying home from Ontario… or not!

We’ll be keeping all 4 eyes on this pair!
Here’s a great article about it.