i can barely even believe this...

My new placement ROCKS! It’s so awesome here!
To make it easier though, I’ll break it down in days since my last post, since it wasn’t too long ago.
Sunday
Easter! And so much for a day of rest. Here in Belize, we like to pack everything we can into one day. In the morning we gave the house a good clean up and then we packed into the bus again and went to go see the Xunantunich Mayan Ruins. They’re awesome. We were thirteen stories in the air, looking down across the jungle canopy, the Guatemalan border, the town of Benque Viejo and a neighboring Guatemalan city… it was so scary but so cool at the same time. If I thought climbing up the Mayan ruins with a fever was difficult, it was even worse going down with a fever and a fear of heights. Afterward, we were all going to go swimming in the Belize River in Spanish Lookout, but all of us were pretty exhausted, so we just voted to go home. I went up onto my top bunk and fell asleep for a couple of hours. That was something I really needed so I could be awake for church that evening. And I needed it. Church was absolutely amazing. We went to the same church that we usually go to, but this time, the real pastor was preaching, and it was really amazing how the whole sermon really applied to what our group is going through. At the end, there was an alter call, and so many of us went up to the front either to pray and accept the Lord into our hearts or to be prayed for/over. At the end of the service, while everyone else was getting juice and cookies, our team (minus two people) was crouched on the floor of the church and we were all praying for and over each other, laying hands on one another. What a way to draw the group closer together.
Monday
I did my laundry in the morning so I could pack and then ship off to my new placement with Laura Mickelsons and Emily teBrake. We’re staying at In His Will Ministries in Unitedville, which is a really poor area about twenty minutes away from Roaring Creek (which is also a really poor area). In the mornings we do a lot of cleaning and such, since there’s a high school group here from Calgary, Alberta. We help to make lunch, and then in the afternoon we go to the library/learning centre where we tutor and play with kids. We return to IHW to help make dinner, and then we get the evening off. It’s a lovely schedule. However, it will change entirely next week when Emily returns to the base and when the group from Alberta has left. But that’s not the exciting part.
We went to an awesome praise service with the team from Alberta. It looked like an American guy that ran it, and we sang songs to a CD instead of a band. We packed into rows of plastic chairs, while a crazy amount of very young children packed onto the stage that was situated at the “side” of the church. The American pastor grabbed a microphone and began to lead us all in rousing praise songs. The kids at the side were a ton more into it than most of the adults were. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but the group from Alberta is Catholic, so they didn’t really know the songs or anything. They don’t know how to praise like the rest of us, so a lot of the kids – who are mostly in grades 9 and 10 – ended up sitting down through the service. That was a little disappointing, but the kids who must have been 6 to 10 years old who would clap along, close their eyes, raise their hands, shout along to the songs and sometimes jump to the beat made up for. They were so cute and it was so inspiring to see kids like that.
The best part of Monday was finding a scorpion in our cabana. It was climbing on the wall right near the ceiling. We screamed and shouted for a while until the son of the people who run the ministry came over to check it out, and then two guys from the Alberta team came over to help kill it. We chased it around with an aerosol can of sunscreen for a while, then Matt, a tall guy from Alberta grabbed a broomstick and smushed it in half. It was awesome. I had to spray down the baseboards with Raid, because we were told and believed at the time that Raid killed them. Somehow, I slept just fine on the futon beneath the two halves of a scorpion. Laura was afraid, though, and she had a lot of trouble sleeping.
Tuesday
It was a rough day, because the raging fever I had had on Sunday was back with a vengeance. So, I tried to rest for most of the day because Mr K was supposed to come pick Emily and I up to go to the clinic at 5 to 1-ish in the afternoon. Since he forgot, I just rested in the dining hall. There was a time, however, where my services were desperately needed. And mom, you might want to skip over this part, because it’s AWESOME. So I was just falling asleep on a table in the dining hall when we see people running around, and a lady from Team Alberta comes running into the dining hall and says, “Girls, there’s a fire, I think they need all the help they can get!” And I stood up heroically and said “I’m there!” Because I am there when it comes to being a hero, because I am a hero. So I walked casually over to the burning jungle (since I knew that as soon as I got there, everything would be fine) and when I arrived there, I took the machete from a kid with heat stroke. This is a scary (and true) part. This kid was kind of delusional, because we were shouting at him to go back to his hammock, but he kept swinging the machete around saying that he couldn’t leave and he had to stay. Finally, his chaperone grabbed him, pulled the machete out of his hand, handed it to me and pushed him out of the jungle. So my job with the machete was to hack down trees to make a fire break about 5 feet wide. Then other people who arrived as I was still hacking trees had to pick up all the dry leaves and the trees and throw them out of the path. The neighbors who don’t like Mike and Vicki (who are the couple who run In His Will Ministries) had to start a grass fire as they do here at this time of year, and since they don’t like them, they enjoy not telling them this stuff. Awfully polite of them. So, being the hero I am, I brushed off a raging fever to put a stop to a raging fire. I’m awesome like that sometimes.
Finally, three and a half hours late, Mr K comes to pick me up. We trucked off to St. Luke’s Medical Centre, which was a tiny little clinic in some side neighborhood of Belmopan. The wait was about a half-hour in freezing cold air conditioning in a wet tank top (I got sprayed with the hose after the fire) and then when I got to see the doctor, I was told I had strep throat (tonsillitis) and infected bug bites. Gee whiz, who would’ve guessed? Then I got a prescription, and it really cost a lot. Try over $100 Bz. Good thing that I had $27. But this is where God intervened. The lady behind the counter asked who we were here with, and we said YWAM. She asked who was in charge at YWAM, and I said Santie Valencia. She said that as long as we arranged for someone to get the money to them, I didn’t have to pay right away. As it turns out, she was one of the first students at YWAM when it opened. Amazing how that works.
We spent the evening at the base. I watched Phil, Santie’s son, training a horse to barrel race on the football field. I had some delicious Chinese “Mr. Noodles” for dinner (just kidding, it was really wretched food, as can only be expected in the big house) and then it was back off to our cabana at In His Will.
But our cabana was under attack again. This time, I was set to sleep on the top bunk when another very large scorpion showed up on the wall near the foot of the bed. This time, being in pajamas, I was frightened. I know that makes no sense, but being in pjs makes me feel vulnerable. So, we picked up our mattresses and went to sleep in the girls’ cabana, where the group from Alberta is actually housed. They didn’t mind sharing a bit of floor with us. We found that we just really couldn’t sleep in that house when there were two big scorpions.
Wednesday
Today is my day of rest, as recommended by the doctor. No fires, no scorpions, just sitting around. Even Team Alberta is out today at the children’s home in Belmopan. Soon, they’ll be asking us to help out with dinner, whereupon we will gladly oblige.

I also want to apologize to anyone whose emails I have not replied to. I’m a real jerk that way. Please email me again soon, and, if you sound angry enough, I may reply to it. Be sure to ask specific questions and tell funny stories, or your email will not hold my attention. For instance, the question “what’s up?” will get the response “what?”
Anyway, I hope to talk to everyone soon, and, just in case Grandma and Grandpa read this, happy very belated 55th anniversary, happy belated birthday Grandpa, and I will call to wish those to you personally as soon as I can.
Love you all, don’t really miss you, and I hope you are having fun in the snow.

PS. My last post got 0 comments. What’s with that?