Thursday, February 14, 2013

A Chat with Loo


Snakes and I are like two peas in two pods…very distant pods! I think the best types of snakes are either out of site or dead. I have tried to get over my fear of them, but as of yet I have not had any luck. Knowing this background you can now understand this story a little bit better.
Once upon a time (last Sabbath), there was a girl who went to church for AY (Adventist Youth). We sang beautiful songs, listened to peoples’ testimonies, and fooled the stubborn old man preaching that we understood every word of Spanish that he said. (He was trying to convince us that the world did not move, but rather the sun moved around us. Keila taught us that we should just nod every now and then and say “Amen” whenever he looked our way. Amen can mean yes, no, or otherwise; generally a good answer for a religious service. 

After the service, Phoebe and I were going to visit the king’s throne quickly before we drove home. Although the church is only a few miles away, it takes about 30 minutes. I knew that I could not hold it that long so I made my way to the can. Phoebe was going to leave the guitar in the car then come over after I had a talk with Mother Nature. I was afraid that if I left the door cracked open someone other than Phoebe would come along and open it up with me squatting over the hole. {The week before I had a funny conversation with some of the ladies who said that we were all using the porcelain (or rather cement) seat the wrong way. Apparently you are supposed to face away from the door. I thought that was a terrible idea because then I cannot see if people start to open the door on me.} Despite my new knowledge, I decided that I was going to use the squatty potty the wrong way. With miniscule light, I started the call with Mother Nature. After a few seconds, I looked to the bottom of the door and noticed a cute little lizard crawling in under the door. Unfortunately, that cute little lizard had no legs! As the saying goes “I was up a creek without a paddle” and that creek was flowing fast. I hung up on the conversation as quickly as I could and shimmied out the door as soon as I could. Phoebe was just walking up to the perfume house when I came bolting out. I squealed a few words then finally communicated that there was a snake crawling into the outhouse. All the church members present heard the clamor and inquired of the situation. As best as I can remember, that thing had to be 10 feet long and 8 inches around. OK, so maybe it was only 8 inches long and 1 centimeter around, but all the same he was disturbing the peace (I try never to exaggerate the truth). I told one of the elders what had happened and he went and killed it for me. Turns out that it was a baby rattlesnake! In the end, I was creeped out all evening and even dreamt of the slithery little beast.

Have you ever considered what is creeping up in your life that could potentially be lethal? I have found that it is easy for me to sleep in a little and pass off our group worship as my time with God. Perhaps you have a different situation. Pray that God shows you what needs to be weeded out from your garden of life.

I Belize I might have wet my pants if I had not already been visiting the john. 

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Of Weeding and washing

Life is finally starting to find its groove... or as much of a groove as it can. I have been weeding, planting, weeding, working on my house (don't worry, there are others who tell me what to do here), weeding, learning to cook new foods, weeding, trying to learn spanish, deshhierbar (look it up), and much more. As I have left some friends in America, I have found some new chums to hang out with.

I have learned to live a much simpler life down here. Since there is no electricity, I tend to go to sleep very early.The other night I felt like I might fall over only to realize that it was not even 9 pm yet! The showers have only one temperature and it is not scalding. I am learning that rice and beans is not the same thing as beans and rice. Washing clothes has also been a new experience. I have learned how to operate a wringer washer. Even though hand washing is a good upper body workout, I think I prefer to take the chances of my fingers getting wrung. Although there is probably a lot of other tasks that may seem foreign to me now, I am sure that in a few more weeks they will seem normal.

Working in the field for many hours is quite character building, so I've been told. I have found that singing a song really helps to keep the time moving. We did an AY service on Sabbath all about music. I would like to challenge you to sing when you are happy, sad, angry, discouraged, or just plum bored. You never know what message God will give you through a song.



I cannot Belize how much easier laundry is with a wringer washer compared to doing it by hand.