One last word -- or maybe a bunch of words

What an amazing week! We started in the wee hours of the morning last Saturday and arrived back in Knoxville at 11:20 p.m. one week later.

Our trip to Belize took us into the humidity of the rain forest to a beautiful place called Jaguar Creek. The people we met there were so kind to us, and we came to love them all. We met so many Belizeans -- at Jaguar Creek, at Belmopan Baptist High School, at church services, at Mayan ruins and in rivers that run through caves. They are friendly people who are as interested in our lives here as we are in theirs.

We saw so much of God's handiwork! We saw gorgeous plants and flowers, towering trees, frightening (but dead!) snakes, scary looking spiders, lizards, monkeys, exotic birds, strange mammals and LOTS of insects. We woke in the night to the sound of howling monkeys (think about Darth Vader) and in the morning to the sounds of birds.

We sweated in the tropical heat, refreshed ourselves in Caves Branch River, ate wonderful meals prepared by the staff at Jaguar Creek, climbed ruins that are thousands of years old, and floated through caves on inner tubes.

We worked HARD at erecting 2500 feet of fence around the high school. We dug holes, mixed cement, filled the holes, put in more than 250 fence posts and completed 600 feet of chain link on one side of the property.

We played basketball and soccer with the children at Belmopan Baptist High School -- they won 4-3. We talked with them, learned about their lives, and in the process gained new appreciation for our own lives.

We sang, laughed, played and worshiped with our friends from New Providence Presbyterian Church. We sang Christian songs in Mayan caves. The acoustics were awesome, and our guides told us that we brought good spirits into the caves. We threw frisbees off Mayan ruins and bought local handcrafts. We had a talent show that was so great, all participants were declared winners.

We had a great team of adults from both churches. Mark Curtis is an extraordinary leader. Parri Thurman made it so easy for us by planning all of our activities. I wish she could have been there. Todd is so solid and dependable. Joanie is sweet, loving, and spent her week counting heads. Andrew became everybody's big brother. I just felt lucky to be included.

Farragut Presbyterian Church has raised some amazing ambassadors. Our youth not only worked hard, they showed God's love to the people of Belize with great joy and enthusiasm. They are living out their faith, and it's remarkable to watch.

Thanks to those who made this trip possible and to those who have followed our adventures on this blog. We loved hearing your comments and are so appreciative of your support. We're glad to be home, but were a little sad that it had to end. We look forward to sharing stories and pictures with you all.
Mary Boyd

Cave Tubing and Final Day in Belize

Today we started the day as any other, waking up to breakfast and the heat. Then, we went to meet the tour guides for the cave tubing in our air conditioned vans. Once at the cave tubing site (Cave's Branch River), we got our tubs and began a thirty minute hike through the woods. After a long walk, winding up and down through the jungle, we finally reached the entrance point to the river. We were given the choice to step into the river or jump off a giant rock. Most of us slide in, but a daring few (including Justin with an impressive front flip which landed him on his face) chose to take the plunge. We immediately entered the caves on our tubes, which were dark enough that we required the use of a headlamp. When we neared the end of the first cave, it suddenly got a little warmer. A steamy romance brewed in the coolness of the dark cave. Though we will not go into details in order to protect the identity of those involved, the romance heated up with the "holding of hands" in order to "preserve the tube chain." The steamy romance got so hot that it created rapids in the caves, which we had to manuvuer through. But moving on, the caves were amazing. From the outside, it was like... a cave. But from the inside, there were stalgatites and other formations hanging from the ceiling. The river took us in and out of the caves and over rapids. The ride lasted for about two hours and was followed by more cliff jumping and boxed lunches. It was good to be out of the heat for a day and in cold water. After tubing we were all exhausted and half of us slept on the ride home. We have had a great time but can't wait to get home!!
Kevin Wright and Justin Lomax (including Meredith Manning as the typist)
P.S. Momma Mary wants everyone to know that there will be a final posting tomorrow night to wrap everything up.

Job Well Done

After a three full work days were completed, we were informed that today we would only be required to work on the fence untill noon. From the time we left Jaguar Creek in the morning, most of the laborers had high spirits because the fence was going to be completed by the time they left. However, we were unable to complete the fence in its entirety due to the cements need to set further. Out of the three sides of the fenced in school yard, a 600 foot portion of the fence was completed while the remaining 1900 feet of poles are yet to have the chain linking. Although we did not see the final product, the next work crew will complete the project and we were at least able to see the results of our hard labor and teamwork!
After the fence was perfectly constructed and the nutritous lunch break was taken, we had the pleasure of playing soccer and hanging out with the local high school students. The students we met were friendly and talkative and perhaps the highpoint of the week thus far was getting to know the people we were helping.
On the drive home from the work site, our numerous white vans pulled into an unexpecting gas station and proceeded in clearing the store of their Gatorade supply. The local merchants must enjoy the benefits of a thirsty group; especially a group of 50!
One of the youth from New Providence was infected by a bot fly! The way you cure it is to put a piece of duct tape over it and wait 24 hours before ripping off the tape. Duct tape really DOES do everything!
From here on out it's fun and games and packing for the trip home! We appreciate so much our avid readers on writers on the blog. Your comments help us stay motivated and feel very loved.
Amy Scheuer and Andrew Boyd
P.S. Amy loves her father and sis and Andrew loves his wife.

P.P.S. (from Andrew)- In addition to the above, I wanted to let all of you know how amazing your children are. I continue to see God in each of our youth. They have proven that they know what it means to be a good Christian. They have put others before themselves. They have shown their commitment to God. They have loved their neighbors. I hope you are as proud of them as we chaperones are!

Never Been Sweatier

The Days of our trip are sadly winding down. With one more day of work and a fun filled day of cave tubing, we are running short on time. In all seriousness, though, we are actually ahead of schedule and only have to a half day tomorrow. This should hopefully give us extra time to play with school children or just relax. Since tomorrow will be the last day we visit the school, we will be handing out the various toys that Anda and everybody else sent.This morning we were unfortunately not awoken by howler monkeys. When we did wake up, however, we headed to the lodge for an GENUINE BELIZEAN RIVER coffee cake and oatmeal. While eating, we were met with some very sentimental cards that made us all want our mommies. After enjoying our refreshing breakfast, we headed on out to the work site. Thankfully, the predictions of it being ten degrees hotter were not true. We started off by mixing gargantuan amounts of cement.We divised a new system of carrying the cement by loading it into Tono's trailer. Then carried buckets through the treacherous marsh which was a devestatingly horrible idea of Mark's. For a couple gruesome hours, we were rotating bucket brigades. This effectively prevented death as far as we know. Around noon, we encountered another Belizean delicousy for lunch. We ate meatballs and rice and that crazy awesome sauce stuff. Post-luncheon some of the boys, including ourselves (Graham and Deacon), played a super intense game of BBall ( basketball for you old geezers) with the local children. Of course myself ( Deacon Manning) won in the game of basketball. Then we finished up pouring concrete into holes and placed poles in them. Graham was working so intensley that several adults had to hold him back from going back out to work. However, Graham used his super awesome agility and speed to evade all of the adults and continued to work. Thankfully, with Graham working, we were able to finish pouring and setting all of the concrete today. Thank God we were done for the day and able to retreat to our respective vans. We came back and took a relaxing dip in the creek. After our dip in the creek we enjoyed a fantastic dinner consisting of Belizean hamburger helper but exponentially better. Meanwhile, during dinner, a steamy romance brewed. We also celebrated Caroline's (one of the adults from New Providence) 60th birthday. The cake was just as good as Kaylor's cake or even maybe better. Then Graham and I went to the office to blog and it just so happens I am writing this sentence at this very moment. And this one as well. But we are afraid to say that we must stop blogging so we may go participate in our devotional meeting. We thank you and really enjoy all of the comments you have posted and are awaiting to read more.
Thanks, I love you mom and dad (and Lily)---------Deacon manning
Thanks, i love you mom and dad ( and Rover) more than Deacon does---Grahanimal Wright

Fantastic epic day number two

Today was another wonderful, hot, hard day of work. We've been periodically warned about the wild life (i have bugs crawling all over me right now) and we got to witness some of that this morning. Luckily all the snakes we've run into are dead, oh, how we love our jaguar creek staff. To date, we have dug 254 post holes, "ohyos" as we are learned the holes are called from the students. This is their exam week, but we have still found time to talk to them and for some of us to partake in a basketball game.
We thought we were doing a pretty fantastic job dominating that fence. However the principal came out yesterday after we were done and told us it didn't look straight. We had to dig out solid concrete and try again. We were in really high spirits considering.
I (Samantha) also caught a pretty beast toad. It was the size of a big mac.
Kaylor also may or may not have had a nice surprise of the arachnid variety in the form of what might have been a taranchula on her arm. Don't worry, she's fine. She still has one good arm to dig holes with. Hahaha, we didn't make her dig with that arm, we gave her an hour break with concrete.
Amy has also been whipping this camp into shape with "Amy Boot Camp" every night. If we weren't already sore enough...
Food is still fantastic, fried wombats mmmm. <- That is another joke.
We've also been enjoying the crazy bus rides to the sites. Speed limitsaren't strongly enforced in Belize and passing is a game to them. The speed bumps serve as ramps to jump off of at top speed. Andrew found birds as nice little targets for his van, the feathers made a perfect hood ornoment.
The creek was a welcome relief this afternoon. Good thing the pirahhanas weren't out. (Ms. Mary would like me to inform you of the humor in this again).
Free time, our camp enjoys intense games of spoons and signs. Lots of flailing to loosen up at the end of the day. Graham and Justin seem to enjoy the "hot sauce game". Everyone else enjoys watching Graham and Justin enjoy the "hot sauce game".
Something hit the roof last night. Kaylor screamed my name. Apparently I took too long to respond to her, so she got nervous. These roofs magnify everything. I've heard rumors of howler monkeys that people heard at night, but I havent heard any of that. I suppose our cabin is just a better sleeper than them all. :)
We're in super high spirits here and the next room seems to have broken out into a game that must be joined.
- Journey through the eyes and typings of Samantha and Kaylor

first work day

Today we began our first day of mission work. We began work at the Belmopan Baptist High School, building 600 feet of fence. The work was hot and strenuous, but rewarding. We have made a lot of progress, but there is still a lot of work to do.
Every one is having a great time. After work today, we went swimming in Jaguar Creek. The cool water felt great on the mild sunburn everyone has now. Tomorrow we will be sure to put on more sunscreen!


Fletcher Ekern and Hayes Griffin

First full day in Belize

Hello from Belize! Jaguar Creek is amazing. We are literally in the jungle, surrounded by luscious jungle foliage and beautiful birds. After a long nights sleep, we woke up to an awesome mosquito net and lots of humidity. Once the workings of getting ready were done, we went to breakfast at about 8:30. From there we went to the vans and were headed to multiple churches. Of the 50 people, we split up at 4 different churches. The church I went to, Abby Begovich, was Church of God. It was pretty much just a house with benches and such in it. When we walked in there were many children singing and dancing. We actually did the hokey pokey! After singing, we introduced ourselves and Mark Curtis said a few words on sacrament. After that the worship leader told us that we were essentially witnessing Sunday School, that they do their bigger church service at night on Sundays. When the service was over, we got to interact a little bit with the kids and learn more about them. Since our service was just a Sunday School we got done a lot earlier than everybody else, so we got to sit in the van with the awesome humidity. We sat there for about an hour and a half but it gave Amy Scheuer and I a chance to talk more to the Maryville group. While Abby was having such a good time at the Church of God, I (Meredith Manning) went with another group of people, all from Farragut Pres, to the Belmopan Baptist Church. The service didn't start for an hour after we got there, so we wandered around the area for a while and Todd Thurman pointed out various native bird species to us. We then went into the church for worship, which sounds like a very different experience then the one Abby and the other churches had, as the service ran over 2 hours. They opened by asking where there visitors were from and so Todd introduced us, and they then asked for birthdays and consequently the entire congregation wished Kaylor Martin a happy 18th. Then, we sang a song and listened to the local youth participate in the hand bell choir, all of the time of which I at least felt like I stood out like a sore thumb being a white American among the natives. The pastor, who we later learned happens to be the principal of the school we are building the fence for this week gave an hour and a half to forty five minute sermon on nurturing your children. Then, to top it off, the church christened a baby of the congregation, who happened to be the only baby I have ever seen to wear a pinstripe suit. After that, though, what could be constituted in my opinion as one of the longest church services ever ended, and we returned to the other groups waiting for us at the van in order to go to the Mayan ruins. After the vans had met up we started on the journey to the Mayan Ruins. The roads of Belize had "Pedestrian Bridges" what in America we call speed bumps, about every couple of miles. On the ride there, we saw many different things in
Belize construing from people walking on the side of the road to people playing basketball on a horse. Along the way, we got a good look at the amount of poverty that is around the country of Belize, it appeared that most were lacking even the basics, including electricity and running water. Even the animals that we saw from the side of the road seemed to be severely malnourished. We finally reached the ruins and had to ferry across a river to get there. Since we had not estimated the church services to go that long it was about 3 o'clock by the time we had lunch at the Mayan Ruin site. After eating, we started the trek up the ruins. There was one main ruin which was about 183 feet high. The steps were very steep but everyone from Farragut made it to the top! The view from the top was spectacular. We could see all of the closest town from the top, and it was rumored that we were looking into Guatemala in one direction from the top, but Joanie Scheuer could not remember the area that it was specifically. Another great part apart from the view was the fact that there was a breeze. In a moment of brilliance, one of the New Providence kids, Troy, decided to throw a frisbee off the top of the Mayan Ruins, but fortunately, it did not hit anyone in the head and they were able to eventually retrieve the frisbee. Most youth from Farragut just sat at the top enjoying the breeze until it was finally time to go. Once back across the river, a couple of vendors were there selling lots of jewelry and purses. After the shopping was done, we finally headed home to Jaguar Creek. We had an excellent dinner, and then celebrated Kaylor's birthday with singing and a cake made by the women working in the kitchen, which happened to be rather delicious. Tomorrow we start the real work though, but all of the touring and relaxing has been wonderful; it really is like paradise down here! The only compliant that I (Meredith) has so far is that the bugs are rampant, I have been covered in bug spray and they are still biting. I have found bites on my face and in my hair. :( Farragut Pres will report back soon!

Abby Begovich and Meredith Manning

It's finally time to go!

We leave on our adventure to the rainforest tomorrow morning at 4:00 a.m. We will drive to Atlanta and meet the group from New Providence Presbyterian Church at the airport. We'll board our Delta flight that takes us directly to Belize City. Some of the staff members from Jaguar Creek will meet us at the airport, where we'll board vans and drive to Jaguar Creek. The plan is to stop for lunch along the 1 1/2 hour trip to eat lunch at a restaurant called Cheers! Somehow, I don't think it's going to be much like Boston!

Our hope is to update this blog daily. We probably won't be able to load pictures since the internet is very slow. If, for some reason, we can't update the blog, we will send an email to the church to let everybody know we arrived safely. Becky will forward the email to the families of those on the trip.

Thanks so much to those of you who are in prayer for us during our mission trip. Thanks to Anda Ray for giving each of the youth a goodie bag to take along. And HUGE thanks to Parri Thurman for doing the planning for the trip.
Mary Boyd