March 29, 2007

Today began with devos (devotions) on a bench near the beach. Mr. K talked about being thankful for life. He talked about how little we know the earth we are on. How we know more about space than the sea. We can only explore so much, the pressure is too much for us. We talked in our small groups about why we are thankful for life. Mr. K talked about all the blessings we have and even though we think that our life is hard, we still have so much. He told us he is still learning to be glad with what we have. Everything we have is a blessing.

After devos Mr. K asked for a few volunteers to go to this house to paint it. He told us he had met this American couple who had sold everything they owned to move down to Belize because they felt God had called them to open a sort of free learning center/library where anyone of any denomination can come and study the word. Lindsey, my team leader, volunteered us for the job. When we arrived at the house (while everyone else went back to the school we slept at to paint that) I was greeted by this really sweet couple. Right away they offered us banana bread and drinks. Instantly, we clicked with the female who was really homesick and just needed to socialize. She told us her teenage daughters had left 2 weeks ago and she was really missing them.
As the day went on I began to feel really sick. I tried to keep going, painting that is, but eventually I just burst out crying and left. Amy, one of the female chaperons, came out to meet. Once I had calmed down and taken advil, she began to talk to me, basically saying that there is no way I can leave, that I am stuck there, and I have to keep working. Pretty brutal. I return to the house, and begin to work again. Eventually the advil works, and life is good again. That day I had an amazing lunch of the best Chinese food ever. We ate cashew chicken and Orange Fanta (very popular pop, comes in flavours orange and cream soda.
Once we are picked up, we are taken to a new beach which turns out to be narshty. The ground is super mushy, you basically sink once you step in. I refused to go in and just relaxed on the bus with some other girls talking.

Then for dinner we went to a restaurant called the Canucks something or other. The restaurant was quite small, we took up 90% of the tables with our whole group. The service was incredibly slow, even for the amount of people who ordered. By the time they got to my order, they informed me that they had run out of fries and that my options were onion rings or tortilla chips. My meal ended up being a warm sprite, hamburger (very yummy) and tortilla chips with salsa (also pretty good).

The day is over, and being the girl that I am, I have many feelings. I am feeling...

- Crappy: After todays incident with my outburst at the person's house, I was later confronted by Amy again. She told me that she had to report all things to Mr. K, but she had convinced him to let her talk to me instead of him because prior to letting us go, he told us that there is to be no complaining at all while we work, and that anyone who does (including himself) will be doing extra work. Well she basically told me that Godly woman have self-control and if I had asked for the advil right away or to sit down, instead of waiting till my stomach ache was really bad, then we could have avoided my freak out, and then the problem would have been avoided. At first, I was really mad when she said this. But in a way, it makes a lot of sense. She did not ignore my feelings, she said that she would probably have acted the same way, but she said that next time I need to talk to her right away.
- Missing home: feeling lonely often, no close friends, no one to really talk with or get hyper with, can't relate with a lot of people in many things
- Better: I talked to Elena and Emily and they basically told me that they were feeling the same way. Basically feeling lonely even though your in a big group. Not having any close friends in the group and so on.
- Missing Steve: Because my comfort zones are being tested, I am missing his comfort.

- Upset: Ringworm
- still a nasty fungus on my arm
- found what they think is another one on my leg

- Frustrated: with certain girls on my trip who come from the party scene. Right before they left for this trip they were partying it up, getting drunk, etc. They like to talk back sometimes, and just rebel. A lot of the time, they are just acting ridiculous and I don't want any part of them. It can be really immature. They said that they are going to tell Kathy (YWAM director) off on their last day here. And sometimes the topics they talk about are just nasty.