Belize Adventures

 And today we break from our regularly scheduled programming to bring you... Questions from Readers! Q: Where are you & Nate? A: We are in Belize. Belize is a country in Central America. They speak English and use American Sign Language, among other languages (including but not limited to Bileez Kriol (Belize Kriol), Maya (Mopán), q'eqchi' (Kekchi), Spanish, Mandarin, Garifuna and Plautdietsch (Low German)). We are in the Stann Creek District in the southern part of the country, in Independence village, sometimes called Mango Creek. We are here because there is a greater need in ASL. Q: What is a need-greater? A: Put simply, there can be a need for Kingdom publishers, for qualified brothers or for encouragement. In Belize, there is currently one congregation and one group for ASL. The group is here in Mango Creek, and personally, I think all three needs are present here. Q: How did you settle on Belize? A: Long story short, we sent off a letter to the US Branch asking where...

 aka Congregation Get together! We met a sister earlier this week, Tiffany. She and her husband are need greaters from the States. She helped orchestrate today's events. The congregation rented a bus and reserved a park space. Again, keeping it short and sweet... Here are the photos from the day! We are the Silver Triangle on Four Mile Lagoon What a fun, fun day! Thank you, Orange Walk congregation for including us!

 We had midweek meeting tonight so Nate & I chose to have a lazy day, catch up on some things and do meeting prep. Horace & Reymona went out preaching but we stayed behind.  Here are some photos from the day and the meeting. Bris enjoying a homemade matcha latte New flavor alert (at least for this market): Lime Cucumber and no, I didn't try it Original Dawn! Not the new scent! Where's Bullwinkle? This package cost $7.11 BZD ($3.56) - and yes, there are 4, count them 4 strawberries.  Didn't buy these either 2 pieces of gum in each pack Angelica - Omar & Bianka's sister (we met them in Belize City) New friends (can't wait for them to meet the 2 little girls we met in service yesterday!) Street food after meeting... yum. Each one had a different meat inside: Al pastor, beef, chicken, quesabirria (2 of those since they were fire)

 By now, in real time, it's Jan 23 and I'm behind in getting these blog posts done for you, dear reader (!) And you really like the photos, not so much my ramblings... it's ok, you can tell me. So let's blast out a few and get you up to speed! Oh but Thursday the 8th! It was a good day! A nice long service day full of awesome deaf adventures! So we'll tell you all about it. We met with the group and then went and picked up Bris's grandma. Now also my grandma too. Remember my abuela I picked up yesterday? Now I have a Belizean granny too... So we had 2 cars, Horace & Reymona & Bris in one and then Nate & I, Carolyn & her mom in Carolyn's car. Carolyn is Bris's mom and their family was in ASL when there was a Cong here in OW. So she had deaf RVs and studies previously and knew where they still lived. But first breakfast. Bris had called in breakfast at a local cafe so we all drove there. I ran in for a coffee. Now, we're ready. We heade...

 Today we met again with the local friends and struck out into the territory. We had a few leads from yesterday (you're getting the hang of this now, aren't ya?!) and so we tried to chase them down. Orange Walk KH Our first lead was supposed to live near a gas station at the edge of town. Horace & Reymona took one side and Brissett, Nate & I took the other side. We walked the length of the street but couldn't confirm that anyone deaf lived there.                                                   A random house that I thought looked cool We walked back to the gas station, where I encountered the nicest bathroom experience I have had so far! Brief sidebar: Public bathrooms are more of a thing here than they are in Guyana but still not really a thing. Some places will have them - gas stations, bus station, hold on, I'm thinking w...