Heading Home

Clouds and drizzle this morning...no last beautiful sunrise from Ruby's deck! We had breakfast at Estele's one last time and came home and headed for the water taxi in the rain.

Then the long wait in the Belize airport..


Good bye Belize!

We walked miles in the Miami airport to go through customs and recheck our bags and then headed home on our final leg...arriving around 11:00 pm. The end of another wonderful St. Luke's Mission Trip to Belize! Thanks to everyone for their prayers and support that made this such a successful trip.

Check back one more time for favorite pictures and some reflections on the trip.

Friday - Valentine's Fair

Cloudy and cool this morning as we prepare for our last day at Holy Cross.Bob collecting clothing and shoe donations to take to school.Starfish sighting on the way to school.

Homemade Valentine Cupcakes for the Valentine's Fair

Evidence of Valentine's Day everywhere!

The calm before the chaos!

On the last day we always present the cooks with a small token of our appreciation.

Teachers and students began arriving soon after we did to set up for the big party. The Valentine's Fair is actually a fundraiser for Holy Cross. There are games, a party room for dancing, lots of food to purchase, face painting, tattoos and general milling around and visiting. Most of the games are $.25 BZ (12 cents US), but a lot of kids don't have the money so some adults were going around passing out coins to some of the kids so they could play the games too. All in all they made over $1000 US for the day, and the kids had a blast! Here are a few pictures of the craziness.

As you can see, some of our group participated in the fair as helpers, applying tattoos, doing face painting and general crowd control. But there was still work to be done for many of us. Before the Fair got rolling we had time to get some fun things going.

When we arrived at school on Monday morning, one of the girls came up to Peter and asked where the lady with the big camera was (Sandra). When he told her she didn't come this year there were tears. Well, Friday morning, that little girl, Peter and John managed to SKYPE with Sandra so the little girl did get to see her after all. It was so fun to watch her reaction!

Ah, the wonders of modern technology!

But not all is high tech around here! Things get used until they literally fall apart!

Joyce did some rechecks of blood sugar levels for some of the adults. Good news!

Scott and Bob finished up the second coat in the Sewing Room!

Jean finished up the last of the data entries for the medical records and Kathy joined her in getting the medical files reorganized and reports printed out. It was a busy, noisy day but lots of fun going on all around us while we finished up projects. Lynn, Jim and Beth spent much of the day in San Mateo finishing up baby visits. As most of us headed out, Scott and Bob were taking down the tents after a successful day!

We gathered for our last reflections and evening service before heading to the Blue Water Grill for dinner. It's been a marvelous week. Just before we left, Estrilla, the librarian from school who was pregnant last year, stopped by with her baby, Carlos.


After a wonderful dinner and lots of laughter, we headed back to Ruby's to find our stone artisans waiting for us as promised. After purchases we headed inside for a little talk, packing and then to bed.

Thursday-Big Birthday Day!

Ah, not such a splashy sunrise this morning, but this beautiful oriole (Altamira oriole) came to visit us and sing Miss Clara a Happy Birthday song instead!
Then off for our walk along the beach to school. Today the Standard IV, V and VI teachers had teacher workshops so no school for those classes today. We've got the last of the vision and physicals for Infant I and then a few students who have been absent to pick up. Should be a nice morning! The students also have Chapel this morning so hopefully a few of us can attend that.

Standard II-III Chapel

Lots going on around school besides Vision and Physicals! Bob, Scott, John and Mr. Jason did a fine job on the second coat in the sewing room.

Pipes!!

Mr. Jason..all around jack of all trades and assistant to Mr. Freddy.

The cooks cutting up the chickens for tomorrow's barbecue at the Valentine's Fair.

Jean still crunching those numbers for Heights & Weights.

All the while Peter, Joyce, Clara and Ginny were wrapping up the physicals and vision tests for the little ones and Kathy was turning chaos into organization in the library. The poor snack lady was all over looking for us!

Hot dogs for lunch today - for little and big folks.

Guess who doesn't like hot dogs...the great kitchen crew provided PB&J for Ginny!

and a Birthday Day Cake for Clara from the kitchen staff. Mr. Freddy also has a birthday today! Miss Rosalea (r) is Freddy's wife and in charge of the feeding program. She does a wonderful job on a very tight budget to provide delicious and nutritions food for the students.

Our work continued after lunch. The meds saw teachers and the kitchen staff for their physicals this afternoon.


and the guys began putting up the tents for the Valentine's Fair tomorrow.

Helps to have a short featherweight around sometimes.

and Joyce joined in the drumming club after school.

Meanwhile, Jim, Lynn and Beth spent the morning at Dr. Gonzalez's Office. He's an OB/GYN on the Island and also handles general medical issues too. A different experience yet again.

Sorting through meds we brought down.

Dr. Daniel Gonzalez with patient while Jim looks on.

We all headed home, had showers and met at 5:30 for Compline. Lionel and Brittany stopped by to drop off some jewelry they had made and we got to celebrate his birthday also

Clara's in good birthday company!

Had some very unusual sky activity just as we completed our reflections.

We then headed to Caliente for the famous Chicken Drop. They've moved it to Thursday night so it doesn't conflict with the Wed. night service at the Adventist Church. We have a few newbies along so figured they needed to be initiated. We had deck seating so it was great.

We had great dinner conversation sharing stories of our day while we waited for our dinner and Chicken Drop #1.

There was a great band for entertainment...

and before we knew it, it was time for Chicken Drop #1.

The chicken is in hand...

the anticipation builds....

and the winner is #32!

You have to be there.... Somehow a dog got involved in the first drop....ask a team member for details. It's one of those things you should do once...

And how did they know it was Clara's birthday???

All in one blow!

While we enjoyed our wonderful rum cake we watched Coconut Man climb up the tree to get coconuts
and then some headed for ice cream and others headed back for some star gazing on the deck, lots of laughter and then a good night's sleep.