Wednesday at the School

After breakfast the team all began what trust will become a tradition and signed the new St. Luke's panel.

Randy and Ginger continued with much needed painting duties, with Ginger painting that exterior of the cafeteria and Randy adding a nice touch to the dental waiting room.

As always, the students were full of good cheer and and not shy about getting attention.

Bob and Nancy continued working in the classrooms.  Here's Bob with Japhet, who recognized Bob from previous visits.

After lunch we made a visit to San Pedro high school to visit the students sponsored by St. Luke's:  Ariany, Amini and Kevin.  Our fourth student, Valdimir was absent and we hope that team two will see him next week.

  

Tuesday at the school

Nancy spent most of the day teaching and tutoring. She'll be spending time with this same class (standard 3- the equivalent of our 5th grade) for the remainder of her two weeks at Holy Cross.

Eileen was skilled enough to get a few of the children to slow down long enough to get their picture taken.  Most of the children are clearly not shy and most enthusiastic about getting their picture taken.

Lunch is a typically joyous time, managed as always with speed and efficiency by the staff.  The 2007 St. Luke's team helped construct the cafeteria.  

Peter and Eileen confer with Mr. Rodney Griffith, the school's new principal.

  

Following our evening meeting and devotional, our group dinners are a relaxing end to the day.  Here we are at Elvi's, one the regular hangouts for each year's St. Luke's teams.   

Monday at the school



After a typically hearty breakfast served up by the excellent cafeteria staff.  Ms. Dora, our volunteer contact and a graduate of Holy Cross, took us on a tour of San Mateo.  In addition to being on staff at Holy Cross, Dora is currently studying tourism at local junior college and is the daughter of Mr. Freddy, the school's head of maintenance and Ms. Rosalea, who heads the cafeteria.

  

Eileen, Mike and Lera spend the day recording heights and weights of the children.  Beyond the the important tasks of, gathering the children, measuring height and weight, recording them on paper and then adding them to the spreadsheet, this was a wonderful time to interact with the children.

Randy and Ginger ensured that St. Luke's is properly represented among the many murals and other paintings from the many churches and organisations who support Holy Cross.

The finished product celebrates a wonderful 10 year partnership between Holy Cross and St. Luke's.

Off to Belize City for church

Eileen, Peter, Lera and Mike headed off to early to catch the 6:30 water taxi to Belize City to the 8:30 service at St. John's Cathedral.

The congregation at St. John's could not have been more welcoming and the group was introduced during announcements.  After the service we found a taxi driver who gave us a tour of Belize City before dropping us off for a quick brunch.  We caught the noon water taxi back to Ambergris Caye. 

Breakfast on the beach with Lydia 

The team had a long restful breakfast with Lydia, the Holy Cross Volunteer Coordinator and her family, including their newest arrival, Benjamin.  Benjamin gets to know Eileen and Lera.

  

The team enjoyed good food, much coffee and fellowship.  Lydia's older son Jonathan was thrilled with a gift compliments of Peter and Sandra.

                                                           
Team 1 Has Arrived!

Tropic Air safely deposited us on Ambergris Caye.  We'll have a weekend of recreation before start Monday morning.  The weather is beautiful and we're happy to back in Ruby's  

Wrapup and addendum

This will be our final post from the February 2015 trip, reporting that we all made it back safely to snowy North Carolina. For visual confirmation of this, here are a pair of before and after photos - before and after our trip back home:

There's also an addendum to the blog: Bob's visit on Sunday to meet Ariany's family. Ariany is the 2014 Holy Cross graduate that Bob and Mary Jane are sponsoring for four years of high school on Ambergris Caye. Bob first caught up with Ariany one day after school, as he was walking back to the hostel and Ariany and two of her friends were leaving high school - that's Ariany standing right in front of Bob.

Then on Sunday, our last full day on Ambergris Caye, Bob met Ariany in the park and she took him back into San Mateo to see her home and meet her family. It was great meeting Ariany's parents and her three younger siblings (plus one cousin who showed up jsut for the photo shoot) and seeing their home.

Unless some other members of the team find that they have photos from the trip they want to share on the blog, this will be our last post from 2015. Look for new posts from the 2016 team starting right around February 1, 2016.