After a delightful few days with Shelbye and Jesse, we welcomed the rest of our team from the Awakening, and as we prepared our hearts spiritually and culturally, we also got to have fun in lots of ways! From worshipping together, to playing, cooking, exploring and traveling together! Tati and I rented a Toyota 4Runner from Pastor Henry, and it was so great!! With all seven of us piled into it for the week, two people always had to sit in the trunk/back but it was an adventure! For me it was weird because I had been just roughing it and been thrown into the culture pretty quickly, while Tati and I were living out of our car - but now that I had been in Belize for over a month, and adapted to the poverty and feeling like a Belizean myself, it was strange to then be with everyone and be a sight seeing tourist with them!
Shannon and Shelbye
We spent a night at Caye Caulker, a really beautiful caye off the coast, and this is us running into one of Tati's friends Neno who drove by on his golf cart
The hotel we stayed at
It was weird going from true third world mentality, and then for everyone coming on the trip, taking them to such a nice place that was definitely geared toward tourists. It was fun, but it was a weird culture shock of its own.
Shannon, Shelbye, Justin, me!
Rooftop view of our hotel
Street view - very colorful!
I'm sure you can guess whose silhouettes you see!
Beautiful hammock pic!
This is a mountain called the Sleeping Giant - you can see his face!
Because the Lord provided ($3,000 in 4 days) for the conference like He said He would, we decided to do something for Him, to celebrate and rejoice! So we decided to make cupcakes, and go around the whole city of Belmopan and give them away and tell them what the Lord did!! It was really fun! Tati was driving the SUV, and she was like a little soccer mom as she would drive around town dropping us off in groups and picking us up in different places. It was SO FUN! I definitely want to do things like this more. People were so receptive and even confused, not understanding that these treats were totally free. Lots of smiles, lots of opportunities to share and even growing times together as a little family and team.
Tati and Justin had a grand idea to save the fish heads from one of the meals we ate at a restaurant, and to somehow freak out Jesse (the king of tricks and pranks like this) and so these pictures basically tell it all
Butterfly on our list of pastors and guests list
Tati cooked the most, but we all helped cook the meals and ate them on the floor.
When we left the Garcia's, the family in Trio Village, they gave us 8 HUGE pineapples, and a huge sack of oranges. Talk about awesome!!
I made some special johnny cakes gone sweet-tooth. Johnny cakes are like a mix between a biscuit, a bun and an english muffin - sort of. . . anyway i added lots of sugar and made them . . . well, "lauren cakes" . . . I like that sweet sweet ;)
Miracle on 31st Street!!!!!! but SERIOUSLY!! We got a new Compressor for our car!!! Hallelujah praise the Lord God Almighty - for the first time in the past month n a half, we got new motors for the windows and a compressor to fix the AC!! No more sweating like pigs!
This is us super happy in our new toyota 4runner
this is us kinda gross with no other than Nickoli! One of the guys who was in our caravan driving through Mexico! He has a business giving tours and he took us cave tubing!!!! (I tried eating termites on our jungle hike getting to the caves - we couldnt take cameras, otherwise I would show a picture - they tasted like minty sprucy flavor of some sort)
Holes in the road as usual
The Girls!
Dancing on the pier!
Beautiful!
Justin and Shannon
We are trying to lick each other!
This is a pig head! or actually a whole pig body!!!!
These next pics are all awkward and awful :) Being bored at a restaurant, we took turns blowing our lips, and shaking our faces . . . . I still can't do it! I keep trying though!
haha tati's little fist
yes i look like a retard
On the rooftop worshipping together
Something really cool was that EVERY PERSON in our team was super musical. (besides me lol) Shannon is studying worship leading at her christian college in Toccoa, Tati plays guitar and sings excellently, Shelbye is like a stunna at everything music, Jesse and Matt are also up there with the rest!
cool pic of bartering for a hammock for sweet Shannie
Walking to the boat, leaving the kids behind, so that we can go ahead and get things ready for the conference - from paying our cook Maria, to setting up things at the church etc
Tati's car/sea sickness got us a front top seat behind the captain! I basically introduced myself and shook one of the crew-hands' hands, and said, "and this is Tati. She will throw up everywhere if she doesn't have air blowing on her" . . . they talked to the captain and he agreed to let us up top. Fun!
so beautiful!
dolla billz
long day
piling up in the back
A little butterfly we tried to pray to life lol
