March 21st Wednesday - Los Tambos

There was a lot happening that day! Coconut water tasting to holding babies and playing with the children. God is so good! The
children loved the team from Corryton! 

I was told that the Corryton GAs did a lot to prepare for this trip. Gathering fabrics and notions for the Threads of Hope ladies. They also sent beautiful hand made cards with pictures to all the ladies in the two groups. Thank you so much for the love you shared.

Thanks to Ms Rose and Mr David there were lots of coconuts to taste! 

Inside is good too, just a little more work.

 Here is Mr David using the machete to open the coconuts. It's amazing how he has all his fingers!

We have Nathaniel scooping out the inside of the coconut with a shell spoon. 

As you can see the children loved the balloons! AND the bubbles were a big hit too!

March 22, 2018
We now are in the 77th day of our trip. Next week we start to wrap things up. Only two more weeks and we will be home.                                          

We have been busy with many different projects. The girls from Los Tambos are finishing the uniform shirts and starting the skirts on Monday. Everyone has been working hard AND having fun.
The ladies from Buena Vista have finished a few small projects and are now working on a pattern for their skirts.

It's been HOT! I know all you people who just got another blessing of snow really don't want to hear that.


Joe has been working on small projects both at Los Tambos school and Buena Vista. It seems that the fence project has slowed down hopefully to pick up soon.

On Monday March 18th, the school had an appreciation assembly for Joe and I. We were entertained by a number of songs and
poems. It was pretty cool.

Ms Evelyn presented a certificate of appreciation for the things we do for the school and the community.

Ms Lily presented us with coffee mugs. 

Very nice mugs. 

Wednesday March 21st 

We had visitors!! Corryton Baptist Church Belize team came to visit the school they passed out beans and rice, helped in the sewing class and served the kids lunch! It was a great day! We sure enjoyed seeing Angela and meeting all the wonderful ladies on the team.  

Angela and her team collected things for Threads of Hope and brought it down to us. Four totes full of fabric, thread, needles, buttons and ribbon. 

JUST LIKE CHRISTMAS! WHOO HOO!

A very special thank you to the team for putting this all together for us. We appreciate it very much and we will put it to good use.

March 11, 2018 

Here we are in Buena Vista. Sewing on Tuesday and Thursday. 

The ladies are holding their quilted market bags that they just finished. LOTS of hard work!

After finishing the BIG project we decided to do something smaller. We made little clutch bags. That only took a day.

Tuesday we have another large project to finish and we will move on to making skirts for them from hand made patterns.

Right now they need to work on the look of the finished project. They are still on high speed wanting to finish which does not help the end product.

Our projects are set up so they continue to practice the basics that they need. Just handling fabric is a skill some have yet to learn.  They all have come a long way and I know that because they are breaking fewer needles. 

They all enjoy sewing. The ladies also realize the opportunity that they have been given so they look for ways to give back to others.

Here we are March 11th already!! Time is flying by! We still have a lot of work to do. The pictures below were taken this past week. 
Weather was a little warmer than normal but the cabana provides shade and allows a wonderful cool breeze. Only problems do occur.............it usually blows the pattern pieces all over but it is a small price to pay. Those who haven't been to Los Tambos this is the back of the school. I walked back to get a recording of the Howler Monkeys but the teachers were louder than the monkeys so we will try again next time.

This was our sewing group for this past week. We have two missing. We have sewing classes here every Monday and Wednesday, whether there is school or not. Life here does not revolve around sewing classes or school. The reality is that when there is work to do in the fields women and children go to help the husbands. This is bean picking time here in Belize and entire families hop on a pick up truck leave for the fields along with many others and work in the hot sun ALL day long. I have seen children 5 years old and women who are 7 months pregnant go to work. If they want to eat that is what they have to do. That part of it makes me very sad. But I do know that things are changing here and there is hope.  Life is getting better because the children are getting an education and getting better jobs. Everyday I see the young adults that I've known for 13 years working in stores and shops and that money goes back to help the family. It is a slow process but it is showing. Being here for three months has given me a lot to think about. 

Hi there!  It's been a while since our last blog just wanted to let you all know that we are still here and things are very busy. In the last week our internet has been down and we have had some computer issues too. It's amazing how life goes on even without technology.

Our main project in LosTambos is still the uniform fabrication and in Buena Vista we will start making uniforms on Thursday.  

We are now looking at the date that we will need to begin to wrap things up. It seems like we just got here. 

Someone said "snow" in Tennessee this weekend????
Hope it melts by April 6th.

We will catch up with some pictures this weekend.