Friday February 16, 2018 - Unitedville 

In His Will Preschool

This is one of our favorite parts of the trip. We distribute shorts and dresses and quilts for the children. The shorts and dresses are made by Grandma's PJs. The quilts are made by Joe's 93 old Aunt Gladys and his 95 year old Uncle Larry. Wonderful people who just love to make quilts for the little ones. They have made quilts that have been sent all over the world. We have been distributing their quilts in Belize for about 5 years. 

 Lots of cuteness in these pictures.
And lots of God working from a far. Knowing the time and love that goes in to making each of these items and being able to see the reaction of the children first hand is a very humbling experience and such a blessing that we get to be the ones who deliver it. 

 They were all ready to take a nap after everything was given out.

Thank you all who put your time into making this happen for the children! 

Thursday February 15, 2018 - Buena Vista

A beautiful day! Looking forward to finishing the Market bags.

Arrive early and everyone one came in and then we found out there was no electricity in the building or in the town. No one knew why but it is a little hard to sew without it. The girls worked on cutting out the finial pieces of their bags. The pictured below is the only bag that is finished. Enna did a great job. The quality of her sewing has improved greatly. I am excited to see the others finish on Tuesday. Power was still off when I left not sure that it is back on.

We returned home and did some of the house hold chores. The sky is blue, the sun is shining and the wind is blowing! Perfect day to hang towels on the line.

 February 14th Wednesday.
Trip to Belize City on the bus.
Purpose to purchase fabrics for the school uniforms. 
We left Unitedville at 8:15am.
We made it to Belize City about 10:30. The bus was nice. Definitely
not a new bus but it was clean. On the ride over we stopped at least 10 times to pick up passengers. You can add Belize City to the list of cities I NEVER want to drive in.
Streets are narrow, bumper to bumper traffic, people double parking lots of horns honking. Whew! I just closed my eyes thought it might be easier if I don't watch.  The bus terminal is a locked and guarded area. Similar to prison however meant to keep the bad guys out. 

Joe and his helper packing up the

fabrics we purchased.  A taxi picked us up  and back to the bus terminal. 

This bad boy here is our ride home. This is the EXPRESS bus! Our packages loaded in the back and we are off again. Out of lock up and on the road. This driver was MOVING! We made a few stops but we made great time. Again, me with my eyes closed! This guy passed everything in sight. Back in Unitedville about 3:00pm and headed home with a stop at the Spelling Bee in Duck Run #1. We had two children from LosTambos School competing. Unfortunately both of the children were eliminated in the fourth round.

Monday February 12, 2018

This the way the day started.......................a very large bolt in the tire. The light came on for low pressure in the tire. Shopped at

Farmer's trading Center came back out and it was FLAT! If you have to have a flat tire..........good place to have it. On level ground and it is NOT raining!! Thank you God!

Joe changed it out and we were on our way. We even had time to stop for coffee and still on time for class!  Oh forgot to tell you that the bolt was 3 1/2 inches long.

I think someone's vehicle is about to fall apart.

The young ladies pictured are the beautiful daughters of Rosanna and Raphael. They have another little sister at home name Jullianne.

Momma Rosanna is pregnant with another child and is on bed rest until the baby comes in 5 months. Please keep this family in your prayers. Rosanna is one of our sewing ladies. She has the jungle sewing room that we work in every year. 

Beautiful blue skies on Monday!

A good day to sew!

Rose -  LosTambos 

We photographed some of the decked out dresses that she made last week. I'll bet you've never seen trim used like that!

Tuesday February 13, 2018   Today was rain................and
more rain!!! Rain started sometime during the night and still raining this morning. 
I don't think I have ever seen 3 people use one poncho.

We had a great day in the sewing room. The ladies are doing such a good job on their bags. They are taking their time and doing so much better. We were so busy today this was the only picture I took. I took this on my lunch break when I was standing in the doorway eating my peanut butter tortilla.

Wednesday February 14, 2018. This will be an adventure day. We are going with Ms Evelyn to Belize City so we can purchase the fabrics for the school uniforms. Oh yes did I mention that we are taking the bus. It could be interesting.  I hope we are back in time for our Ash Wednesday Service. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Good morning! Happy Tuesday!   Ooppps where did Sunday and Monday go?

Sunday was not as we planned, no church water still on the bridge.

We worked on a few projects for classes and then went for a ride to do see if the bridge was open AND IT WAS!  Whoohoo! We celebrated by having Valenine's Day early. We went to supper at Orange Restaurant. Great food!

Monday in Los Tambos February 12th. Great day! But a busy day! No electricity yet. Still on the generator.  I found it is very difficult to run 7 machines and one iron.  The ladies are finishing their bags. The exciting thing for the day was they learned how to make band. Now they want to put it on everything!

Hopefully we have the computer back today.

On to Buena Vista today.
So blessed to have all these wonderful ladies in our lives!

February 10th, we are missing a few days.

On Wednesday we were back in Los Tambos, still no electricity but also no rain. We are very close to finishing our bags. 

Wednesday bad rains during the evening, then all night. Thursday no work for Joe. I thought I would put another day in at Buena Vista however there was an emergency meeting being held in our sewing room due to the severe storms so we headed home.

Friday still bad, most roads impassable and schools have been canceled. The river reached 6 ft and rising. The locals just take all of this in stride. 
We stayed in and off the roads and made tortillas and spaghetti sauce. 

Saturday still raining, not going to market the bridge is flooded and the alternate route has wash outs. Spent some time in Spanish Lookout today. Rain stopped late morning. Beautiful blue skies. The river is dropping, the last check at 5:30, water was at 2 feet.  No rain tonight means church tomorrow.

We are thinking that our computer does not like the rain either. It is back in the shop again we are hoping he can fix it. Sorry for no pictures but as I said we are having computer issues we hope this is resolved on Monday.

Some pictures are being posted on Face Book. 

Ladies working on bags in Los Tambos.

February 5, 2018 - Monday - So this is LosTambos

Here we are working on our Designer Market Bags

Lots of pieces to cut and everyone working away.  Our weather is beautiful, temperature in the low 80s with a really nice breeze.
Still no electricity so we are running the generator again. In the background you see 6 plus sewing machines. All of these are refurbished machines donated by Dave at Sewing Machines etc.  

This little one comes to class but she isn't very attentive.

The mom sets her up in the hammock and usually that is the last you hear. 

Everyone helps rock her. If she cries too loud then I have to pick her up. 

The market bag project is a project that helps them realize how important it is to cut your fabrics correctly. This project is more complicated than anything they have made so far. Good in helping determine what they need work on.




February 6th, 2018 - Tuesday - Buena Vista

 Some are smiling.............some not so much. The lesson #1 in cutting   Tres pulgadas es tres pulgadas.................means 3" is 3".
They were cutting squares, some were 3"x 3", others were
 2 1/2" x 3" all sorts of variables in between. We went through found the ones that where correct and replaced all the others. Important lesson in cutting Tres pulagadas es tres pulgadas. 

Lilian decided to do this the smart way. IN A CHAIR. By the end
of the day everyone had finished cutting and started sewing their pieces together. 

Lilian was in our class last year and she struggled a lot. She is blind in one eye and bad vision in the other. She came for the first class and not for the second and I was afraid she quit but she was back the following week. She knows very little English but some how we communicate. I give her a lot of credit for sticking with it.

Lilian inspires me. She has every reason in the world to get up, hateful and mad at the world but she doesn't, she has chosen God who gives her the strength to deal with things in her life. Always with the BIG smile.