Ash Wednesday

The morning was pretty quiet. We had a leisurely breakfast and did paperwork until it was time to go to Sherree and Aki's to regroup. On the way we dropped Ray off at the Octavia Waight nursing home, which we have visited on previous trips, to take care of some business. He was on his own to walk back after that, so he got a bit of exercise.

Aki drove us to Belmopan, where we located the office where we were to meet. The office was not in the government compound, but according to Sherree was on a road a ways around the ring road in a building like the ones a block over but under the tall tree. It turned out the be the last building on the way out of the loop where the King's Children's Home is located. We had a very producutive meeting there, as I think Dan has described. I was pleased but somewhat boggled by being able to phone and set up a face-to-face meeting with the head of a government program in just a couple of days. Sherree made it a very relaxed meeting because she and the director were joking about various other projects and what a nuisance she had been. I'm convinced that if the director actually comes to watch the installation, he'll be hooked and really supportive. Maybe putting plumbing together is a guy thing.

We went immediately from that meeting to Raphael Ku in Santa Elena, the sister city of San Ignacio. Raphael is beginning to burn out from the load of school management, which he seems to do with no staff; church development, which worries him because church growth is not keeping up with school growth; and seminary concerns, which he didn't say much about but had talked about quite a bit when we saw him last year. Fortunately, a new general manager is coming and in a couple of weeks he will have three seminary graduates to share the load of pastoring. That will double the number of ordained Presbyterian pastors in Belize and increase the number of English-speaking pastors from one to four. He didn't specify, but I think the students are Belize-born, as he is, so he will no longer be the only one.

We went to Ash Wednesday service at St. Andrews Anglican Church, where Dale and I initially met Sherree and Aki. Dale and Ashley phoned me during the sermon, so I missed most of it, but it was given in Spanish and translated inaudibly by a teenager who had trouble with some of the words. I got the feeling she was also having a little trouble with the Spanish, which seemed really strange.

After the service, we had dinner at an Italian restaurant operated by an Italian. The food was excellent and certainly different from Italian food I have had in the States.

All in all, it was another very productive day. Thanks to Sherree and Aki for greasing so many skids for us.

Peace,
Chuck