God’s Time: Thursday PM

After waiting over an hour for Mr. Sho to return from Belmopan, I went back to the shop and asked where he was. The young Guatemalan girl pointed to the ceiling and said “He’s home”. I was vaguely aware that this was Mr. Sho’s shop and that he lived above it. I was also surprised that they hadn’t informed him I was looking for him or that he hadn’t come looking for me. I asked for his cell number and gave him a call. He answered but we had a terrible connection. I finally got him to understand who I was and that I was waiting for him. He finally got me to understand that he was (still) in Belmopan at the hospital with a friend. He promised to return to Armenia as soon as possible. I felt terrible. 10 minutes later he pulled up in his pickup and took me to his “new” house about a half mile off Hummingbird Highway. This one, like the other one was above a small shop.

He apologized for forgetting our meeting and explained that he’d taken a friend to the hospital in Belmopan and when we finished he would return to Belmopan to take him to the hospital in Belize City. I felt pretty sheepish about being so “American” about “Belize Time” just half an hour ago. God’s lessons come when least expected.

We had a good conversation about the possibility of (yet) a(nother) well in Armenia, and started laying plans to build a consortium of churches in Armenia to administer a joint water ministry as a “missional business” – run like a business with a goal to provide as much safe water as cheaply as possible to as many people as possible, with profits turned back into benefiting the community. Who knows if it’ll ever happen, but it’s exciting to contemplate.

I left Mr. Sho just in time to arrive at Jaguar Creek for lunch with 79 teachers who are attending a teacher training workshop sponsored by Pathlight. The lasagna was spicy in a Caribbean-kind-of way, and delicious. After lunch I had the opportunity to talk with Brian Watson and Marin Rosado, Principal and Vice Principal of Armenia school. We worked through the logistics on the whiteboards we’re providing to his classrooms, and discussed possible projects for us to do next spring when we return on a church-wide mission trip.

To finish off the trifecta, Estevan Peck, Principal of St Margarets RC school was also attending the workshop. He told me he was leaving to catch a bus back to St Margaret so he would be in time for our meeting at 2PM. I said that was silly and I’d give him a ride. We made it back to St Margarets in time, but the other participants never showed up. Between us Estevan and I plotted out a strategy for the next two years to bring clean water to the students and families of the school. That plan started last spring when we challenged them to build a pad for a water tank. They did it. Now the ball’s in our court to provide the tank as promised. As soon as it’s in place, the government has promised to install guttering, to fill the tank with rainwater, and Rotary (thru Sheree and Aki) have provided buckets with 0.1 micron Sawyer (google it) filters as a short term solution for clean water. Once we can prove this stage works, we can expand the system and add a water treatment and bottling facility.

I may have been impatient this morning about Belize Time, but I learned a lot during the rest of the day about God’s Time. Today was very worthwhile and productive.
- dan