Snorkeling with the Rays!

I had an incredibly busy weekend and fulfilling weekend and wanted to share it with you! So here we go!

Saturday, June 21:
Was my busiest day of the week as I had two large commitments that I had made earlier on in the month. Commitment # 1: Acolyte Training. One of the parishioners has a number of neices, nephews and grandchildren who come to church regularly and wanted to learn how to be servers for the service. So I arranged to train them on Saturday morning at 10am. I was only expecting to have 2 or 3 show up, but was surprised when 5 of them came, including Maesha a 4 year old who was determined to learn how to serve even though she wasn't big enough to hold on to the cross that we use when processing in. They showed up, we went through a few bags under the altar, found a bunch of cassocks and found everyone's sizes and wrote their names on the tags. Their faces beamed as I put their names on the tag, it somehow made it that more official for them. Unfortunately all of the cassocks were too long for little Maesha, so we improvised and put a surplice on her. She spent a large amount of time swinging her arms around pretending to be an angel!! About 20 minutes into training I realized the the four older children all wanted to serve in church the next day, which left me in a little bit of a pickle. Serving isn't overly difficult and is usually only done by one person, but I didn't want them to feel like I was favoring one person over another, so I split the one person job into a 4 person job. Tanlyn was the cross bearer and led the procession in and out of the service. Cameron carried the cross during the reading of the Gospel and collected the offering. Chelsea served during the offertory hymn when I needed to set the table, she passed me stuff. And Myra read the second reading.

Committment # 2: I was invited to attend and pray at the Graduation Excersices for St. John's Memorial in Placencia. It was a wonderful day as I watched the young people who I have gotten to know over the last 6 weeks walk across the stage to get their certificate. Like at the IPS ceremonies I had a chair reserved for me with my name on it. I wasn't taken a back by it like I was at IPS. But as the ceremonies started and the childern came up to give their speeches, I'm pretty sure my face dropped and I turned a little bit red. You know when at these ceremonies and the kids giving speeches welcomes everyone, but before they welcome everyone they acknowledge all of the big wig people who have a lot to do with the school like the "Chairman of the Board, and the Principal", and so on and so forth. Well I was listening to the first young person acknowledging people, and all of a sudden I hear "Deacon Chelsy Stevens." Holy crap....my name was on the list of big wig people to acknowledge. It blew me away, and I was touched to be included and to know that in the short 6 weeks that I've been here, I've been able to have a small impact on the 25 young people who graduated from St. John's.

Sunday, June 22:
Sunday Service in Mango Creek. Well, I had 4 servers for the morning and must admit there were times it was a bit chaotic. But seeing the smiles on the childrens faces just made my day and affirmed that this is exactly what needed to happen. It was super encouraging to see them so excited to learn. On Sunday morning they showed up at the rectory at 8:30 to get ready for the 10:00 service. It was a great morning and our numbers at St. Michael's were up. Granted half of the congregation was vested and sitting near the altar (including 4 year old Maesha in her white surplice), but we had 14 people in church, and 2 other children who couldn't make it to our first acolyte training but are going to come back when we practice again!!

From the service I hopped on the James Bus Line to Belize City. While waiting at the bus station I met a young woman about my age named Molly. We chatted while we waited and I found out that she's from Iowa and has been living in Belize for the last two years serving with the Peace Corp. She has one more month left. It was such a blessing to have met her. I sat with her all the way to Belize City, and I honestly will never forget that trip. For the first time all summer I got to sit down with someone and share my experiences with someone, and listen to someone else's stories and experiences. Our experiences were very similar. We talked about the difficulty we had with the culture shock, we talked a lot about the isolation that we felt and how we have found ways of dealing with the lonliness that we feel (ie: excersicing, journaling, traveling, etc). We talked about the stress that we felt in trying to acheive the goals that we set for our time here and the fear we had in dissapointing supervisors. We talked about what our view of success and acheivement was before arriving in Belize and how that view has changed. We talked about some of the aspects of the culture that we like/love (ex: laid backness of the culture, the importance of family and how all businesses are closed on Sunday in order to sit around and be together). The conversation was so refreshing and fulfilling -and the first time I was actually able to openly reflect with someone. I have no doubt in my mind that God sent her to me and I'm so thankful that he did!!

Monday, June 23:
Unfortunately after arriving in Belize City I found out that the Sampson's were not going to be able to go out to the Cayes with me. I was dissapointed, but told them that I was going to go out on my own. I was nervous, I've never traveled by myself. I was worried that I would be so focused on the fact that I had no one to talk to and I would be experiencing everything on my own with that the trip would turn out to be dull and boring. It was the complete opposite.
I left the dock at Belize City at 8:00 and took the 45 minute water taxi ride to Caye Caulker, on of the tourist islands in Belize. Arrived at Caulker by 9:00 and walked around. The island is home to about 1200 locals, and lots of tourists who are visiting. I had my lonely planet Belize book that I had been studying the night before and tried to introduce myself to the village. My first duty: find a snorkeling tour shop and sign up to go snorkeling. It needed to be the first thing I did or else I would have chickened out. So I signed up to go snorkeling, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and was in the water by 11:00. It was a three hour long trip with three stops. First stop: Southern Channel of the Barrier Reef. It was beautiful. I've never snorkeled before and it was a lot earier than I was expecting. We swam through tones of coral. Tones of schools of fish and a gigantic turtle that is rarely seen by the reef. At one point I turned around to make sure I could still see the group I was with, and there were about 15 yellow tail snapper fish following me - they followed me all the way through the reef!! Second stop: Shark Ray Alley. It's a section of sea near the reef that is home to sharks and sting rays. There were no sharks around on Monday which I must admit I was thankful for. There were about 175 sting rays around though. And I got to swim with them. They are so neat....I was floating in the water at one point and this foot long fish with a beak like thing coming out of it's head swam right in front of my face while at the same time a sting ray swam under me and rubbed itself up against my stomach. What a great experience....and definitely my favourite. Third stop: Free for all. We got an hour to snorkel through the coral on our own. I was a bit hesitant, to do it by myself. The waves were a bit stronger at this stop, and they can easily push you into the coral, and I didn't want to chance getting hurt, so I swam around the outside of the reef and enjoyed the fish life from a distance. After that I grabbed a bite and a drink. (Before coming to Belize I read about a drink called a "Panty Ripper" the name made me laugh so I figured I would try it). Very delicious, it's pineapple juice and cocunut rum. From there I found a dock with a little palm branch shelter on it and a hammock, and laid down for a little siesta beforing heading back to the mainland. It was the most refreshing and fulfilling day of my life. And I was by myself the entire time....it was a new experience, and one that I would be happy to have again!!!

Monday: June 24:
Departed from the Belize City Bus Terminal at 10am. Destination: Mango Creek. About 45 minutes into our trip, the bus pulled over to the side to pick someone up and as we stopped, we got into an accident. An SUV of young people rear-ended the bus and part of the hood got stuck under the bus. The police were phoned and we had to wait about 45 minutes for them to show up. They ended up having to hitch a ride with another bus to get to us, because they didn't have a police car to drive. Thankfully no one was hurt and everyone arrived safely to where they were headed.

This week proves to be busy as well. I have to go back up to the city for a meeting with the clergy on Thursday before the Bishop leaves for Lambeth. I've been invited to travel with Dawn Sampson to San Pedro on Friday until Saturday (flight and hotel paid for) and then I will be heading to Placencia to take in the LobsterFest, and lead Sunday service there and back in Mango Creek.

VBS is fast approaching and my home parish in Ponoka raised money and purchased all of the resources we will need for the week. It was just sent on June 23. This may be a weird prayer request, but please pray that the stuff gets here in time. We've been finding that the mail from Alberta to Belize is a bit slower than what we were told. So please pray that we will have received the VBS resources by July 8th.