We Arrived!

Hi Everyone,

Well... this is likely going to be the last blog post for awhile.On Saturday, we left the mission house in Belize at 8:30am and traveled toward Belize City.  We stopped at an awesome gift shop for some last minute shopping before we boarded our flight to Newark.  The toughest part of the day was saying good-bye to our hosts, Carmen, Faye and Troy.  They have been our hosts, cooks, drivers and most importantly, our friends over the past week. Our team wrote down a bunch of our favourite memories, and Mike was able to compose a song for our hosts. As a team, we sang for them and presented them with pewter crosses from the Cathedral.  We have been blessed by their ministry over the past week, and we are hoping that we will be able to maintain a connection with their ministry now that we are back in Canada.

We flew for 4.5 hours from Belize to Newark.  When we landed in Newark, we were hoping to have time for a nice leisurely supper before boarding our connecting flight.  Unfortunately, our entire layover was consumed with customs, luggage retrieval, luggage drop-off and security line-ups to get to our next gate.  We ended up ordering pizzas and scarfing down supper in the 10 minutes before boarding our next flight.  Although this wasn't our original plan, we were all very thankful for the warm food in our bellies. On our next flight, one of our team members, Luke, got to meet the Captain... since it was his birthday :)  We sang "Happy Birthday" to Luke at breakfast, on the first flight, and the second flight.  Our team has become very skilled in the Happy Birthday song this trip :) 

Our second flight was much shorter.  We arrived in Portland around 10:30pm.  Our hotel shuttle bus, and Stephanie & Maddie Logan were waiting for us when we arrived. We are very thankful that Stephanie and Maddie agreed to come down and help us drive luggage back home with us.  It was wonderful to see their familiar faces when we got off the plane in Portland.  At 11:30pm we arrived at the hotel and said a quick prayer of thanks before we bunked down for the night.  We were a pretty sleepy group of travellers.

This morning we enjoyed our final meal together as a team. We somehow managed to clean-out the hotel buffet breakfast. Then we met for our final team meeting.  We had asked everyone on the team to think about three things they had learned from the week, and three ways that they had seen God move.  We sat in one of the hotel rooms, and shared our experiences of the week. Then we had an awesome time of affirmation for most of our team.  We went around the room and took time to encourage each team member individually.  It was powerful to see and hear how people have grown, and how God was able to use them during this week.

The last stage of our journey started about an hour late, we really didn't want to rush our final team meeting.  We then drove from Portland to Grand Bay / Westfield in one large convoy.  We were hugely blessed by the group who were waiting to welcome us at the church when we arrived.  A huge thank you to all of our church family for your prayers and support.  During our final meeting, the team agreed that this week felt like we were being carried along by the prayers of all of the people back home.  We have been blessed with safety (both in travel and in the mission), with new friendships, and with God's annointing in the day-to-day moments.  Thank you so much for journeying with us in this mission. 

I hope you don't think that you're off the hook yet :)

We have a couple of prayer requests, if you're willing:

1. Please pray for a smooth transition into daily life for the team members (it is difficult to come back from an experience like this and adapt to daily routines again).
2. Please pray that team members will know how to share this experience with others.
3. Please pray for the ministry of St. Hilda's and In His Will Ministries in Belize, they are doing great work there.

Thanks again for all of your support and prayers!

God is amazing!

Anna