From House to House…from Tree to Tree?

Exciting things are happening here in Belize… Can you guess what it is?  It’s SO crazy because a few months ago in the broadcast they showed some of the friends in, was in Panama? Now I can’t remember…LOL Anyway, the friends were doing Island witnessing to all of these hundreds of islands that needed preached to. Do you remember how they even made a floating kingdom hall? I LOVED that experience. I thought it was such an amazing way to reach people literally in “all the inhabited earth…” even these tiny islands! Well now several of the friends, plus Mario and I, have the privilege of helping preach to the 50+ islands that are either private or just unassigned. We went our our maiden voyage last Thursday when the CO was here. Let me share with you some experiences.

The first stop was an island Called Caye Chaple. Mario had a particular interest in this island because it is a GOLF ISLAND afterall. Anyone who knows Mario KNOWS his obsession with golf… Anyway, this island was turned into a golf course and is neighboring our island of Caye Caulker. It’s been killing him he hasn’t been allowed to go over there because it’s closed right now. Some wealthy Mexicans bought it and are fixing it up… (AKA laundering drug money…*cough*cough) But somehow he still managed to make it on this island! Not to golf…but to preach! lol We have to be really careful with these islands that are private because sometimes they have security…and sometimes the security is just really mean dogs! But despite the dogs Mario was the first to volunteer to jump off the boat on this island. I planned to go with him…But I hesitated a moment when the security guard approached us. Next thing I know this huge loud dog…who was followed by his puppy in training come bounding up! My man didn’t even blink an eye. If a dog came at me like that I’d be OUT OF THERE. LOL. Mario got to share a video with the security officer and placed literature. He even said he could come back! This isn’t the greatest pictures but you get the idea….

That’s the security officer with Mario behind him and the angry doggie not to far away. We saw some beeeautiful things on this trip. There is a reason that Belize is called the “Undiscovered Jewel of the Caribbean” It’s sooo beautiful.

Next we were off to Long Caye… It was Tyler turn to get out! So he jumped off the boat and began preaching to a Kriol speaker. He was able to show him a video and share with him the latest watchtower in English. We asked if there was anyone else living on the island and he pointed to house not far away. Sooo Bobie jumped off the boat to go with Tyler and the man…Without shoes. Then we realized that Tyler also wasn’t wearing any shoes. LOL. They were being SUPER islandy I guess! We decided they were taking 1 Cor 9:22 to a whole other level! “Becoming all things to people of all sorts, so that they by all possible means save some…” Hahaha We thought it was pretty funny!

Can you see Tyler’s black socks in this picture? hehe…

This is the house that Tyler and Bobie got to go to. They sat down and visited for a little while. Shared scriptures…Placed literature. The guys were very friendly 🙂 Ok so that this point we’re 3 for 3!!! When does that happen back home? Just sayin….

Anyway. My personal favorite experience from the day was on the next Island we visited. We were cruising along the island to see if we found any houses… The next thing I know they see a couple of guys fishing out in the water. One guy is on this large dead tree…So what do we do? Well we pull the boat up to the tree of course. LOL Here is some pictures of the process.

Two brothers had to literally push up again the tree to prevent the boat from crashing against it while our C.O…Cris Cano hopped off the boat…ONTO the tree…you guessed it, barefoot! 🙂 In my opinion this is the best picture of the day….Yearbook stuff!

He shared a video and placed a book with the man. Of course he had no where dry to store it…So we decided to pull up to the dock and leave the literature for him. He said there was also a couple cooks on the island as well so we were going to preach to them too. One of the brothers said…”I’ve heard of door to door…Island to Island…But tree to tree? That’s a new one for me” 😉 We really DO go where the people are!

Estephania and Vanessa got off the boat to go talk to the ladies doing the cooking. This is a small fishing resort basically. You can stay there…or camp…catch lots of fish…and these lovely ladies will prepare it for you. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of them because she requested “NO PICTURES” because “she didn’t want to end up on facebook or any of that mess!” haha!!! The girls had a great visit with her. She ended up coming up to the boat so she could meet us all and she wanted a bible. Her reaction to the new English bible was priceless! She said, “Oooh, wow… this is for me?” Or something similar. She was just so impressed by the beauty of our new edition of the New World Translation. If you’d like to take a look at it for yourself please click here https://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/books/      The truths found inside are even more impressive than the beautiful cover 🙂

I also just HAVE to share how excited we were that our Captain was one of Mario’s bible students as well…We were teasing him how he’s going to look back and remember how he went preaching with us before he even decided to serve Jehovah…haha Too funny! Every stop we made he would start fishing. He said he’s still busy fishing for fishes while we’re fishing for men 😉

We thought this was for sure the highlight to our week of activity for Brother Cano’s visit… But there was MORE! He asked all the kids in the congregation to draw pictures of what they could do to give more to Jehovah. I honestly DID NOT expect the awesome response from our amazing kiddos!! Check out their art work!

Mario and I were super surprised that Rene, Mario’s bible study, also participated! He’s the one on the left in jeans…

After everyone clapped for their awesome drawings the CO went to each child and talked to them about their artwork. Some drew about preaching, cleaning the kingdom hall, Bethel service….  But for me, listening to Rene brought tears to my eyes. He told the audience that his picture was of him and Mario teaching others in Belize about Jehovah! He’s not on the theocratic school or a publisher…But he’s envisioning himself preaching with his friend Mario…Awwwwww. So cute. I just love this kid!

Well that’s a whole lot of wonderful to share with you all!!! I hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed living it! The Island preaching will be a huge project. It’s going to be very interesting to see how we complete the rest of the Islands. Some are so far away we may have to take tents and camp on the islands! THAT will be interesting for sure! I promise to keep you updated 🙂

Love ya all!!!! Talk to you soon