I promised in my last blog entry that I would give you a multiple entries that featured comments by individual members of the Joshua Squad of our recent trip to Belize. This past week, my website’s admin page has been quite irksome, and it has delayed these promised segments. My apologies for the delay. But enough of apologies and on to the segments. Today’s entry will feature comments from Brandon Holman, President of the Joshua Squad, Belhaven College chapter:

Sunday, May 18th

It is our second full day in Belize and this day happens to be Sunday May 18. Today was a busy day for the Squad and a very tired one at that. We had three performances and I believe all went very well. We started off this beautiful hot Sunday morning with an amazing breakfast and then it was straight to preparation. We wore white face for all three of these performances, which didn’t react well to the heat. But I am not sure what reacts well to the heat. I know that I didn’t. But everything went over well.

Our first performance was at Deanna’s church. It was interesting sitting in the sanctuary in white face. We got some interesting reactions, especially from little kids. We had a time of worship before we performed. I was pretty nervous. Not for the reasons of performing, but for the reasons of us as a squad getting the message across. I work with an amazing team and was not nervous about their performance ability or where their hearts were at, but I was nervous about how the church would receive us and if they would understand our message through theatre. I remember that we prayed right before we went on stage, and right there I knew that it was in God’s hands and that He was in control. The church reacted well and applauded after every sketch. This gave me confidence and reminded me that when God is in control, amazing things happen.

The two other performances we had that day went just as well. I thank God that most of them understood what we were trying to portray, even the people who had never seen a theatrical performance in their life. I feel like it was a very successful day. Tomorrow is another challenge, but with God, it’s nothing the Joshua Squad can’t handle. We get to perform and teach at schools. So until tomorrow…

Friday, May 23rd

On Friday the 23rd, we got a break from performances and workshops. It was our fun day, or a better way to put it, our day of relaxation, because all of the other days were fun just exhausting. The place we chose for our day off is a place called Lamanai. Lamanai is a place with Maya ruins and a lot of interesting plants and wild life. We had to take a boat ride up a river to get there which was about a two hour boat ride. The reason for the two hours had to do with what we saw on the way. We saw all sorts of birds, crocodiles, iguanas, lizards and other interesting things. It wasn’t a half bad trip up the river. I mostly just closed my eyes and let the wind blow in my face, that is until the guide spotted some wild life or interesting plants.

When we arrived at Lamanai they fed us a pretty good meal. In fact, I can’t remember a bad meal during our stay in Belize. They spoiled our stomachs, that is for sure. This meal was my second time having beans and rice with chicken in Belize, and it sure was good! I especially like the way they serve drinks in Belize. They serve them in glass bottles, the soft drinks anyway. For some reason, to me anyway, they taste better that way. I wish that the U.S. would have more places that served soft drinks in glass bottles.

After the meal it was on with the tour. The guide that took us on the tour was pretty cool and the tour itself was amazing, just really hot. But what part of Belize isn’t hot! On this tour, which were trails through this forest of interesting vegetation, we saw some pretty amazing things and heard some pretty interesting stories from our guide. The pyramid like structures, the Maya ruins, were spectacular. My favorite part about these structures is we got to climb on them. That was fun, and tiring at the same time. Some were pretty tall. One was, if I remember right, just a little under 130 feet. At the top of that one, you could see for miles. You were pretty much on top of everything, at least you could see the tops of everything.

After the tour, we were all pretty tired and sweating like crazy. Even Kristi was sweating! (Inside joke for those people wondering). We all got back on the boat to go down the river. This boat ride was suppose to be shorter cause we weren’t planning on stopping for any wild life. But an interesting and unexpected thing happen on the way… we ran out of gas! I thought the tour guide was joking at first, but when we drifted in to one of the banks and some branches poked me in the back, I realized he either had a strange sense of humor, or we were really out of gas. It wasn’t too bad though cause help arrived shortly after and the river is really pretty. When the guys got it all gassed up, Deanna, Kristi and myself got on the front of the boat and road it like that the whole way back. That was a lot of fun and something the guide had no problem with. I was telling Deanna that in the U.S. there was no way they would ever allow something like that. It was pretty sweet.

We got back to the clinic around 5 which was just in time to meet up with the Smiths who took us out to eat. We had another amazing meal at this restaurant that the Smiths go to sometimes. It was great. Even though we didn’t have any performances on this hot Friday, I was still pretty tired. But it’s not like we sat around, we climbed those crazy structures! It was totally worth it though; a great memory. After the meal it was to Deanna’s church where we met up with the youth one last time to practices our pieces before the big day on Saturday. And that is tomorrow… so until then!

Tomorrow’s entry will feature entries from Rebekah Haynes. Stay tuned.