Hello everybody!
We have been having a really good time here in Belize! It has been a rollercoaster, but I like rollercoasters so for the most part it has been really good.
Its hot today, but God is somehow giving us energy for these crazy kids!I think we are beginning to realize the differences in the cultures! We are starting to accept some of the things they do as just something that we need to get used to. So that has been a good relief for us. We haven't been nearly as uptight during the day with the kids because of this realization.
This place still needs a lot of organization, but it seems like we are getting somewhere with the help of God.
Another thing that was weighing heavily on our minds was the decisions that needed to be made about next year. After careful consideration in prayer and discussion with others, we have decided that the best place for us right now is in Blue Creek, teaching. The school board asked us to fill a couple of positions after having 2 teachers drop out just 3 and a half weeks before school was to begin.
We felt that there was a real need and that we were the ones that needed to meet that need. God has given us peace about the decision and this is where we feel God wants us.
So for the coming school year Melissa will be teaching grade 3 and I will be either teaching grade 7 or a few subjects in High School. We will be starting our positions a week late because of our commitment to the orphanage, but after that, we will be there for the year. Please pray that we will be able to bump our flights up to June... that would be great!
Please also pray for 3 little girls in the home. They are in the process of being adopted by a family from Blue Creek. They have gone back and forth from Blue Creek to the orphanage a couple of times already. It is not easy for them to always say goodbye to their potential mother. And they tend to act out a lot more because of this. A lot of confusion in their minds it seems!
Enough rambling. Thank you for praying and thank you for reading this! We appreciate all the support we are getting from home! We look forward to hearing from you!
God bless,
Blaine & Melissa
Monday, July 30, 2007
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Ending the third week...
Hello all!
It has been a very interesting week. One day this week we had at one time 16 kids clammoring for attention. It was quite a shocker for us who usually have 7 or 8 kids. But there are neighbor kids who are getting excited to come and do the activities with the children too... praise God for that!
More organization has been a real helper for us this week. Dr. Leslie has had a few talks with the 20 year old girl staying with the kids. Finally we have more communication and it seems like we are more on the same page.
Tomorrow Melissa's dad and mom are coming and we will be having a little bit different day. We will be fixing the home so that it doesn't get infested with rats, and so that it will be easier to maintain. So a little bit of everything! Should be good!
Please pray for:
-strength and patience with the children.
-a general sense of loving community between everyone in the home!
Praise for:
-God's unbelievable guidance!
-The beautiful weather that has kept us sane!
Feel free to e-mail us anytime... we love hearing from all our loved ones!
God bless,
Blaine & Melissa
It has been a very interesting week. One day this week we had at one time 16 kids clammoring for attention. It was quite a shocker for us who usually have 7 or 8 kids. But there are neighbor kids who are getting excited to come and do the activities with the children too... praise God for that!
More organization has been a real helper for us this week. Dr. Leslie has had a few talks with the 20 year old girl staying with the kids. Finally we have more communication and it seems like we are more on the same page.
Tomorrow Melissa's dad and mom are coming and we will be having a little bit different day. We will be fixing the home so that it doesn't get infested with rats, and so that it will be easier to maintain. So a little bit of everything! Should be good!
Please pray for:
-strength and patience with the children.
-a general sense of loving community between everyone in the home!
Praise for:
-God's unbelievable guidance!
-The beautiful weather that has kept us sane!
Feel free to e-mail us anytime... we love hearing from all our loved ones!
God bless,
Blaine & Melissa
Monday, July 23, 2007
Third week...
Hello Everyone!
Praise items:
-3 children went home with a couple from Blue Creek that are looking to adopt. They had a great weekend. They didn't want to go back and stay at the orphanage. It was a cool experience to be with them as they started to adjust to the thought of living elsewhere. The excitement was all over their faces! Praise the Lord!
-We finally got a nice cool day today!
-The kids are warming up to us more every day.
-Our lines of communication with Dr. Leslie Mendez (the lady who runs the home) are finally more open! This is good for more defined roles (still a little bit hazy, but altogether good).
Prayer items:
-We got two new children (10 yrs and 12 yrs), from a very rough home. I along with Dr. Leslie, took a ride to see where they lived. Terrible terrible conditions. 10 kids in a place, not bigger than my parents living room.
-Melissa and I are in the midst of making some decisions about next year. Some stuff has come up and we are really searching God's will for what we should be doing. This isn't eexactly a small decision. Please pray. You should know what the decision is within a week or so.
-The children are amazing us every day! Today, they broke out into all kinds of childrens songs. "Jesus Loves the Little Children", Some sort of "Temple" song that Melissa knew. It was really cool. So we have added a "singing time" to our day. Continue to pray that the kids would make God's love their own!
God bless,
Blaine & Melissa Dueck
Praise items:
-3 children went home with a couple from Blue Creek that are looking to adopt. They had a great weekend. They didn't want to go back and stay at the orphanage. It was a cool experience to be with them as they started to adjust to the thought of living elsewhere. The excitement was all over their faces! Praise the Lord!
-We finally got a nice cool day today!
-The kids are warming up to us more every day.
-Our lines of communication with Dr. Leslie Mendez (the lady who runs the home) are finally more open! This is good for more defined roles (still a little bit hazy, but altogether good).
Prayer items:
-We got two new children (10 yrs and 12 yrs), from a very rough home. I along with Dr. Leslie, took a ride to see where they lived. Terrible terrible conditions. 10 kids in a place, not bigger than my parents living room.
-Melissa and I are in the midst of making some decisions about next year. Some stuff has come up and we are really searching God's will for what we should be doing. This isn't eexactly a small decision. Please pray. You should know what the decision is within a week or so.
-The children are amazing us every day! Today, they broke out into all kinds of childrens songs. "Jesus Loves the Little Children", Some sort of "Temple" song that Melissa knew. It was really cool. So we have added a "singing time" to our day. Continue to pray that the kids would make God's love their own!
God bless,
Blaine & Melissa Dueck
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
The second week has been...
Good.
There are a few main concerns we have this week. There are many people that drop by for a minute here, a minute there. Some of them just make the kids act out, others we are unsure who they even are. Its been a pretty tough thing for us to get used to as we are trying to insert structure for these kids, and everything becomes very wishy washy when kids just drop in and out. Which ones belong at the home and which ones don’t.
Other than that, we are having a much better time. Every afternoon we have about an hour to an hour and a half of “School Time” where we teach the kids their ABC’s, numbers and other educational stuff. We also are sure to have about 15 minutes of Bible stories. This will probably increase as the kids get better with their basic educational skills, and we will do more activities to do with the stories when that happens.
Praise items:
-God is giving us strength and patience (most of the time)
-The kids are really latching on to the Bible stories. Today most of them were very into it, answering the questions and really listening.
-God has sent us a nice breeze in the last few days… very nice!!
Please pray for:
-We are moving out of the place we have been staying at and probably will have to drive back and forth from Blue Creek everyday. If at all possible, we would like to find something in Orange Walk so that we don’t have to drive the gross road everyday.
-Continued strength, love, and patience from God.
Thank you for praying for us. We love you and look forward to hearing from you all!
God bless,
Blaine & Melissa Dueck
There are a few main concerns we have this week. There are many people that drop by for a minute here, a minute there. Some of them just make the kids act out, others we are unsure who they even are. Its been a pretty tough thing for us to get used to as we are trying to insert structure for these kids, and everything becomes very wishy washy when kids just drop in and out. Which ones belong at the home and which ones don’t.
Other than that, we are having a much better time. Every afternoon we have about an hour to an hour and a half of “School Time” where we teach the kids their ABC’s, numbers and other educational stuff. We also are sure to have about 15 minutes of Bible stories. This will probably increase as the kids get better with their basic educational skills, and we will do more activities to do with the stories when that happens.
Praise items:
-God is giving us strength and patience (most of the time)
-The kids are really latching on to the Bible stories. Today most of them were very into it, answering the questions and really listening.
-God has sent us a nice breeze in the last few days… very nice!!
Please pray for:
-We are moving out of the place we have been staying at and probably will have to drive back and forth from Blue Creek everyday. If at all possible, we would like to find something in Orange Walk so that we don’t have to drive the gross road everyday.
-Continued strength, love, and patience from God.
Thank you for praying for us. We love you and look forward to hearing from you all!
God bless,
Blaine & Melissa Dueck
Saturday, July 14, 2007
First week is...
A lot better than the first day!
I want to thank everyone who has thought of us and prayed in the last week as we have adjusted to this ministry. It has been a tiring but good week. On Tuesday we moved to RB's Multi-Service for nights so that we could get a better nights rest and so that we could better prepare for the next day. So for the next 2 weeks, that is where we will be staying. It is a huge blessing to have found a place like that! We are even being guarded by a man with a shotgun, no safer feeling than that.
As for the orphanage, we are adjusting to the kids and they are adjusting to us! It has been really good and tough all at the same time. We didn't think discipline would be our job there, but it seems like the trend here has pointed to us parenting and thus disciplining the children as well. It seems like they have never really had discipline and manners. So a good chunk of the week was spent teaching them how to behave, how to love eachother, and how to respect others. We have hardly gotten to teaching them the gospel yet. A typical day would look something like this:
9am: We arrive on our sweet Hurricane bikes (pictures to follow)
9:30 am: We usually have told Joshua to put on his pants about 10 times already.
10 am: We sit down, usually by the swingset, and read from the Bible. This is always a favorite time for the older ones. The younger ones, when they quiet down, are very enthralled as well.
10:30 am: This week we did puzzles with them. They enjoyed the finished product but had no clue how to put it together. We learned one thing 100 pc puzzles don't work. 20 pc puzzles almost work. This is something that can teach them some good organizational lessons. We are working on it. With those that don't like puzzles, we have tried to get the others to color. The key we feel is to get them to sit mostly still from 10-11:30. It has worked some days, and other days it has been a nightmare.
12 am: Lunch time. Its kind of funny, on Friday we tried a new approach to get them to eat lunch. There are 2 kids who just don't eat their lunch. They don't want to eat, they are not hungry. So we took away their food. They cried and cried. Its kind of like reverse psychology. I found that funny.
1-3 pm: Nap time. For the kids, for Blaine and Melissa. By this time we are "hunt-mide" (dogtired).
3-5 pm: We either swing with the kids, go to the park, we try and do something active. I tried to play dodgeball with them yesterday. Ummm... They all wanted to get the ball. Didn't work well at all. We'll work on that.
5 pm: We go home to RB's on our sweet Hurricane bikes.
As you can see, we are trying to put some structure into the day. It doesn't always work, but God is good and I know he will work through the things we do throughout the day. This is getting very long, I hope I didn't lose you. The biggest most largest prayer request we have is for patience and love for the kids. Patience seems to be all spent by the end of the day. We love you all and hope you too are doing well and good.
God bless,
Blaine & Melissa Dueck
I want to thank everyone who has thought of us and prayed in the last week as we have adjusted to this ministry. It has been a tiring but good week. On Tuesday we moved to RB's Multi-Service for nights so that we could get a better nights rest and so that we could better prepare for the next day. So for the next 2 weeks, that is where we will be staying. It is a huge blessing to have found a place like that! We are even being guarded by a man with a shotgun, no safer feeling than that.
As for the orphanage, we are adjusting to the kids and they are adjusting to us! It has been really good and tough all at the same time. We didn't think discipline would be our job there, but it seems like the trend here has pointed to us parenting and thus disciplining the children as well. It seems like they have never really had discipline and manners. So a good chunk of the week was spent teaching them how to behave, how to love eachother, and how to respect others. We have hardly gotten to teaching them the gospel yet. A typical day would look something like this:
9am: We arrive on our sweet Hurricane bikes (pictures to follow)
9:30 am: We usually have told Joshua to put on his pants about 10 times already.
10 am: We sit down, usually by the swingset, and read from the Bible. This is always a favorite time for the older ones. The younger ones, when they quiet down, are very enthralled as well.
10:30 am: This week we did puzzles with them. They enjoyed the finished product but had no clue how to put it together. We learned one thing 100 pc puzzles don't work. 20 pc puzzles almost work. This is something that can teach them some good organizational lessons. We are working on it. With those that don't like puzzles, we have tried to get the others to color. The key we feel is to get them to sit mostly still from 10-11:30. It has worked some days, and other days it has been a nightmare.
12 am: Lunch time. Its kind of funny, on Friday we tried a new approach to get them to eat lunch. There are 2 kids who just don't eat their lunch. They don't want to eat, they are not hungry. So we took away their food. They cried and cried. Its kind of like reverse psychology. I found that funny.
1-3 pm: Nap time. For the kids, for Blaine and Melissa. By this time we are "hunt-mide" (dogtired).
3-5 pm: We either swing with the kids, go to the park, we try and do something active. I tried to play dodgeball with them yesterday. Ummm... They all wanted to get the ball. Didn't work well at all. We'll work on that.
5 pm: We go home to RB's on our sweet Hurricane bikes.
As you can see, we are trying to put some structure into the day. It doesn't always work, but God is good and I know he will work through the things we do throughout the day. This is getting very long, I hope I didn't lose you. The biggest most largest prayer request we have is for patience and love for the kids. Patience seems to be all spent by the end of the day. We love you all and hope you too are doing well and good.
God bless,
Blaine & Melissa Dueck
Monday, July 9, 2007
First day is...
Crazy.
We are hot and we are absolutely pooped. I don't think anything could've prepared us for this. It is overwhelming. But we're doing fine. As much as we are extremely tired, and not sure how we'll get through 2 months, we know that God has placed us here for a reason. The kids are really great, although we need to break through some of those attitudes and teach them to respect others. I don't think they have ever really been respected as well, I don't think respect has really ever been reinforced.
When we arrived I don't think there was a lot of time where Meliss and I had less than 2 kids hanging onto us. It is been a really really tiring day. There were 6 kids when we first got there, but more are expected to come soon. To make matters more complicated, Leslie Mendez is on holidays in Guatemala with a couple of kids as well. So it feels more like we are on our own than we had originally thought. Another lady has helped us get used to the home as well which is good. Overall I think we are doing okay. Its just getting past these few days at the beginning when the kids are getting used to us and we are getting used to the kids.
Praise items...
-We arrived safely!
-We're still alive!
-God is giving us strength, we can feel that we aren't doing this on our own strength.
Prayer for...
-Continued peace that we are in the right place, strength for the long hot days, courage to teach these kids the gospel, wisdom that we would be structured as well as fun for the kids.
-Pray that the children would respect us.
Thank you for praying already. We really appreciate it and need it! We love you and look forward to hearing from you!
God bless,
Blaine & Melissa Dueck
We are hot and we are absolutely pooped. I don't think anything could've prepared us for this. It is overwhelming. But we're doing fine. As much as we are extremely tired, and not sure how we'll get through 2 months, we know that God has placed us here for a reason. The kids are really great, although we need to break through some of those attitudes and teach them to respect others. I don't think they have ever really been respected as well, I don't think respect has really ever been reinforced.
When we arrived I don't think there was a lot of time where Meliss and I had less than 2 kids hanging onto us. It is been a really really tiring day. There were 6 kids when we first got there, but more are expected to come soon. To make matters more complicated, Leslie Mendez is on holidays in Guatemala with a couple of kids as well. So it feels more like we are on our own than we had originally thought. Another lady has helped us get used to the home as well which is good. Overall I think we are doing okay. Its just getting past these few days at the beginning when the kids are getting used to us and we are getting used to the kids.
Praise items...
-We arrived safely!
-We're still alive!
-God is giving us strength, we can feel that we aren't doing this on our own strength.
Prayer for...
-Continued peace that we are in the right place, strength for the long hot days, courage to teach these kids the gospel, wisdom that we would be structured as well as fun for the kids.
-Pray that the children would respect us.
Thank you for praying already. We really appreciate it and need it! We love you and look forward to hearing from you!
God bless,
Blaine & Melissa Dueck
Monday, July 2, 2007
Mixed emotions!
Hello all.
Well we are two days from leaving for Belize and we don't feel quite like going. As most of you know, my grandmother passed away on Sunday afternoon. It is not easy for us to leave before the funeral, but because the flights were booked, we had no choice. So we're going. We are so excited for the trip, but at the same time have really struggled with the fact that closure will probably not come very easy, not being there for the funeral and all. Here is a list of prayer requests as well as praise items!
Praise items!!!
-Grandma went to be with her Lord and Saviour! We are so happy for her! Praise God!
-We enjoyed God's beautiful nature at Falcon Lake this past weekend!
-We are excited and have peace about the trip, even with the circumstances the way they are! That is a HUGE praise item!
Prayer requests!!!
-Pray for continued peace for the Eidse family.
-Pray that we would be able to focus on the mission God has for us in Belize!
-Pray that the childrens hearts would be open, soft, and ready to hear the message of Jesus!
-Pray that we would have firm direction in God's mission!
Please feel free to e-mail us or put your comments down on this page. We appreciate all the prayers, and we hope to hear from you soon!
God bless you all!
Well we are two days from leaving for Belize and we don't feel quite like going. As most of you know, my grandmother passed away on Sunday afternoon. It is not easy for us to leave before the funeral, but because the flights were booked, we had no choice. So we're going. We are so excited for the trip, but at the same time have really struggled with the fact that closure will probably not come very easy, not being there for the funeral and all. Here is a list of prayer requests as well as praise items!
Praise items!!!
-Grandma went to be with her Lord and Saviour! We are so happy for her! Praise God!
-We enjoyed God's beautiful nature at Falcon Lake this past weekend!
-We are excited and have peace about the trip, even with the circumstances the way they are! That is a HUGE praise item!
Prayer requests!!!
-Pray for continued peace for the Eidse family.
-Pray that we would be able to focus on the mission God has for us in Belize!
-Pray that the childrens hearts would be open, soft, and ready to hear the message of Jesus!
-Pray that we would have firm direction in God's mission!
Please feel free to e-mail us or put your comments down on this page. We appreciate all the prayers, and we hope to hear from you soon!
God bless you all!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)