Day 1, Thursday

Thursday, March 10, 2011, Day 1

Well, we are off to our SEVENTH YEAR of going to Belize for the Rocky Mountain Conference youth mission trip!! Today we got a REALLY early start! Since our flight left DIA at 8:20 a.m., and since it takes several hours to get 46 people through ticketing, baggage, and security, the majority of us met at Campion at 3:45 a.m. We were just ready to pull out of the driveway when one last sleepy-head staggered down the hall and out the door to the moving bus. There are no “alarm excuses” for this trip; he barely made it!

Joe Martin and Jim Lynch did their homework with American Airlines, and we were able to check 92 suitcases, all at no charge! That was about $1,200 worth of savings for our kids. Thank you Lord and American Airlines.

We changed planes in Dallas/Ft Worth, then arrived Belize City 3:45 in the afternoon. For most of our kids, this was the first time going through immigration, customs, baggage search, etc. into a foreign country. We had in hand a letter from the Belize Minister of Finance that authorized us to import all of our things without duty, but in spite of that, the customs agents seemed to take their job a lot more seriously, and did a thorough search of our luggage. They “quarantined” several of our food items for a short time to make sure that they were FDA approved. In the end, they charged us a modest $35 for use tax, and that was it. But the whole process was quite stressful. In addition, they had plain-clothes policemen circulating to make sure nobody took any photographs. Several in our group innocently snapped a photo in the customs line, and were promptly made to delete the offending photo. When our group photographer snapped a candid shot of our kids in line, a policeman confiscated his camera. It was returned to him at the end of the inspection process. More stress.

The weather is wonderful! Upon arrival, temperatures were in the mid to upper 80s, and of course high humidity.

Folks from BAJC were there to meet us, and we boarded the bus and loaded the luggage. This took a lot longer than you would think necessary since we had to wait on our quarantined food items, but by 6 p.m. we were on the road. The bus was exceedingly crowded – suitcases to the roof in the rear, and all up the aisle, every seat taken, and 3 or 4 perched anywhere they could find. The sun set soon into our trip, and it began to rain, so our progress was slowed at bit by those conditions. It was cool enough on the bus that we put the windows up and it was very comfortable.

Our final destination is about 2 hours north of the airport, and we arrived about 8 pm STARVING. Fortunately the locals had supper ready for us (sandwiches and juice). After supper we got the bus unloaded, and everyone found a few square feet or real estate to call home for the next 11 days.

We stay right in the building that we are working on, guys are in one classroom, and girls in another. There are almost twice as many girls as guys, so their quarters are a lot more crowded. There is a kitchen on one end of the building, and the bathrooms at the other. The college does not charge us anything for our lodging, in spite of the fact that our presence is quite an inconvenience and a lot of work for them to prepare for us. Granted, we more than make up for it by our contribution to their project, but still it is not without a price to them.

Praise God for a good, safe trip. Everyone is healthy, happy, and accounted for. We ended up with the correct number of kids. (It’s bad to lose a kid along the way, but so much worse to pick one up!) We are getting the details of our trip settled, and tomorrow we go to the job sites.

We are going to send out a daily (more or less) communication to keep you up on our happenings. If you know of anybody that would be interested, please forward this to them. You can also just give them our website www.rmcmission.blogspot.com, or reply to this message with their address and it will be sent directly to them.

Some details on the 49 that are going: There are 34 high school students (22 girls, 13 guys), 5 college students, and 11 “oldsters” (4 ladies, 5 men). Almost all of the high school age students attend school at Campion.

Campion Students: College Students:
Abigail Van Alstyne Ashley Groeneweg
Audrey Hatfield Caroline Silva
Alexander Plank J C Lynch
Bambi Joe Jason Blood
Charlotte “Charlie” Baugher Shawna Ansari
Chloe Moran
Dakotah Padilla
Deanna Morgan
Devon Anderson-Neal “Oldsters”:
Emily DeSilva Jim Lynch
Emily Lynne Turner Joe Martin
Isaac Arthur May Kathryn Binder
Ivana Carrillo Kevin Binder
Jessica Montoya Marlene Medina-Ellquist
Joshua Da Silva Toni Odenthal
Juan Tena Garcia Trish Retzloff
Katie Fry Robin Retzloff
Kelsey Downey Bill Hay
Kimberly Cannon Moses Sylva
Kyle Cate Steve Lucero
Kyle Wearner
Levi Esparza
Marissa Yeoman
Melysa LeFore
Moses Arevalo
Nallely Teniente
Nikolas LeFore
Olivia May
Scout Kutschara
Sierra Watson
Sneha Schrestha
Stacey Munoz
Tim Medina
Travis Retzloff