Before I Forget

A few other things. This week we have Ozzie and his wife (the circuit overseer) visiting our congregation. We had them over for lunch yesterday and he was telling us about swine flu and Mexico. He says that in Mexico City, in Puebla, and also the State of Mexico, and one other place that they are not allowed to have meetings or preach publicly (door to door) due to the flu going around. So the friends there have to do telephone witnessing, letter writing, or informal witnessing. In addition to family study they have been instructed to still have their weekly meetings but as a family. I guess this swine flu is getting pretty serious. Someone just messaged me and said we have it hear on the island too, but I haven't confirmed that. Mexico is nearby so it wouldn't surprise me. So keep our brothers and sisters in Mexico in your prayers. Today we had the pioneer meeting so that was nice and encouraging. Dani and I were there with Ozzie and his wife since Rob couldn't make it due to Beth's surgery.

Off to bed...

3 Days and 2 Nights

Wow...man I am one tired guy. Here's the scoop. Rob and Beth the parents of Gabe (the cute little guy that is in our pics) where in the city for the last three days. Beth had to rush over to Belize City to have surgery. She's back now and all is well. So while they were in the City, Dani and I had the lil Gaber's with us. Talk about the best form of birth control.... Don't get me wrong. I love this kid. If I had one I would want one like him. But man, this little guy is like a wiggle worm in bed. Dani and I put him in the middle because we'd hate to have him roll out of the bed and hit the floor in the middle of the night. But man this guy does not stop...and he's sleeping the whole time. He kicks you, he pulls your hair, pinches you, laughs, complains, talks to you, says your name...ALL NIGHT LONG...IN SPANISH AND ENGLISH...need less to say I am sleepy tonight. But I must say I love em too much. He's the best. It's nice to have him and get to enjoy him like this. But it does take it out of you.

And then last night he wasn't feeling good so he was even more active. So tonight I'm going to sleep like a baby...well...maybe not a baby...(Where in the halibut did that saying come from)...Can't you tell we watched Shark Tales 30 times...hahaha.

So that's pretty much what todays blog is about. Some pics from the past two days with the Gabers.

Here we are off to school. This is the two seater bike. Rob had a seat and some pegs welded to the frame so Gabe can see where he's going. Off we go.

Here we are after school on our way to the beach, actually the dock to go jump off and swim. Nice bright green floatation suit. Manly Man.

Now if you were a coconut on the beach and Gabe is coming your way, you better get ready to swim. He loves to pick up the coconuts and toss them into the water. Here is his next victim...

Adios coconut...At least that's what he says as he throws it in the water.

He was determined to push me in the water.

We were finally able to get him to build enough courage to jump in off the dock. First I had to hold him...then he was ok with just holding my hand and jumping...and then finally he jumped in on his own...After that he was hooked!!!

Here's Dani coming to get him.

On our way home now. With the breeze it gets quite chilly. All bundled up and ready to go.

Here's one of Carley and I jumping into the water. If you click on this picture to enlarge it you'll see waves breaking in the background in the distance. That would be the second largest reef in the world. All in our backyard. I guess that's one of the perks of living here. Well, it's getting late and I am beat. Time to catch up from the last two nights. Don't forget to leave your comment. If you want to see some other pics from me and Dani's travels in the past, check out BjVista.com. I haven't updated it in a while so the blog is more up to date than the website.

Adios

Another Day In The Ministry

Ok...So since Carley has been in town we actually have a few photo ops that we normally wouldn't worry about taking.  But since she's here and we're taking some pics I figured why not give you a view of our life.  Right now things are hot...and we're still not in May, the hottest month here.  Actually, the temperature isn't too hot...but the sun is scorching...in the shade you're good...but once you're in the sun you'll burn quick.  I can't wait until after May but then it'll be rainy season and I'm sure I'll have some complaints about days of non-stop rain, at least as far as service goes.  Speaking of service, here are a few pics from the past couple days.  This first one has Dani driving in service.  We have the Circuit Overseer this week so most of the group went to the North end of the island by boat, so today it was Dani, me, Carley, and another sister in the hall.  Dani had someone's cart so we didn't have to bike today, which was nice.  So here's a shot of Dani in the cart heading to the territory.

Here is a not so good area of the island.  I'm sure most of you think, "hey, they live on an island...it must be beautiful!!!"  Well, here is the reality of life for a lot of the locals.  People here aren't rolling in the cash, but that's no excuse since it doesn't cost anything to be clean.  But for some reason it's in a lot of people's minds that you can fill land with garbage and then just cover it with sand.  Hmmm....not a good idea people...have you ever heard about pollution....Sheesh.  So here you see one of the areas just north of the bridge called San Mateo.  The land is low here so it's flooded most of the time.  So the garbage just floats around.  Some people call the area London Bridges for the planks that have been put in place so you can walk around with out getting in the water.  If you look in the top left corner of this pic you'll see one of the planks I'm talking about.  These aren't the sturdiest of walkways so you have to be on your toes.  The last thing you want to do is fall in the water.  A girl a few years ago fell in and cut her foot...soon after that she ended up dying.  There is no telling what is in the water back here.  I will say that the territory is very nice to be in though.  The people may not have much but they will listen and appreciate the bible.  I guess when you don't have much you appreciate good news about the future.  I'd rather be walking these planks than knocking on some doors in the good old U.S. of A. where they call the police on you and yell at you to leave from behind their solid wood doors.  

On a better note, here's a picture Carley snuck of Dani while she was talking to a call. Isn't she cute on her bike... :)  After a long day of pedaling you do get worn out.  But it is definetly a good tired.  The ministry here is great.
 

Here's a pic of standing in front of our house looking left down the street.  












And here is the view if you make a right out of our yard. That is actually our fence you see to the right. If you click on the picture you can probably see the ocean through the palapa at the end of the street.














And finally for today, here's the beach by our house. Man I gotta get out there and shoot some fish. Well that's it for now. Hope you enjoy...and leave a comment by clicking comment below.

Adios

Drinks Anyone?

So here are a few pics from last night.  Our friend Carley is in town from NC...so we finally got a night to go out and have a drink.  We spent a little time at a beach lounge named "Playa".  It's a really nice place right on the beach.  It's slow now so we were the only people there besides one other table.  This first pic is of Rob, Beth, and Gabe.  They're our family here and they are the one's we stayed with for a while until we got our own little apartment.  

This next one is of cute Carley, my beautiful Dani, and myself.  A tasty drink, a nice breeze, cool night weather, and good company.  Sweet thang.  It's nice having Carley here...living on an island you don't see a whole lot of new faces, at least new faces that you know.  So it's nice having a familiar face and friend around.  Kayak.com for the rest of you back home wanting to come visit.  Airport code: BZE and then MayaIslandAir.com BZE to San Pedro...come on down...  :)

And then a personal favorite...Lil' Gabers and Dani... How cute are they!!!  Rob and Beth have to go the mainland tomorrow so we'll be watching Lil' Gabers for they day.  Looks like I'll be taking him to the beach.  He loves to find coconuts and then run up a dock and throw them in the water.

And this final pic is our normal shower situation... It may be the only shower that if you slip and fall you might get injured by a spear gun.  My gear is usually in here drying out.  

By the way...we had our special talk tonight, "Is there a true religion from God's standpoint?".  It was a great bible based talk that shows how we really need to make sure we're getting bible based teachings and how to make sure we are.  This was the second week in a row we had over 80 in attendance, which is huge in a congregation of 30 something publishers.  

And on a side note, CONGRATS JOHNNY WENDT on the engagement!!!!  Coolio Julio...  and check your email...  

And for those of you out there wondering if there is anyway in the world you can contact me...you can always spend a few bucks and call me----> 011-501-626-6362

Til next time... 

(And don't forget, clicking on the pictures opens the larger images)

(Feel free to leave a comment...Click Comments below...)

A Nice Rainy Day

Hey...it finally rained today...how sweet is that...unfortunately it cut the service day short...

What else to do on a rainy day but go spearfishing. The water was beautiful since the cool front from Mexico blew in rain and wind for the west. So Rob and I took advantage of the nice waters and went fishing.

Here are a few pics of some of todays catch...We try not to shoot small fish so we only had like 10 from today...Here's a pic of a nice Schoolmaster Snapper and a big spider crab...

Dinner is going to be good tonight!

Where we live...

I just thought just in case you wanted to know exactly where we live...

Click here and look for Casa Vista on the middle of your screen.

You should see a dock with two white squares around it, if you come straight off that dock you should see a small white roof next to a blue roof with a square around it. If you mouse over it you will see Casa Vista...and that's us...

Zoom out and you can the rest of our island.

My Fellow Blogger

Hey guys...just a quickie...Want to let you know a friend of mine over in Caye Caulker has a blog up too. If you want to keep up with the friends and congregation there go to Josh's Blog...Click Here

We have a friend coming in today from Charlotte...she's visiting for 3 weeks so I'll have a lot of updates coming up...

Til next time...

Four Days in the Jungle

So we spent the last four days out in the jungle.  Some friends of ours recently acquired a lodge in PG (Punta Gorda) a town in the South of the country.  He had some tile work he needed done so Dani and I headed on down to do them the favor.  So today's update is pretty much about our work there.  

I must say, creation and it's variety is truly amazing.  It's so cool how morning, daytime, and nighttime are all different worlds when you're in nature.  From the plants to the animals.  Here are a few examples:

If you take a close look to the picture to the left, you'll notice a baby scorpion...I reached down to grab a tile and this little sucker caught me by surprise...harmless I'm sure.

Here's another pic that shows just how small it was compared to my pinky...

Besides the scorpion and spiders and beetles and bats and butterflies and birds I had to take a few pictures of the ants.  The leaf cutters are so amazing...They cut paths all across the ground...and not just trim things but I'm talking down to the hard dirt.  It'll look like you took a bicycle and road it down the exact same path 1,000 times until it was just dirt.  It's so cool.  And these little guys are some serious hard workers... they will strip a tree down to sticks and branches over night.  Here's a day pic of their path during the day...



And here are a few from during the night when they are active.  I know this aren't the greatest of pics, but if you look close you will see small red and green pieces of plants.  Attached to each of these pieces are the leaf cutters, carrying their piece back to the nest.  If only the pictures did them justice.

Here's a pic of one of the managers on the job.  A big bad pit bull...He's so cute...

...and here's a pic of one of the rooms before the tile was laid...Do you see my other manager in this pic???

Here he is zoomed in...this little bat would not leave the room...All I could think of every time he flew around the room was Dwight and Merideth in the kitchen on "The Office".

This last nature pic is of this huge tree by this creek.  I forget the name but it looks very interesting.

And finally, this last picture is for my contractor friends back home or really anyone with any knowledge of home repair/plumbing/electrical. I've used these in Guatemala, Mexico, and here in Central America.  Basically this is a hot water heater for when you don't have a hot water heater.  The shower head connects directly to 110 and as the water flows through it it heats it up.  It actually works really good and you can control the temperature by controlling the amount of water passing through the shower head.  I think this one was pretty new because I didn't feel any electricity passing into my head.  The last two times I used one of these things I could feel a small amount of current in the water.  But no shocks this week...

I guess that's it for now...after a long week of tile laying and then giving the public talk in PG we finally made it home after a 7 hour bus ride and hour and a half boat ride back home to San Pedro.  It's time for dinner now and then a good nights rest.

Til next time...By the way...you can click on any of the pics to see the larger copy

Finally Blogging...

I figured that I mind as well start up a blog. I havebjvista.com but it's been 2+ years since I've updated it. But as of now, I'm learning CS4 so expect a kick butt site in the next couple of months. Anyway, life here is happy as usual. We only have 35 pubs in the congregation but had 151 at the memorial. Our sister island on Caye Caulker had 82 in attendance with a congregation of only 12. They figured it out that 1 in 8 people on the island were at the memorial. Crazy man...just crazy.

It's the windy months here so needless to say we haven't done much fishing lately. I'll be sure to post some pics when we finally get back out there. Some friends of ours from upstairs found a dead jaguar today. Turns out it was scratching on an electrical post and must have scratch into the copper and got electrocuted and it killed it. OUCH!

We had a friend over from Caye Caulker over last night. He gave the talk at our hall Sunday and had to stay over here to get his passport done today. Dani and I are going to be in PG (Punta Gorda) for the next couple of days. It's in the south of the country. A brother there needs some help laying some tile and a few other things so I'm heading over to help him. It's just a favor since I'm not legally allowed to work here yet. I'm trying to get my work permit but it's a run around so far.

So, we're living off savings as usual but also as usual, all is well. Jehovah always provides and we've seen it proven plenty of times. Well that's it for now. I'll try to catch everyone up as I go. I can't update you in one post...that would take pages.

I am attaching a few pics though...

 Dani with a boa...

     

Here's Dani at the Zoo. She actually got into a smaller cage that is inside the jaguars cage. Then the let the jaguar out and he gets on top of the small cage you are in...And you can feed him...Yes that's a chicken foot...

Fruit Loops...hey it's Toucan Sam...

 

This is classic...Lil Gabe got his head caught between the concrete ballisters on the balcony at Rob's house. We have a few pics but this one is about 3 seconds after he realizes he is officially stuck...We got him out before we had to break out a jack hammer....