Introducing Our New And Improved Blog

Greetings Friends,

If you have not yet seen, we have a new website for our blog: MarkAndSarahBradbury.com.  We hope the name is easy enough to remember.

Please check out our new site and be sure to subscribe to it so you can continue to be sent updates. To subscribe fill our the small form on the right of the website.

--Mark & Sarah

March Madness

A lot has happened since our last blog update. We have great intentions of updating our blog frequently, but our busy days have kept us from doing so as often as we would like. We will try to a fit a bunch into this update to catch you all up.

We had an exciting week working with our first team here at LOL. A youth team of high school seniors from Resurrection Christian School in Colorado came to serve at LOL and in area villages. In all the team had 42 people, of which they were broken up into three different ministry sub-teams. Sarah thoroughly enjoyed serving alongside the sub-team that went into local villages of San Filipe and Santa Cruz. Two days were spent at the village schools doing ministry with the students. A highlight for Sarah was playing a softball game organized by a group of the village children. Other sub-teams hiked into remote villages near the Guatemala border and camped out for a few days of ministry. There were also construction projects at LOL included in the teams’ schedule. Let’s just put it this way, you can do a lot of ministry and projects with 42 people!

Two weeks we moved out of LOL and back to our apartment. It is amazing how quickly our two months living on site went. We are expecting the government to be sending additional children to LOL, so the room in which we were staying will be needed to house new children. We have mixed emotions about coming back to our apartment. On the one hand we will miss being in the midst of things throughout the entire day. On the other we will enjoy having additional family time away from the midst of things. We hope that one day we will again be able to live on site, but preferably in staff housing (which does not yet exist). 

Sarah’s parents and sister came down for a weeklong visit. They took us to Placencia for a few days to relax and enjoy the beautiful beach there. After being able to travel to a couple of the popular cayes (islands) last year, we have decided that Placencia is much better, with much better beaches and a nice vibe. It is also only 80 miles from where we live. 

Mark just finished building a chicken coop. We plan on having a couple-dozen layer hens to begin with. This will be a time for experimentation with different breeds and feed options, and will provide an opportunity for some of the children to get involved with caring for the chickens. Feed is very expensive here, so we will be looking at options to produce most of the feed ourselves. If we are able to do this we can later expand production to help offset those food costs. We currently use an average of 300 eggs per week, so we would need a few more than two-dozen chickens to produce that volume. 

Mark also built an arbor that will serve as a trellis for a squash-like plant called Chocho, or Chayote. The sides were built with a technique called a vertical wattle fence. This is a sustainable fencing design that Mark has wanted to build for quite some time. All the materials (minus a few nails and screws) were found in the bush (jungle) around LOL. 

Mark has also begun working on his next exciting project, an aquaponic greenhouse. If you are not familiar with aquaponics here is the gist: raise fish in tanks, circulate the fish water/waste through plant grow beds, the plants consume the nutrients created by the fish waste while also cleaning the water. Mark will be attending a four-day training course in Florida at the end of this month. As of now the plan is to build a 24’ x 72’ greenhouse at LOL that will house the aquaponic system. We will write more about this in a separate blog update.

We've Moved!

Since moving here we have hoped that one day we would be able to live on site at the orphanage. We have quickly realized that the best quality time with the children is spent during afternoon and evening hours. Last week our hope came true, though temporarily.

Two weeks ago, one of the sibling groups living here went back to their family. There were five children, all of them young. With them leaving there are now only three young children left in the toddler room. Regulations here require that each room have a staff person overnight. Because of this they have had to pay a staff person to sleep in the room with these three kids. By moving on sight we will be taking over this role, helping to eliminate the cost of that staff person. (There are two rooms adjoined. Our family will be in one room and the three children in the other.)

Last year we shared with some of our family and friends that we were looking into adopting a sibling group from LOL. Unfortunately that was not possible because of Belize’s odd rules. Ironically, the three kids that we wanted to adopt happen to be the same kids that we will temporarily be living with. It is amazing to see how God works. Though we cannot be their forever parents we can still play an important role in their lives.

Our days have been long and busy, and we are loving it. We both feel that God has clearly used our past to prepare us for our time here. Our gifts, strengths and skills are being utilized on a daily basis. We are so excited to see how God will work over this next year.

Last week Mark spent time planting some trees that were donated by a friend of the ministry. Digging through the clay is not easy work, but when you get to have such a good little helper, it makes it easier. This is one of the boys we are living with. He loves to help Mark work in the yard. (We cannot show pictures of the children’s faces due to government regulation…FYI.)

Sarah has begun to take over many of the tasks related to hosting short-term teams. We have many teams planned for this year, especially during the summer. She has also helped to create on ongoing devotion series for the children revolving around the fruit of the Spirit. Each month will be spent focused on one of the fruit. This months fruit is Love.

These are exciting times and we are so glad that you take the time to keep up with our lives and ministry. 

Settling in to a New Year of Ministry

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind as we have settled into a new house, a new community, a new church, and our new ministry at LOL. We have been overjoyed by the warm welcome we have received from all who we have met.

Sarah has been busy with learning the logistics of managing the short-term mission teams who will come to LOL this year. She has also been creating and consolidating information about mission trips in an effort to make them better used by incoming teams, and is getting involved with communication for that aspect of the ministry, freeing Melissa to focus on other areas.

We both have begun to help with the after school tutoring program that happens Monday through Thursday each week. Currently we are rotating days and have begun to work with two of the older children.  We help them with their daily homework as well as to study for upcoming tests, and when they don’t have an assignment or test, we work with them in their areas of greatest need.

Mark is in the process of getting the garden started. He has done much research, including a visit to a local organic farm, to learn what does and does not work well in this area. Mark has been gathering materials to start a compost pile. We don’t have the convenience of running down to the Home Depot to pick up peat moss and compost. If we want these things we either will have to make them ourselves, or find an acceptable alternate available in the area. For instance, instead of using peat moss Mark is looking at using coco fiber, which is made from the husks of coconuts.

Mark has also joined the worship team at our new church. They have been in need of a guitar player and quickly asked him to join the group.

The Jeep is holding up. When we flew into Belize City we discovered that our alternator had seized up. After replacing it, and after an extra day in the city, we were able to make our drive south. Mark also was able to save us a few hundred dollars by rebuilding a safety switch on our transmission, rather than replacing it. Now the Jeeps starts every time we turn the key, plus the back-up lights work again. There are a few more parts of the suspension that need rebuilt from the wear and tear last year, but we have the parts and it shouldn’t be a big deal.

Finally, Avi is settling in too. She really enjoys going to the children’s home and playing with the other kids. Just like last year, everyone quickly gets to know Avi, and it is usually her name that is being called out when we arrive.

Again we want to thank all of our financial supporters. We could not be doing any of this without your generosity towards us and confidence in us.