I am not gonna lie, when I heard that we were having our month 1 debrief in a place called Caye Caulker, which is a island in the Caribbean Sea near Belize, I quickly shot it down as something that I would hate as from the research that I did on it. It looked like it was a place for 20 somethings who want to have a good time & party all night or for backpacking hippies, neither of those groups I fit with at all, and I blew these 5 days off as torture for me, and I was in a bad enough mood that I did not even want to see the rest of my squadmates either.
My 3 thoughts when arriving at Caye Caulker:
1. This island is a ghetto version of Put In Bay Island in Lake Erie
2. Our hostel reminds me of what living in a Hooverville must have been like during the Great Depression.
3. I am too old for this kind of place
I know that sounds bad.
Anyways Debrief Day 1
My team and I arrived yesterday afternoon after missing the boat that the rest of the squad was on, and we went straight to our hostel, where our squad is split up among 3 hostels- Paws/Tropical Oasis & Bellas- As mentioned above, I was a horrible mood as I really was thrilled about spending the next 5 days on an island relaxing/being poured into by our leadership as I m the kind of person that if someone pours into me too much I have a tendency to shut down, which is what happened to me as towards the end of our ministry work, I just felt overwhelmed by the amount of church and being filled up by that, and I knew that debrief was just going to be more of that, and I wasn’t happy, but I remembered what my teammates said and that was to give it a chance & to think positive about it, so I tried hard to do just that, and failed.
Once we had arrived, and settled down for a couple hours, it was time for us to get ready for our squad halloween party, and even tho I didn’t feel the best I did manage to enjoy myself a bit. After it was over we were free to do whatever for the rest of the night, I just hung out at the hostel and called it an early night for once as I was so tired since I had been up since 4am as our hosts took my team and I to the Mayan Ruins & paid our admission cost on the behalf of the preschool as a way to say thank you to us for all the hard work we did painting. I was so excited to finally cross another thing off my bucket list too. I owe my teammates one on that.
Debrief Day 2
A good night’s sleep was something that I needed as I woke up feeling better about being here. We had a squad session this morning after breakfast to present what our ministries were last month, and all that we did to serve. We have the whole day to explore the island, and a group of us including myself went to the other side to hang out and swim in the sea before my team has our team time before worship & session tonight. Hanging out with them did help improve my mood greatly as I actually have missed my crazy squadmates a bit.
Worship was incredible and the session we had where our squad mentor talked about the theme of this debrief, which was vulnerability, and while I can’t go into too much detail about it as alot of personal things were shared during it all I can say is that I have gained a greater respect for my squadmates.
Debrief Day 3
I finally feel like I can relax, and I now realize that I actually needed this time of rest just like the rest of my squad.
Today we had our debrief as a team about our first month, and how we thought that things went, and overall we walked away from it pretty good. After we were done, I was finally able to fulfill another thing off of my bucket list, and that was to go snorkeling. I HAD SO MUCH FUN!!!!!!! It is a totally different world underwater, and it was just so cool to see the reef in nature. I also got to hold a brittle starfish, and saw parrotfish & an eel as well as many other kinds of fish. We also had the chance to feed the tarapons & swim with sting rays and nurse sharks too. Afterwards I went to the end of the island known as The Split were there is a bar and I finally had a decent meal of coconut shrimp & the house cocktail known as “lizard juice”, and it was good, strong but good as it had 3 different kinds of rum in it, and rum is by far my favorite liquor. Tonight we once again have worship time/session time as a full squad.
Debrief Day 4
Ok I am so ready to get off this island as I have had my fill of relaxation (plus I am kinda starting to feel guilty about playing more then actually doing missions). Today the squad split up in male/female breakout time, and we talked about our false self and how we could do things to get rid of that, and be our true self. After that we had other breakouts that we could attend, and I did attend the one given by Madie about the car model when it comes to the myers-briggs personality test thing that I don’t understand still. There was another optional session after lunch, but I didn’t go since I had other things to do like write out my words for each one of my squadmates for the resurrection bags. I also had a team meeting with the rest of my teammates to practice our lip sync battle dance. After that, I really didn’t want to go back to the hostel & be bored so I decided to go to the sports bar here and hoped that they would have the Michigan game on, Which turned out that THEY DID!!!!!! My heart was extremely happy as I haven’t been able to watch a game since launch, and they throttled Penn State 42-7 (sorry Jillian-my teammate who is a PSU alumna), and I managed to watch most of the game, and enjoy a rum & coke before I had to head to my one on one time with Madie. My one on one time was good, as we talked about things that we brought up in previous times where we talked more about those things in depth such as the issues that I have with feedback as an example. I then grabbed dinner at our favorite street food stand before heading back to the hostel to chill before the squad lip sync battle. The lip sync battle was so entertaining as the other teams really good, and my team’s dance was a trainwreck due to multiple tech issues, and we even won the award for “most resourceful”, but all in all it was a good laugh. Spent the rest of the evening hanging out at the hostel before bed.
Debrief Day 5
This morning we met as a squad to go over our vision for all squad month as well as the expectations that we wanted for that month and some safety info about how to be safe during the month. After session we as a squad headed over to the other side of the island to Koko beach for some fun such as swimming, playing water volleyball, sunbathing, and having lunch/enjoying a drink at the bar. I just spent most of my time there up on the rooftop relaxing and taking photos from that vantage point as I am about beached out, and I am so ready to get back to work. We had a free afternoon, and I just relaxed at the hostel/took a shower before grabbing dinner & going to pick up my clothes that I had dropped off earlier to be washed. We then had our final worship session/teaching session, where we passed out our words for each other for our resurrection bags, this evening before calling it a night.
It is amazing how God can change one’s heart about a place where one had some pre judgements about as in the end I did have a good time here at Caye Caulker, even if I still think that it is a ghetto version of Put in Bay, but what it all comes down to is that it was fun to reconnect with the rest of my squadmates, and while it was hard I found that I was able to get things off my chest in order for me to grow, and move on with so that I can be a better person & servant of God.
This is also really random but I am so tired of getting bit by the bugs, and my bug spray is not helping.
We leave tomorrow as a squad for all squad month in Honduras, and we will be arriving to our ministry site Tues morning after a 15 hour bus ride.
Please pray for safe travels for us.
Til next time your fellow sister in Christ,
Bonnie
Team Surrendered
P Squad
Psalms 18:2
YOLO
