Three months, three weeks, finishing third placement!

Hey everyone!
I'm officially finished one third of my final placement, and in less than three weeks I'll be on a plane flying home.
This week went by very fast. I'm helping out at Belize Faith Mission in Ontario Christian School (yes, that's the name of the village!) doing various things. I do work in the office like typing up various documents, but I also get to work in classrooms correcting students' work. There are about 350 students in the school which is roughly the same size as my old grade school back home, I think. In just one week my name has gotten around and the name "Miss Elena" has resurfaced from my first placement. The kids especially just like to watch me when I'm sitting outside the office and when I smile at them they smile back and wave at me almost every time. There's also an orphanage on the property where some of the students live, so there's a mix of students that have families and students that don't.
I spent a bit of time talking with the principal Mrs. Adolphus during lunch one day. She asked me about my family back home and about my faith. She just listened while I talked about how this trip has caused many changes in me, and about the differences between this country and Canada. One thing I particularly noticed is different are the church services. They have no bulletins, no set schedule...however they want to worship they do it. I've seen people dancing, raising their arms, I've seen people collapse in prayer lying facedown on the ground, I've heard people speaking in tongues numerous times, which is something I've never heard before. I've actually been prayed over in tongues. All these things I've only heard about but never thought people actually did. These people are absolutely on fire for God, which is what I really needed to see when I came down here. It allowed me to see that there is more than one way to worship and that whatever way we choose is acceptable. I just got a taste in Belize of a different type that I've never really experienced before.
The week went by very fast. Each day walking over the swinging bridge I was surprised to find that it was already the next day and I was about to do it all over again! Something tells me that these last two weeks at my placement won't take their time to pass...they're going to be gone in an instant.
Our whole team's general mindset is that we're ready to go home. Three months is a very long time to be away from home, especially for the first time, in my case. Before this trip I'd never been away from my home or my family for longer than a week. That's a strange thing to think about...that for my entire life I've been living in such close quarters with my family. This trip has been a new thing in my life in many different ways, that being just one of them. Even though we're all ready to go home, we're not quite ready...just yet. It's slowly starting to hit us that when this trip is over, it's over and we can't go back. Something tells me that we're going to be trying to live for every moment in these last three weeks which we haven't necessarily done for the entire trip, especially during the rough patches. Closer to the beginning of the trip if I tried to imagine myself home, it didn't seem like a reality. Now, it's very much real. The countdown is at 20 days. I've been here for seventy three days, I believe. Three months ago today I was doing my first day at my short term placement at HMDCS. Hard to believe three months have passed since then!
Lesson for the week: Live for the moment, because later on when I'm home I'll look back on those moments and remember how much I've enjoyed myself here.
This has been an overall thoughtful post. I need those every once in a while, especially right now when this journey that's been constantly on my mind for the past year is coming to a close.

See you all soon!



Jumping back two weeks ago...the youngest cowboy in the rodeo who did some "bull" riding...but it was more like a calf :P