Greetings from Faith Nazarene!

The boy's team rocking Celtics' jerseys and kicking some serious butt!

Hello subscribers,

The Faith Nazarene group (Dan Devlin, Molly Nagel, and Julia Stratton) has hit the ground running.  We arrived in San Ignacio January 31st and met with our project partners: Mrs. Pech (principal) and Miss Patty (standard 4 teacher) on February 10th.  Our project entails teaching nutrition, gardening, and basic plant biology to standard four (ages 10-12) at Faith Nazarene Primary School.  Our mission is to construct two raised garden beds which will be used to complement class lessons and provide an extra food source for the school cafeteria.

Awesome picture of the girls team running back down court after a score!

We took on a new challenge when we met Miss Terry, the athletic director at Faith Nazarene.  She informed us that the boys and girls basketball teams had qualified for a basketball tournament in the capital of Belize, Belmopan.  At their request and to our great pleasure, we were recruited to aid in coaching them.  The team had only two weeks to prepare for the tournament!  The day before the competition, the UVM crew scrimmaged the Faith Nazarene teams.  Both the UVM and FN teams had mad ballin’ skillz.  The next day we were all (Molly, Julia, Dan, and both teams) off to the games! The girls were undefeated after all four games, and the boys only lost one game out of four.  NINE HOURS OF BASKETBALL, YUSSSSS.

Jordan and Julia scrimmaging agaisnt the girls team

Once acquainted with both Mrs. Pech and Miss Patty, we requested a meeting with the PTA.  Three hours later we were discussing future plans for our garden.  The PTA was more than willing to help, but not everything comes for free.  After the meeting, the PTA had arranged for us to help mix and pour concrete at the school the coming Friday. 

Dan and Julia mixing concrete with the PTA

            We sat in on our first class Monday February 27^th.  We introduced ourselves to the students and explained our intentions for the next four weeks that we will be in their class.  After the brief introduction, we handed out observation journals for the children to decorate.  The purpose of these journals will be for the students to write down observations, measurements and sketches of the plants they will be growing starting next Monday.  The kids were full of energy to say the least.

            It is sure to be an exciting yet busy month and we are happy to report that our project is off to a great start!

-Dan, Molly, and Julia