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Amber's Thoughts...

The best part of the trip was deciding to sponsor a child through Dream 514. While clinic was amazing and God's hand was truly in it the moments that will stick with me the longest will be the times I spent with my sponsored child. She attends St. Martin's school which was in walking distance of the the church where clinic was held. On Wednesday afternoon Lauren, Russ, Vic, and I walked down there in search of her. We found her in the school yard. I think it might have scared her a little that some random Americans at her school knew her name. You see she and her brothers were recent applicants because their father passed about two weeks ago. I didn't know this when I chose her because I just wanted to sponser a little girl and Jenny paired us together. While in the school yard I asked her if it would be okay if I sponsered her to go to school. She said yes and was very shy, which most of the kids are when you first meet them. We spent about fifteen minutes talking about what her favorite things are and telling each other about our brothers. She showed me her classroom, I gave her my address and told her how we could be pen pals. I invited her to come by the clinic the next day if her mom said it was okay. We said our goodbyes and the four of us walked back to the church.The next morning I piggy backed on Abby's idea to buy some goodies for our kids. We went to Brodie's and I bought some toothpaste, a tooth brush, Disney princess pencils,hair accesories, and a picture of us from the day before. It was my goal to make it back to St. Martin's sometime during the day to see her one more time. Thursday afternoon the clinic was slow so several of us went on a home visit where some baby girl twins, who stole the hearts of our group, lived. While we were gone she and her mom and two brothers came to the clinic looking for me. I didn't know this at the time. After we vistited the family, we were going by St. Martin's so I asked to stop to look for her. She wasn't at school. Infact the place looked pretty vacant because it was report card day. As we got back to the van and were about to leave I saw a little girl from far down the road that had on shoes like her's. I squinted but I wasn't sure if it was her. Then as we were about to leave I realized it was her and at the same time she saw our van and ran to greet me. She wasn't shy at all this time and we had another great visit. I gave her her goodie bag. I could see the thankfulness in her mother's eyes when she asked if I was Amber. She showed me her report card and she is a B student. It made me so proud of her to know she's a hardworker and to know that through this great program she has hope to take that hardwork as far as she wants to.It was the perfect way to end the trip. By the time we got back to the church the group was on the bus ready to leave. Those few minutes spent with her were the icing on the cake to so many wonderful Belize stories. Thank you to everyone who worked so hard planning this trip and those who contributed finanically. Without ya'll this wonderful memory would not be possible!