Kuhnerts Celebrate Anniversary of Service in Belize

In an email letter to Patch editor Dan Barger, Andy Kuhnert provided an extensive update on his family's yearlong adventure in Belize and announced they soon will be returning home, with mixed emotions and a lifetime of memories.

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From the Kuhnerts in Belize...   Happy Anniversary!

Wow has it already been a year? There are times when I look back and reflect and I am amazed at all that has happened in the past year—how much our family has grown—both literally and figuratively.  

At times it seems like it was eons ago that we stepped off the plane onto foreign soil. We feel at home here now. Punta Gorda, Belize is our comfort zone. In fact just last weekend we made a trip across the border to Guatemala. Upon return, after many hours of travelling we stopped in Belmopan (Belize’s capital city) to eat. Much to my surprise nearly all of us ordered stewed chicken and rice & beans (Belize’s unspoken national dish). This has become our new comfort food and it felt so refreshing to eat “normal” food again after having been away for several days.

It’s the little things like that which make our life here feel completely ordinary and as though we’ve been living this way our whole lives. Nights on the hammock, meals on the veranda, 2 for 25 cents frozen choco-bananas, all these things have become a comfortable routine and I couldn’t imagine life any other way. And yet, in just one short month, our lives will return to the old “normal” and these things will be no more for us. Admittedly, that part makes me a little sad. 

On the one hand, we long for the old ways: fresh and fully stocked grocery stores, repairs that can be made with the right parts and the right tools, limited strange creatures sharing our dwelling space, oh and how could I forget, A/C. Yet, there’s something about life here, the way it’s really grown on us—the pace, the friendliness, the year round summer, children playing in the streets, the beautiful sea at our fingertips—that will be so very hard to give up. Is it a fair trade? Sometimes I think yes and other times I think no.  

I can’t even begin to put to pen and paper the ways that we’ve changed, all the experiences that we’ve had, the people we’ve worked with, the relationships we’ve built, and the way God has worked a number in our lives (only to have Him start over and do it again and again and again). But, when I look back and reflect on our one year anniversary in Belize, I smile (well mostly I do) and I wouldn’t trade any of it.  

What a long road we’ve travelled in just a short time. Have we reached our destination? No, our journey is far from over. So long as God continues to bless us with His purpose for our lives, then whatever challenges and blessings the next year brings, I say bring it. And as we wind up our work here and prepare for what lies ahead, my prayer is and always has been the same: Lord, not my will but yours be done. And I hope, because of that, He is smiling at us right now. We haven’t been perfect, He hasn’t been easy, but it’s been an amazing one year anniversary.

Happy Anniversary! Cheers.

“For I know the plans I have for you” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29: 11-13 NIV