'Create in me a clean heart, O God.' (Psalm 51:10).

Today's Lloyd-Jones quote is the December 30th entry of 365 daily selections from a devotional book featuring words from the Doctor and edited by Robert Backhouse. It was originally taken from the Lloyd-Jones' book, Out of the Depths, and can be found on pages 71-72 of that book. Once again, although written years ago, the Doctor writes as if he were speaking today. This is no less true now than when he wrote it.

Nothing, it seems to me, is quite so strange as the way in which man by nature always objects to the doctrine of regeneration. There is nothing also, I sometimes think, that so demonstrates the depth of sin in the human heart as this objection to the doctrine of the rebirth or being born again. Read the New Testament Scriptures, and you will find that men objected to it in those days. When our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ spoke about it, He was always persecuted. People disliked Him for mentioning it. When He began to expose the depth of iniquity in the human heart and to talk about a rebirth, they invariably misunderstood Him. They disliked it then, and it has always been the same ever since.

When John Wesley was truly converted, he went back to his university at Oxford and preached a sermon on this very subject; and he was hated for it. Those respectable religious people in Oxford disliked this doctrine, and they made it impossible for him to continue preaching there. The natural man, the unregenerate human heart, objected to this great and wondrous biblical doctrine of rebirth and regeneration. And it is equally true today. People sit and listen to an address or sermon on what is called the fatherhood of God or the brotherhood of man and they never object to it. When they are exhorted to live a better life, they never express any objection at all. They say that it is perfectly right, and even though they are reprimanded for not living better lives, they say that it is perfectly true and quite fair and that they could do better. But if a preacher stands before the natural man and says, 'You must be born again—you must have a new life from God,' they ask, 'What is this strange doctrine?'

Living in Belmopan is just so civilized. We have cable television, DSL Internet, shops that are open till 8 o’clock in the evening and there are tennis and basketball courts around the corner. As it’s a concrete house, it’s nice and cool. There are no creepy crawlies, very few mosquitoes (the town sprays against them), no snakes and (best of all) bin men to collect your garbage!

Living at the Dome is more like being in the Wild West in comparison. You have to rely on yourself and your neighbors for so many things. Finding your own solutions to waste disposal, catching snakes, scorpions, tarantulas, putting out your own fires (we once waited all night for the fire brigade…they never showed up) & now the police asked us for a ‘contribution’ to buy a car and supply it with gas, to patrol our area more.

So again, we’ve come to the conclusion that we’re better off relying on ourselves and on our direct neighbors, even for something like security. It seems to be the best system when you live ‘out in the sticks’ like us.

So that makes our list of what we’re up to at the moment look like this:

• Take care of a toddler and a newborn
• Expand our resort with 2 extra rooms (in what used to be our living space)
• Build our own house
• Look after our guests every day (we’re fully booked most of the time)
• Buy back our old store in San Ignacio (The Green Dragon)
• Revamp our http://www.greendragonbelize.com/ website. Making it a separate entity from the Belize Jungle Dome, as the travel agency ‘Green Dragon Adventure Travel’
• Sort out the deal with our future business partners Tom & Marge
• Set up security systems for the local area with our neighbors

Building work at the Dome. Hard to believe that in this space there will be a bautiful suite soon.

Can you believe that this used to be our kitchen? What a mess...