Belize Mission Trip - June 2004

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Here is a quick report on the mission trip to Belize.

We had a great time and didn't have any problems - personally.

We left on Monday. Our flight was smooth and on time. We were met at the airport in Belize City by Pastor Lloyd Welch. We travelled by school bus all week. That night we had our first crusade service at Pastor Lloyd's church - Bethany Baptist Church in Belize City. There were 40 to 50 people there plus our group of 20 so the church was fairly full. We sang and testified and then our Pastor (Paul) preached. Several prayed to receive Christ as their personal Saviour.

The next morning we went to a high school where we again sang and testified. Justin preached and many raised their hands to indicate they wanted to be saved. Justin is a young man in our church in his mid twenties who grew up in the Cayman Islands and can speak the dialect (Belizian Creole - kinda like Jamaican) that is spoken in Belize. The people officially speak English but you have to listen closely because of the accent and unusual choice of words. We spent time in the park and on the streets during the afternoon and had another service that night at Bethany. More were saved.

Wednesday morning we went to a prison. Only the adults were able to go in. We preached to the entire prison over a PA system. All of the men who went in got to share. Since we were already quite a ways out of town, we spent a couple of hours going to see some Mayan ruins and then went back to town for another service at Bethany.

Thursday morning we checked out of the motel and were supposed to go by bus for 2 hours to a small community called Gales Point, however, one of the teenage girls was vomitting so we took her to the hospital where they treated her before we could leave. We arrived at Gales Point just before supper time. After supper we had a service and most of the community came. We had brought gifts for all of the children in the community and gave them out after the service. Most of the people in Gales Point are too poor to give their children pesents at christmas so this was wonderfully exiting to them. Pastor Lloyd grew up here. Gales Point is a very long and thin penensula that protrudes out into a lagoon (see a picture) where there is a large population of manatees. What's a manatee? Find out here.

We spent the night in a small hotel there - no a/c but a good breeze off the water and headed back early the next morning. We checked back into the motel in Belize City and most went on to board a boat to go to a resort island called San Pedro. Jeanette, Sarah and I didn't go because we had to stay with the girl who was sick, since the boat ride would have been too much. On San Pedro they were supposed to go into a school but they were taking final exams and so couldn't. Our plans were to have a service in the park that evening but we found out after getting to the island that the last boat back was at 4:00 pm and so they had to come back earlier than expected. Before returning, they spent a little while swimming. One of the boys stepped on a stingray and got stung. They took him to a clinic and got a stich and a shot for the pain. We ate at a nicer restaurant that night and flew home the next day. Our flight back was smooth. Just before the plane landed in Belize to pick us up, it was storming but after landing, God cleared up the rain and provided a great flight.

Click here to see the photo gallery of our trip.