Can you Belize it! I am almost finished with month 10!!! All month I have been telling myself I need to write a blog. Well I have finally written a blog to tell you about my month in Belize!
This month I have been in Belmopan, Belize working for Project Sunrise- Belize Basecamp. We have had a wide variety of work here in Belize. The first week we cleaned and painted a house that a missionary family moved into.
We then ran a Vacation Bible School program in a remote village and also worked at a feeding program for students. (Students go home every day for lunch. Those who live in remote villages are not able to go home to eat, so local ministries provide lunch for students who need it.)
We cleaned churches and set up for a non-profit crisis pregnancy center fundraising event. We also worked with Freedom House, where ex-prisoners who received Christ in jail live and study God’s word together. We cooked lunch and helped them move into a different location. We cleaned their old living spaces and put together their new houses! We also baked cupcakes (and then froze them) for their garage and bake sale that will happen next week.
Belize is an interesting place. Most people aren’t even sure where Belize is on a map! Well, Belize is kind of a mix between the Caribbean and Central America. It’s a poor and corrupt country with many tourist attractions that have all the nice pleasantries of the USA. Outside of those touristy places you will see a whole different world.
There’s a lot of racism here. It’s hard to see. It’s hard to understand. But the Belizeans who are black are racism against those who are brown (either of Mayan or Spanish decent). If you are brown you won’t be able to get a good job, mainly only construction jobs. All the office or corporate jobs are held by black Belizeans.
One day a Honduran man named Angel walked into our home. He thought it was a church (doesn’t look like a church… God’s cool though!). He was injured, unemployed, and needed some words of encouragement. He is a Christian who had lost a lot of hope. He came to Belize because he was promised a job playing soccer for the police academy. But after playing without any pay for three months they kicked him out when he hurt his ankle. He was now stuck in Belize with no money to get home and without the proper paperwork for him to even be in Belize (making getting home tricky). We were able to meet with Angel many times throughout the month for bible studies. Every time Angel came over I had the mindset that he is here for us to pour love and support into him. But every time he came he ended up preaching to us and pouring love into us! God is funny like that. He taught us humility as a broken man preached of God’s love and redemption to a bunch of missionaries. 😀
We were able to introduce Angel to one of the pastors we had been working with this month. The pastor was able to meet with Angel a couple of times and took him to the immigration office to get his paperwork settled! I am happy to announce that Angel now has his paperwork ready to go and enough money to return home to his family in Honduras! He came by yesterday to say thank you and goodbye! We didn’t do much for Angel. It was all God setting things up. But what we saw was a broken crying man that came to us left us with love, excitement, and joy! Praise Jesus!
