We apologize for this being so late however it is a good thing because we’ve been so very busy with teams since our return from the states. See more below.
The year started out for the Belize Mission with a New Years day team from Alta, Calif. We were blessed by this team as they came to start work on the Director’s home, which Basil and Vera eventually be able to live in. They also rebuilt our 2nd water cistern to hold 4500 gallons of water. We needed the cistern completed before the dry season started. While working on these projects they were able to minister to several Villagers who were hired to come out and help them. The team made a connection with one of the villager, Clifton Bailey and they are planning to bring him to the states to teach him a lumber trade that he can use here in Belize. While he is there Pastor Scott Saunders plans to mentor Clifton as well. The team also provided Sunday school to the children of Gales Point and Pastor Scott gave the morning message.
While the Alta team was there, the Warne Family from Tracy, Ca joined the Belize Mission. Russ, who is the father, stayed with the Alta team and worked on construction projects. Linda and her two daughters Christine and Kimberly taught in the government school in Gales Point. Linda is a teacher in Tracy and brought booklets from her students sharing how to plant a tree or how to make a puppet. She exchanged these booklets with the older students in our school. The Gales Point students made booklets for Linda to take back that shared things our kids in Belize do, that mostly the kids in California would not do. Some of these included these titles How to Fish, How to cut a Coconut, How to make Bread just to name a few.
The Alta team was able to let some of their team members come into the village to teach alongside with Linda and her daughters. A couple of these women are working on finishing up their teaching credentials and plan to return in June to see if they can handle the heat and humidity, if so they may be returning for long term to help with teaching the children and help the Belize Mission get the first Learning Center started in the village. This Learning Center will be designed to teach reading, math, writing and creative writing skills to both the children and Adults. We’re quite excited about this as it is an answer to prayer we need qualified teachers to help out the students in the village. With the help of qualified teachers more of the students will hopefully get the education they need to enable them to go onto High School. Most children in our village do not pass the proficiency test to go on to High School. If they do pass they don’t have the funds to go on. We are praying for help to raise support for the children to go onto High School.
In the U.S. children have practice drills for earthquake or fire, in Gales Point we just evacuate, yes, believe it or not, in Gales Point we had to evacuate the classroom due to ARMY ANTS invading. This made the day interesting, have you ever been bitten by an Army Ant? It hurts!!!
The next team that came was 5 young women from Ohio and Pennsylvania, they are part of the Brethren and Missionary denominations. They arrived just in the knick of time, as Vera ended up having the flu again, only for 4 or 5 days. These women cleaned, cooked and help organize the supplies that have been left by teams for teaching the children. They were also able to go into the village to teach for a couple of days. Their last week was spent at the King’s Children’s Home helping take care of the children, cleaning, wiping tears and doing laundry. They indicated that they will be back in the future.
Basil and Vera returned to the states on Jan. 19th to go to a Think Tank training session with the BGC in Chicago. It was difficult, going snorkeling with the team in 80+ weather and then coming into -25 below wind chill factor the next day. That is a shock for anyone’s body! The time spent in Chicago was to brainstorm on how the BGC missionaries can better deal with issues they encounter on the field. It was great meeting other missionaries from around the world, knowing that we all have similar problems and we’re not alone in our challenges in furthering the Kingdom of God’s.
We went onto the Bay Area and for a fundraiser sponsored by Mark & Toni Greeves and Vaughn & Laura Bozigian from the Castro Valley and Livermore areas. They have held this event for the past 5 years, and we felt quite blessed that they have included us the past 2 years. They brought in over $7,000 for equipment and transportation.
Basil and Vera met with teams to help prep them for their future STM to the Belize Mission this year. We also followed up with churches we had met with in Oct./Nov. and called a few new churches. We were very busy during this time, however, we were able to take Vera’s mom to Portland, Ore for a family reunion for the first time in over 25 years.
Returning to Belize in mid-February we were met by Paul & Sue Anderson from Twin Cities, Minnesota who helped prepare for the large team from Trinity International University that is from Chicago, Ill. Paul helped us install parts Basil brought back from the U.S. for the generator and Sue assisted Vera. This team was made up primarily of pre-med, nursing, psychology students. The team started out with evangelizing in Gales Point while handing out care packages that included vitamins, pain reliever and cleansing items. They also invited them to a play that was written and performed by the students. This play was about relationships between young men and women. We were targeting the younger people of the village, to our surprise the church was packed to overflowing. The young men stood outside peering inside the church, they wouldn’t come in, because it would be obvious to their peers that they were interested in the topic being shared. The team shared after the play their response to the parts they played, to help others understand how their character had such very different morals from their own.
Sunday morning the team taught Sunday school, held the church service, where one of the students gave the morning message. The team spent the rest of the week, holding clinic, VBS, and replacing the outlook floor to repair a leak on the main lodge of the mission base. The team medical team was able to minister to a nearby village called Mullins River and reached people that had no transportation. We were able to meet people with some major needs that we didn’t know of. Reaching out to villages nearby is one of the goals of the Belize Mission & Retreat. Thank you to the students and their leader.
During this time, Vera also started a women’s Bible study, in which we have 21 women involved in the study of 40 Days of Purpose. The women are excited about this study and looking forward to bonding closer with each other.
We would like to request your prayers in transportation needs, the preparations of the teams planning to still come this year. Also that God would be with them and prepare their paths ahead of them for their ministry. As we prepare for these teams, we come under major spiritual warfare, which is a blessing in disguise, as it helps us to know that we are doing exactly what God is calling us to do. There are many wonderful changes taking place in the village for God’s kingdom. We will be victorious on the battlefield.
Our prayers are with you and your loved ones.
With Christ at the Helm for 2004, Basil and Vera
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