Mission Trip to Belize -- Part 1
Day 1: Got to the airport by 7:35am. It took us an hour to get checked in and to go through security. Our flight there was only about about 2.5 hrs (click here to download a brief video of us exiting the plane). Our flight attendants were rather rude though. The people in customs weren’t very friendly either. God must be trying to teach me something about dealing with the difficult types. Met up with our trip coordinators at the airport. Went to our hotel and got unpacked. Relaxed for a bit. Met up with the entire team and talked/prayed. Met with several pastors from the area. Had dinner and fellowship with them (click here). I hit it off with a youth pastor here named Mark, who happens to be the National Youth Pastor for the country of Belize. After that, we met and planned our day for tomorrow. My team is going to one of the churches tomorrow and I’m going to preach. My roommate and his girlfriend got held up at gunpoint. They took his wallet, & they also groped his girlfriend and took her watch. The police found one of the guys, but the other 2 are still on the loose.
Day 2: Woke up around 6:15am. I had a dull headache. Had a GREAT quiet time. Worked on my message for this morning. Headed to Pastor Flores’ church (click here). We went to Sunday School where the Pastor taught on faithfulness using the Daniel Ch. 3 as the scriptural support. We had praise and worship, then one of our team members shared his testimony. I brought the message coming from Romans 5:8. After church, I did a little rapping for some of the students there. After that, we went by the Pastor Mark’s home. We also drove by the state prison. Then we went to Pastor Dyer’s house for lunch (click here). They made barbecue, beans, cole slaw and really good (that’s a code word for sweet) Kool-aid! I ended up taking a nap at Pastor Dyer’s. The weather was mildly hot, but with a nice breeze. From there, we visited a spot where one of the churches is planning to build a Youth Facility. While there, we saw some Jehovah’s Witnesses on their grind. The ride in the van on some of the streets here has been brutal! The streets are very poorly done, but we were told that they’ve been working to get them fixed for over 30 years. From there, we went to a Senior Citizen’s home and sang and prayed with the senior adults there. It was humbling being in there. I closed our time there w/ a prayer, then our team went and got coconuts so they could drink the milk out. It was nasty, at least that’s what I was told. I didn’t try the coconuts. Lastly, we went to a baboon sanctuary. It was a little tour of this place where baboons hang out and play (click here). We got to get really close to them. It was quite different than anything I’ve ever done before. After that, we got lost on the way back to the hotel, but we eventually found it. The other group had been back at the hotel for a couple of hours before we got there. We had our team meeting to talk about tomorrow, and the message was rich. I was going to go get some grubb, but I was so tired, I just went to bed. As I reflect upon today, I think the thing that has really stood out to me about Belize is that it appears to be very much influenced by American culture. I saw tons of doo rags, throwback jerseys, tattoos, cornrows, Air Force 1’s, jewelry, etc. The weird thing is that poverty appears to be very rampant here. Probably 95% of all that I saw today reminded me of the hood. I keep wondering what kind of industry fuels the economy here, but no one seems to have any answers. As far as I can tell, there are tons of corner stores and street vendors. I’m assuming that tourism is another big boost to the economy too.
Day 3: Woke up around 6:25am. Had another dull headache. Got to chat and pray with my roommate this morning. Got dressed to go to an area called Crooked Tree (click here). Today is a national holiday for them, so everyone was hangin’ out. We had a really good time. Lloyd (one of the local pastors) was our guide. The main road to head into Crooked Tree (which is an island of about 900 people) was something awful! We played with the kids there. We played volleyball, we tossed a football, we tossed a Frisbee around (click here). We had barbecue chicken and beans for lunch. We hung out for a bit by the banks of the river. Later in the day, several of us went to go play basketball. It’s interesting . . . many of the backboards here have Sprite advertising on them. We played several games, and it was burnin’ up out there! As we were on the way out, we played this one team made up of cats from Belize, and they beat us twice! One of the guys played college ball somewhere in Chicago. We spent the whole day there hangin’ out and loving on the people from Crooked Tree. I was super dirty after all that sweating from playing basketball. From there, we came back to the hotel, got cleaned up and met up for our evening de-briefing.
Day 4: Today, I got up around 5:45am. Praise God that I didn’t wake up with a headache like I had the previous 2 days. My devotionals have been so on-point with what’s been happenin’ here in Belize. Bless God for a timely word. We were running a bit late, so we had to high tail it over to Crooked Tree. Lloyd was our guide once again today, and he was moving fast! We got there just in the nick of time. I did the morning chapel with the kids from Crooked Tree, and I believe God was glorified (click here). From there, we split up into teams of 3 or 4, and shared our testimonies in the various classes. While there, we got to chat with some US Soldiers that were there building a school. It was cool talking wit them (click here). We saw Scooby (a young man we had met at Crooked Tree the day before) there at the school, even though he wasn’t a student. He was just hangin’ out. In Belize, after 6th grade, you have to pay for your schooling. Scooby told me that he listened to the “In Conjunction” CD that I had given him the day before. The song he said enjoyed the most was “The Red Sea Experience”. I bless God for that. Lloyd then lead us to Belmopan Baptist High School. Belmopan is the capital of Belize. This place was about an hour and a half long drive from Crooked Tree. It was cool driving through the country. We got to the school, and I did an impromptu “concert”. Like most high schoolers, the kids were doing their best to act cool. We then went to various classes and shared. I was paired up with some team members I hadn’t really had a chance to build with. Hearing their testimonies was like “Wow”! I got a little sidewayz with the students because it became apparent the longer we were there, that many of those kids had very little knowledge about what it really means to be a Christian. As I continued to talk to the students (mainly this kid that looked like a young Redd Foxx), it became very apparent that this school was Baptist in name only. The kids all knew the right answers to the questions, but their behavior didn’t reflect any of the Gospel message. Come to find out that out of the 15 school staff, only 5 of them are Christian. I asked a couple of kids what was the biggest problem with the students at the school and everyone I talked to said they same thing: HYPOCRISY. I was really grieved by what I heard and saw. Those students are in a Christian school, but they have no encouragement to do the right things. So like most youth, they’re into sex, drugs, disobedience and rebellion. We did get to lead some of them to Christ though (click here to download a brief video of Sight Giver and I chatting with a guy named Kerwin). While there, we ran into a guy who was fixing a water pump for the school. Come to find out, he’s a former missionary from Houston and has ties to my home church. After we left the school, we went to a flea market to get some fruit. Next, we hit up the University of Belize (click here). We didn’t have a lot of time, so we hit the campus in about 30 minutes. Some people did a prayer walk on the campus, others were sharing the Gospel with students that were hangin’ out. My buddy J & I linked up with this guy and this girl and shared with them for the entire time we were on the campus. The girl’s mother was a Jehovah’s Witness, but she said she didn’t practice any of it. We ended up giving them some tracts. I also gave them copies of my CD. I really hated that we couldn’t have stayed on the campus longer. Man, I love being on college campuses! We then stopped by the water pump guy’s ranch. It was NICE! We then headed to San Ignacio, which is near Guatamala. We got there, and our hotel was plush. The one bad thing was that the food service wasn’t too good (everyone on our team waited for over an hour to get their food…)
