Hello all! Welcome to my first post of our three month mission trip to Belize! I’ll try to cover quite a bit of ground in this post, as we’ve already been in-country for over a week. Thanks so much for reading!
For a little background, I felt a calling to do missions with this specific organization (Experience Mission) back in January. There were several different options of countries, and after lots of discussion with EM staff, I decided on a three month trip to Belize in the fall and a three month trip to South Africa at the beginning of next year.
Okay, fast forward to August: after driving for five days back from Alaska (those blog posts will be coming after this trip!), I had a couple of days to see family and friends, unpack, repack and get to Grand Haven, Michigan for mission training. The Belize, South Africa, and Costa Rica teams all met at a church, where we stayed for three days. I got to meet the whole team in person for the first time. I’ll introduce you!
In the back we have E, then left to right is MK, J, L, H, and myself (I’ll use first initials only to protect identities.) L is our team leader and came here on a three month trip last summer, so she knows the ropes! She’s about the same age as me, and the other girls are all recent high school grads. I’ve had to pick up on some new Gen-Z vocabulary (bussin’ is probably the most prevalent), but overall I think we’re getting along well despite the age gap. I’ve been impressed by how the girls are adjusting, especially considering it’s the first extended time away from home for the majority of the group!
Over the course of training, we talked a lot about how to approach the trip with an attitude of dignity and respect despite differences and serve like Jesus did. There were several fun exercises, such as this one where we intensely studied a potato.
We had quite a bit of free time in the evenings, where we could hang out and get to know people from other groups; we had a worship night one night, which was pretty cool.
Unfortunately, midway through training, someone tested positive for COVID, so we were a bit more restricted and had to wear masks due to CDC policy, but everyone handled it pretty well and everyone was still able to travel, praise God!
Thursday morning all the teams packed up their stuff and hit the road for Chicago!
We all stayed at the same hotel for the night, then flew out to our respective countries on Friday. Our flight was just before 5 am, but we got there a little after 2. Turns out the Delta baggage check at O’Hare doesn’t open until 3:45… Whoops!
We had a short layover in Atlanta, then hopped on a flight to Belize. E and M caught these awesome shots from the air!
We landed in Belize City around midday…
…then took a trip by shuttle to our destination for the night.
Here we stayed at a beautiful little campground. We occupied three little cabins, two of which even had air conditioning! It also had an awesome little shelter area with several hammocks!
We had a yummy lunch of rice and beans with chicken, fried plantains, and cucumber salad, then settled in for a few hours to rest up.
Next we walked into town to grab dinner and explore a little bit.
Saturday morning we slept in a bit, then went to the market for breakfast and a little shopping.
Midday or so we were picked up and taken to the village that we’ll call home for the next several weeks. All six of us settled in with one of our host families – just a temporary measure until our other family got back from vacation! Here’s Mami N and Papi J with the group.
We ate lunch, rested, then ate dinner before hopping on a bus to Belmopan, the capital of Belize. Our host family’s church denomination was having a sort of district meeting (they called it a compañera) there that night, and we were invited to come along.
It was definitely an eye-opening first experience, though after attending church here for the past couple weeks it now seems to be pretty standard. Service was about two hours long, with lots of singing and clapping along, and quite a long message by a rather loud preacher. And did I mention it was all in Spanish?
It was also the first time I really understood what had been hinted at during training. There’s a lot of people here in Belize who have been really hurt by the church, mainly because of churches’ really high standards. We would really appreciate prayers on wisdom about reaching out to people who have been hurt by churches and connecting them to churches more focused on grace, while we ourselves go to a more traditional church.
After the bus ride back, we were pooped and went to bed rather quickly, which was good because we were up bright and early to work on O’s farm! O is one of Mami and Papi’s sons, and he has a good sized vegetable farm a little ways outside of town. All six of us in the group, plus O and his two kids, hopped in his truck and set off to pick as many vegetables as we could before it got too hot. And man did we have a good harvest that day! Seven big bags of hot peppers, three big bags of Bell peppers, and a couple buckets each of tomatoes and cucumbers. It reminded me a lot of the passage that talks about how some will plant and others will harvest. I’m so grateful we got to be a part of the harvest, and thankful for the hands that sowed these seeds; my prayer is that we also might sow seeds, literally and metaphorically, that others after us will harvest.
I was pretty pooped after all that, so I napped for several hours after lunch. I think that was the best sleep I’d had the whole week!
Sunday night was our first time at our host family’s church. Service was relatively similar to the compañera, though I was relieved to find that our pastor is quite a bit milder than the one from the night before.
Okay, I’ve officially covered a week, so I think I’ll cut things off here. I’ll try to have the next one up soon!
Love, Sheraya
Ray of Sunshine Travel 