Belize It or Not

Our family is going on a missions trip to Belize! Tim and I have decided that we would do something different this year. Instead of a pleasure trip for the summer it will be service-oriented. It will be educational, full of history, adventure and even fun.

STEM (Short-Term Evangelical Missions) is one of the few organizations that would take a six-year old girl, like Miriam, to be a misssionary. Yes, she is the youngest in the team. During our orientation last week she was asked to say something about herself and reason for going. She was very confident when she responded. "My name is Miriam. I have a big house... I want to go to Belize because I want others to know about God". We didn't teach her.


Everyone is getting ready: Shannon is polishing her skill in playing the flute. It should not be too hard since she has been in the award-winning Camerado Springs Concert Band; Brahms is collecting all props for a puppet show to teach kids about the parables of Jesus. He is a pro in this area being an active member of the puppeteering group in Cornerstone. Miriam is reading a lot about Belize. Tim is preparing a couple of sermons and devotional topics. He has done all the logistics of this trip from getting our fees and air tickets paid to getting a visa for me. He checks the weather in Belize everyday so we could get accustomed to it. My job is easy: Telling my family about life in a tropical third world country. This includes food (quantity and kind), humidity, temperature, lack of air conditioning, insects or bugs, people, etc. I'm also in the process of making mosquito nets for us to bring. Having slept under one for almost all my life in the Philippines, I know that mosquito nets work well as a barrier between me and mosquitos, centipedes and even cockroaches.

We will soon be asking friends and relatives to start praying for us and our team.