On behalf of the 2011 All Saints Belize Mission Team, I would like to thank everyone whose prayers, encouragement and donations will travel with us to Belize in a few days. Since 2005, our annual mission trips continue to build life-changing connections between volunteers from throughout the United States and friends in Belize.
We are looking forward to attending Mass in a church we helped to build in 2008 at Sunday Wood village. Because men spend the rest of the week farming and hunting, Sundays provide a rare opportunity to visit with families.
As trust and friendship with the people of Toledo District grow, so do their requests for assistance. Our construction crew will help to build a concrete-block school library in the village of San Benito Poite and complete a wooden library in the village of Corazon. We also hope to find time and equipment needed to address repairs needed in six elementary schools!
Three nurses traveling with us this year will assist in the hospital in Punta Gorda Town, a clinic in San Antonio, and a few elementary schools. They will also see home-bound patients as needed.
Those working with Socio-Economic Outreach will visit small business owners who have received loans through the micro-loan program at All Saints Parish. Others will document the process of jipijapa basket-making for Socio-Economic Outreach presentations. We will deliver backpacks filled with school supplies to ten high school students sponsored by the All Saints Scholarship Fund.
Our education curriculum continues to grow and serve more students every year. This year we will visit nearly 600 elementary school students in San Marcos, Blue Creek, Santa Teresa, San Lucas, Corazon and Otoxha! Our curriculum includes lessons in math, science, religion, language arts, health and hygiene, art, P.E., and music. We will deliver health and school supplies, plus items requested by principals. Imagine a classroom of children jumping and cheering when you walk in carrying a box of crayons for each one of them!
Our mission team realizes that we are the lucky ones because we get to experience hugs and smiles firsthand, wishing that by some miracle, everyone we know back home could do the same. We feel blessed to represent hundreds of generous friends who reach so many needy people in Southern Belize. As always, we will return having received much more than we delivered. Thanks again for all of your support and prayers!
Ann Lacker
All Saints Belize Mission Team Leader
My prayers are with them! I am hoping to be a nurse on a trip in the future!
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