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Calvary Chapel Belize City |
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Several years ago, Denise and I felt the Lord leading us to plant a Calvary Chapel in Belize City. We moved down in May of 2003. Since then we have started a home fellowship and are involved in several other areas of ministry as well as a church plant.  We began to meet as a church in our home on October 31, 2004. We are currently in the process of aquiring a building. We found the building in May of 2004. The owners are no longer in possession of the title to the building, and it is in great disrepair. Basically, it is walls and a roof. All of the doors, windows, light fixtures and even the toilet have been stolen. As is common in a third world country, the process of getting a new title and getting ready to sell the building took many months. In March, we are meeting with the owners and hope to come to an agreement on the terms of sale. We made an offer of $15,000 USD on the building. That is a little below market value, but we are praying that the Lord will give us favor with the owners.
As of March 2005, there are up to 25 people attending on Sunday mornings and Friday nights. Many are single mothers with their families. We also have quite a few highschool / college age kids coming. It is a small group, but the Lord is definitely moving among us. It is a pleasure to see these young believers growing in the Lord. |
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Belize is the first country south of Mexico on the Caribbean side and is roughly the size of Massachusetts. There is an amazing amount of diversity in Belize. While Belize is in the tropics, there are pine tree covered mountains, 1000' waterfalls, desert islands, huge farms and banana plantations as well as tropical rain forests that receive as much as 150" of rain each year. The temperature in Belize ranges from the 60's in the winter to a high of 105 in the summer. The rainy season is from June until December, and hurricanes are a fairly common occurrence.
The people of Belize are as diverse as the country. Belize was first settled by English pirates and mahogany cutters, later becoming an English colony. As a result, many people in Belize are the descendants of slaves from Africa and India. There are also many Hispanic and Mestiso (Hispanic/Mayan) people. Many of the Hispanic people have migrated from El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, as well as Mexico. Among the indigenous people there are three Mayan groups, the Kikchee Maya, the Maya Mopan, and the Yucatec Maya. A large number of these people still live in the jungle in palatals, small thatched huts. More recently to the scene are the Mennonites. They are mostly farmers of German decent. For the most part they live in their own communities and still speak German. There are also Lebanese and Indian merchants as well as a large contingent of Chinese and Taiwanese. All this from a country of only 250,000 people!
While English is the national language, you will hear many tongues as you travel the country. Most people speak Creole, a form of English similar to what you might hear in Jamaica. There are also many people who only speak Spanish.
Belize has a strong Christian foundation, but in recent years that foundation has been eroded away. Crime and immorality are rampant in Belize, especially in Belize City, where there is reported to be a violent crime a day. That’s in a city of about 70,000 people. Belize leads in the rate of HIV infections in Central America, and AIDs is in danger of becoming pandemic.
For the most part, the church in Belize borders on both extremes. On one hand, there some very legalistic denominations, and on the other hand there are many hyper-charismatic churches. On the whole there are very few solid, balanced Bible teaching churches.
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