Light of the Valley School and Dangriga Baptist Church are now the first locations for Kidz Konnect
4 Jesus ministry! Thank you Westwood & Cornerstone!
As you might guess from the name, Light of the Valley school is literally in a
valley at the base of the Cockscomb Mountain Range, one of the most beautiful areas in Belize. The Valley
community is located in the Stann Creek District of Belize, right off the Hummingbird Highway. Valley is 16 miles inland from
the coastal town of Dangriga and 35 miles from Belmopan, the capital of Belize.Valley Community itself is very small and is typical of most Belizean villages.
Population is estimated to be about 500 people who work in the surrounding citrus industry. Light
of the Valley school has both a pre-school and a primary school. The pre-school is one of the few in the
region, with twenty-five 3 and 4 yr olds currently attending with one teacher and one assistant. The primary school currently
has 238 children in 9 grades (K-8). There are 9 teachers and a principal. Children come
from as far as five miles in either direction.
Light of the Valley school was built and is maintained to Belizean government standards by the Baptist Association
of Belize. Here are photos of the school.
IT'S OFFICIAL!!!
Coastal Christian Missions and Kid Zone Ministries - Belize is an official member and partner of the Baptist Association
of Belize. On Saturday, Oct.3rd, 32 member churches with over 100 representatives at the annual meeting voted
unanimously to include us as members to partner with the churches and schools of Belize. Great excitement was experienced
throughout the membership. Being a part of this organization provides us the broad access needed to initiate the vision
God has given us to help the children of Belize in a wide scale fashion.
The pilot program will launch
in early 2010 with the implementation of children’s ministry programs into a pre-school, a primary school and at least
one church. The current plan is to follow this pilot program with a formal training workshop in the summer and then
phase one implementation in September for additional schools and churches. Subsequent rollouts and program expansion
is planned for each January and September with ongoing training workshops at least twice a year. As you can see, this
is a very long term process that will require extensive time, energy, resources and of course, financial support. For now, we will continue to
travel back and forth with increased frequency and longer trip durations as necessary. Karen continues to be Director of Children’s
Ministry at Cornerstone and they will be providing her an added staff person to allow for time in Belize. David will
continue with his consulting work and will continue attending Liberty Theological Seminary.We thank you all for your prayers and support during
the past five years and fifteen trips as we carefully sought out God’s direction and timing! We simply could not
have gotten to this point without you. Now the real work begins! We will be in touch
with you individually in the very near future to provide more details and insight to this awesome ministry opportunity.
Click here for more photos
August agenda (see Newsletters for update)
Deliver
and administer de-worming medicine and vitamins to Sagitune
Exploration and development of dental clinic to coincide with missions
Meeting with Belize Baptist Association for upcoming
October 3 meeting
During
our June/July trip to Belize with the Cornerstone “Belize Blast” team; our first event was in the very remote
village of Sagitune. This small village is located in the middle of a very large banana plantation. Only one other
small team had ever visited and as you can imagine, the children (and adults too) were very excited to see us. Sadly,
many of the children are seriously infested with intestinal worms. Left untreated, they will develop serious health
issues such as anemia, malnutrition, stunted growth, rashes, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abscesses, intestinal bleeding, and
even death. Karen witnessed death first hand when one of her student’s four year old brothers died from these
parasites. The main purpose for this trip is to take and administer de-worming medication along with vitamins
for the entire village over a three day period. There are about 40 families in this village with 150+ children.
While in this area, the team stayed three nights with Dr. Roger Blair and his wife Gail at the Nautical Inn.
Roger is a retired orthodontist and they have purchased this small hotel property with the hopes of turning it into a Christian
retreat. We shared with them our mission efforts, plans and dreams and there was an immediate connection between us.
Roger has recently closed a dental office in San Diego and has available 4 treatment rooms of equipment plus 2 x-ray
machines. There are no dental clinics within two hours of this area and thus no care is being given (and even if there
were, most could not afford it). Roger and Gail would like to donate the equipment for visiting dental mission teams
to use. This is obviously a perfect fit to partner with the vision that God has given us. What they do not
have right now is the funds for shipping the equipment from San Diego to Belize. We will be meeting to discuss plans/options
for getting the equipment to Belize and how their property and this area can play a role with our efforts.
And finally, we will be meeting with several members of the Baptist Association of Belize to prepare for our upcoming
children’s ministry presentation on October 3 to the entire membership of 59 churches.
Immediate needs:
v Prayer for effective travel to Sagitune village and the well
being of the children.
v Provision to
get dental equipment to Belize.
v Funds to purchase vehicle (one has been identified) to take to and leave in Belize
Because Jesus Loves Kids,
David and Karen
.
Building with Edon Lemont - hand tools only!
Karen at the children's home in Ontario village
