Building A Church In the Jungle

Building A Church In the Jungle

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Nick Beazley has recently returned from southern Belize where he was exploring ways that ROW might be able to work with the people in the isolated village of Crique Sarco.

February, 2006 - Two planes, a beat-up school bus, a dugout canoe, and one's own two feet are all the things that one needs to physically get to Crique Sarco, Belize. Fortunately, traveling to this remote village in the Toledo District, the poorest and most southern district in Belize, sounds much more difficult than in it actually used to be. Until 5 years ago, the only other way to get to Crique Sarco other than a 12-hour hike from Punta Gorda was to take a small boat 2.5 hours up the Temash River. However, a few years ago the government built a "road" that meanders through the wilderness of Belize to connect the isolated villages with the coastal city of Punta Gorda. Locally owned and operated buses travel the route several times a week allowing relatively quick and cheap travel between the village and Punta Gorda. Interestingly enough, the end of the road to Crique Sarco doesn't quite make it to Crique Sarco, but rather, it stops short at the northern bank of the Temash River. From the north bank, dugout canoes are used to go up and get across the river. The final distance to Crique Sarco can be walked along a dirt trail.

The village of roughly 250 people is scattered across the jungle in little clearings with a central field in the middle where afternoon soccer matches are often held. The community radiates out from this main field and is largely comprised of thatch-roofed and with dirt floored homes with the occasional tin roof sticking out from behind the foliage. Power lines can be seen stretching the length of the village, yet no current runs through them. Signs of good things to come can be seen in the form of PVC piping sticking out of the ground from the government's half-finished project to install a clean water system for the village.

The physical health of the village looks promising, but it is the spiritual health of the village that is in need of help from ROW. The need of a church has been made apparent by a local pastor and his growing congregation that has no church of its own where they can all worship. Pastor Pedro Bo is the pastor of the congregation and currently holds worship services in an abandoned Mennonite Church. Unwilling to release the previously unused building to Pastor Bo, the Mennonites have turned this old pastor and his congregation into well-meaning trespassers. To further complicate things, since Pastor Bo's congregation has fixed up the abandoned building and made it usable, the Mennonites have started sporadically showing up in Crique Sarco to use the church again. With this in mind, ROW has decided to work with Pastor Bo and his congregation to provide them with a church that will belong to the congregation and allow its worshippers to be at ease and feel at home in God's house.

Teams can range in size from 8-15 and will typically spend a week in Belize with 5 of those days being on site in Crique Sarco. After the purchase of a plane ticket to Belize the cost per person is $500 in a addition to a $2000 group construction fee for the week. During a teams' stay in Crique Sarco they will be hosted by Pastor Bo's family, whom live no more than 100 yards from the site where the new church is being built. The Bo family will also prepare the teams' meals as well as proving a house where the teams will sleep. While in Crique Sarco there will be plenty of opportunities for groups to interact with the community and learn a few words in the native language of Kekchi.

Teams are being assembled to travel to Belize to assist in the building of the church, and Nick is coordinating the efforts to deliver the supplies to the village as soon as the rainy season ends.

If you would like to know more about this trip, then please contact Nick Beazley

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