On Saturday our 16-year-old daughter Maddy will arrive in Belize for a two-week stint as a missionary intern. She will serve with the MTW team there in the town of Corozal. Like us, the fulltime missionaries in Belize are currently hosting lots of short-term mission teams. Their fulltime mission team is a bit smaller than ours and they are low on translators.
Maddy will spend much of her time translating at the medical clinic, VBS and work site. However, she is flexible and ready for anything. Her experience with hosting short-term mission teams here in Honduras will make her a valuable asset in Belize.
This is Maddy’s second missionary internship and third mission trip. Last summer she served in New York City helping to train missionary kids. Several years ago she served on the Lummi Indian reservation in Washington. It is exciting that Maddy, who is already a missionary and helpful to us, has such a heart to serve around the world on her own.
Please pray for her as she travels by herself and is away from home for two-weeks.
Maddy, our almost 16-year-old, has been booked to go to Belize this summer and serve as a missionary there for two-weeks. She will be in Belize July 7-21. This will be her third short-term mission trip. She previously served on the Lummi Indian reservation in 2006 and 2011 in New York City.
Last year Madison loved her month of missions work in New York City. For this summer she decided she wanted to go someplace she could use her Spanish and experience in the Latin culture. She will be in the city of Corazal in the north of Belize. While there she will be helping translate for shot-term mission teams and serve as she is called.
It is thrilling to us that she has such a heart for missions and such a desire to serve. Please pray that God prepares her heart to serve well this July.
Today we head back to Honduras after three full days in Belize. We were required to leave Honduras for 72 hours in order to renew our government visas.
Yesterday, we went on a tour of some sites in Belize with Mike’s sister and brother-in-law. We went to Xunantunich, a Mayan city that dates back to the time of Christ. At 130 feet tall, the Mayan pyramid is the second tallest structure in Belize.
After that we floated along a river through a long, dark series of caves cut through limestone. These caves were considered Hell by the ancient Mayans. These nine interconnected caves were once used for sacrifices, worship and blood letting.
Pretty cool stuff.
When we entered Honduras back on June 25th we received 90 day tourist visas. This was the longest visas we could receive at the time. We have since started the long and expensive process of applying for residency. When we get Honduran residency we will be able to stay in Honduras for up to five years without leaving.
With a 90 day visa we are required to leave Honduras for 72 hours and we must go at least two countries away…Costa Rica or Belize. Therefore, this blog entry is written to you from Belize, where we have gone for three full days.
Until our residency is approved we will have to continue to leave Honduras every 90 days.
While this is inconvenient, we don’t want to reside in Honduras illegally. It does not help our ministry if we are breaking the law.
The bad news is, until we receive our residency status we will have to continue to leave Honduras every three months. The good news is Mike’s sister and brother-in-law flew down to Placencia, Belize to spend a few days with us.
Missionaries Mentoring New Missionaries