Summer Camps 2013 get started!

On July 1st BCE summer camps got underway. 

The curriculum is finished and printed!

In preparation for the summer we gathered a group of Belizean women who have experience in Children’s ministry to create Camp curriculum relevant to the Children of Belize.

This year’s theme is particularly relevant to the children of Belize: “God inna di Chaos” (God in the midst of chaos). Lessons will include the stories of:  Job, Deborah, Paul, the prodigal son and more! The missionary story will feature the life story of our own Alexander Perez, and his journey to ministry.

We have printed off 2000 camper booklets, for the children to take home and interact with the lessons taught, and 200 leader guides for counselors and church leaders to use.

This summer's core team:

On June 8^th two young ladies from the Orange Walk district, of Belize, came to join us for the summer. They are part of this summer’s core team of leaders. Marian Hiebert 22, a kindergarten teacher in her home community of Blue Creek is in charge of Chapel. Esther Friessen 21, from Ship Yard, is responsible for workshops. Romel Rudon, 19 St.John’s graduate is co directing the camps.   Rachael Knox 16, high school student from Kingston Ontario, Canada is responsible for the worship/songs aspect of the camps. Zachery Garbutt 17, graduate of St. Johns Jr. College is leading the games for the summer.

Staff Training:

On July 29^th we held our summer leaders training. We will spent the day interacting with the various youth who will be helping over the course of the summer. We went over what to expect at the camps like: theme songs, lessons and stories, games, and daily schedule.  And much fun was had by all! 

First Week of Camp:
We just completed our first week of summer camps. THis camp was held at Grace Primary School in Belize City, and it ran 5 days mornings only (which was nice, to have the afternoons to recover and prep, especially being the first camp of the summer). I seemed to rain all week, but the children still came, we had as few as 40 kids one day, and as many as 80 another day.  We were also blessed to have a group of 5 youth from the Spanish Lookout EMMC church join 10+ Belize City youth to lead the campers throughout the day's activities. 

Meanwhile with Harvest for Kids...

Before Camps got started, the core team took a quick trip to San Carlos to check on the Harvest for kids field there and say a prayer asking for the Lord's blessing:

Anya inspecting the machinery

inspecting the 43 acres of corn in San Carlos

Seeds of the H4K vision are sprouting across Belize!

Its felt like a long process of communicating the vision of Harvest for Kids, but recently we have seen communities and businesses take initiative to support the project in new ways.

Ship Yard Community:

The “old order” Mennonite community of Ship Yard has committed 10 acres of an unspecified crop to Harvest for Kids. As their own group they want to be responsible to plant, grow, harvest and sell 10 acres of a crop with the profits going to Harvest for Kids. 

Ship Yard Farmers huddles around an iPad watching the H4K video

SIRDI (Sugar Industry research and Development Institute):

With the help of Jamin Castillo, Alexander has been connecting with many small sugar cane farmers. Many of these farmers suggested that H4K contact the big sugar cane industry companies. A meeting was arranged with Mr. Marcos, president of SIRDI, a sugar cane research and development institute. By the end of the meeting, Mr. Marcos was envisioning 20-30 acres of sugar cane being planted on the road front in OW so all of the local people could see what was being done for Harvest for Kids. Please pray that Mr. Marcos will be able to arrange the meetings necessary with the “Sugar Cane Association” and “BSI” to get this initiative started.

Circle ‘R’ Products:

Two weeks ago the chairman of Circle ‘R’ products, a major co-operative in Belizean Rice, approached us with their plans to support Harvest for Kids. They are planning on changing the packaging on half of their 2lbs rice bags to include the Harvest for Kids logo, and from the sale of these bags ¢1 will go to Harvest for Kids. They predict that if they sell all of this specially bagged rice, it should bring in around $500 a month for BCE.