Hello friends and family! As many of you know, we (Marcellus and Alyssa) had the incredible opportunity to go to Belize to serve with JOY International in 2021. We are so excited to share that we are going back this year to help continue the work and once again serve the beautiful people of Belize.
This year, our team will be focusing on leading a few camps for kids and pre-teens around the topic of boundaries. Broken family relationships, abuse, and trauma are extremely common in Belize, all of which are factors that can lead to a higher risk of trafficking and exploitation. Our camps will focus on physical boundaries, relational boundaries, spiritual boundaries, appropriate contact, how loved and valuable they are, how to respond and report abuse, as well as giving a place for preteens to share hurts in a safe and loving environment. We will be leading three separate camps; one for pre-teens in a village outside of the capital of Belmopan, one for 16 girls living in a children's home in San Pedro (all live there after being removed from abusive situations), and the last for a group of 85 kids in San Pedro who are unable to go to school due to lack of financial resources and overcrowded schools. In total, our team will get to minister to around 200 kids ages 4-15!
Our desire is to be a team of hope and JOY; loving, playing, teaching, and encouraging those who are most at risk or are recovering from exploitation and trauma.
While the costs of our travel have been covered, we want to raise some extra support to help bless the children and ministries we will be working with even more! In total, we are partnering with 5 different organizations in Belize, and each one has an abundance of needs to keep them running and operating at their best. The team will have opportunities to fill gaps such as helping with building projects and repairs, meeting immediate financial needs, and buying books and supplies for the children in their care. That is where we want to ask for your help! Anything we raise on this account will go to bless the children and ministries we work with and Belize in tangible ways!
We so appreciate your prayers, love, and support as we go on this mission trip! We are so excited and honored to once again be going together to serve the beautiful people of Belize!