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The Spiritual Side
of Belize, So Far
Sent:
Thursday, April 08, 1999 8:22 PM
We started off well here, meeting a number
of believers. However, we’re at
a little disadvantage in Belize North because the vast majority of Belizeans
up here speak Spanish (or maybe Creole) as a first language and English second.
They are not as anxious to improve their English as they are in Belize
City (Bleece) So, practically
all of the church services up here are in Spanish.
The mix of believers is:
Roman
Catholic 62%
Anglican
11%
Methodist
6%
Mennonite
4%
7th Day
Advnt
3%
Other
14%
Many of the church services are in the
early morning or late afternoon, to avoid the mid-day heat.
It’s not incredibly hot, but if you’re dressed up for church, you’re
going to sweat up your finery if you’re out past 10:30, eh?
People generally do dress for church.
(The older people dress to go out shopping or traveling, and the women
carry a parasol or plain ol’ umbrella.)
We had one fairly negative experience.
By chance, I met a Church of Christ evangelist at the hotel, and he
told me that they had a Sunday morning service where he preached in English
with a Spanish translator, and they sang familiar hymns from a Spanish
songbook. Of course, the CofC
does everything “Acapulco” (a capella) so there is no organ, but the
singing was good and lots of fun. Great
practice reading Spanish and singing familiar tunes.
The sermon was something else.
It seems that this evangelist is focusing
on cults and the distinctives of the CofC.
He winds up sounding like the CofC is the only true faith.
Well, the local Seventh Day Adventists picked up on this and published
an 8 page tract which attacks the Church of Christ. So, our evangelist takes a page from this tract and
systematically begins defending himself.
Of course, he’s concentrating on proving that he and the CofC are
right, and the SDAs are wrong. No
focus on Christ, no Gospel to speak of. He
was preaching from the Bible, of course, but using selected verses to prove
that, for instance, the Church of Christ is entitled to call itself THE Church
“of Christ”. His Bible
references were right on, but his focus was way off.
The Spanish translator is great – I would love to see him translate a
real gospel-preaching evangelist, but I’m afraid we won’t see it at that
church. Too bad.
So, we are looking for another English
service, or at least another English/Spanish one, and I’ll let you know how
that goes. Another weekend is
coming up, and it’s the week after Easter, when attendance will be down, and
they’ll be glad to see a new face.
Pray for us pilgrims here in this strange
land,
Rick & Charlotte
Copyright, CASELab, 1999. All Rights Reserved.
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