Synod 2008

This week the Diocesan Synod meets. Synod is basically a committee, and is the main decision making body. It includes the Bishop - standing at the lectern in his purple cassock - the clergy, and representatives of all the parishes. We meet for three days, every two years, and the decisions made this week become 'the policy of the diocese'.

I'll probably write more about Synod when it's all over, but for now here are a couple of photographs. Meetings and conference centres look much the same, wherever in the world they are. All that changes are the faces!


And yes, those chairs are as uncomfortable as they look!

October is harvest festival time

There isn't really such a thing as "autumn" in Belize. The rainy season runs from June to November, with a risk of tropical storms and even hurricanes. But all through there are still leaves on the trees, and fruit continues to ripen. It's October, and we've just had the first coconut from one of our trees. Very good it was too! Although we hadn't realised just how tricky it is to remove all the fibrous outer coconut husk, to get to the nut itself inside.

The celebrations of nationhood and independence continued through September, and haven't entirely ended yet. October 13th we will be celebrating "Pan America Day" - formerly known as Columbus Day, and marking the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. Churches are decorated much more than I had ever seen in the UK: St Ann's Church had a national flag on every pew, as well as bunting and hangings in red white and blue.

This is also an opportunity for steel bands and marching bands to show what they can do. The bandstand in the park was repainted in yellow and green (the Belmopan City colours) and various school groups performed. Steel bands are LOUD!

October is also harvest, so we thought we'd show you some of the local produce we come across regularly. The local honey, made by bees in the tropical rain forest, bottled by Mennonites, is absolutely fantastic. Honey, but not as you know it. Definitely worth a trip to Belize to taste this.

Sadly, the same cannot be said of the local beers. There is one local brewery, Belikin, and they make a range of beers. But none of them are particularly special. So not worth a trip for.

As lifelong tea drinkers, we were anxious when we first moved to Belize that we wouldn't be able to find a replacement for our favourite blends. Belize grows some coffee, and the local beans taste very good. But there's no local tea, only imported. Would we find something we liked? Fortunately there is a good range of imported brands to choose from. Some of them managed to taste almost completely unlike tea. But then we found Dilmah. Good Sri Lankan tea is now a daily part of our Belizean experience. (You can even try some yourself: Click here for a free sample.)

Harvest, of course, means harvest festival celebrations in the Churches. These pictures are from St Andrew's in St Ignacio. We had two services, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, and both were full to overflowing. And a fantastic range of fruit and vegetable produce was on display, including some fruits I hadn't seen before.

The produce was all sorted; some of it was sent to people who were housebound, and the rest was sold, with some of the money going towards a local social project, and the rest contributing towards the feeding programme at St Andrew's School.

Holy Cross School, a service in the sport stadium and a piñata on the beach

In the last post we discussed Holy Cross school at San Pedro. Just in the last few days, there have been some dramatic developments there. The local media reported that the school might have to be closed or relocated, because it was situated in an area without proper sewage and sanitation.

While it is quite true that the living conditions in the San Mateo community are terrible, the school itself has good sewage and sanitation. There were reports that the school was "in the way" of a property developer, who was using the health concerns as a reason to get the school closed or relocated elsewhere on the island.

See http://sanpedrodaily.com/9-27-08.html

For a while, it looked as though the future of the school was under threat. But the school has now been assured of some support from the government, who have said they do not want to see it closed. The Minister of Education was quoted as saying this:

"I will tell you yes indeed I believe there are some other motives involved including the fact that the school is and has always been in the way, if you will, of developers who have been trying to develop condominiums in the area and that is a situation that is unfortunate but when it comes down to the question of a developer over our children or our educational system, you know where I will always stand, on the side of our children and on the side of providing a quality education for them.”

The immediate panic is over, but the situation is far from being resolved. Please keep this situation in your prayers.

During our last visit to Holy Cross School, we were asked if we would go back to Ambergris Caye to take a service for the school. It made for a hectic day. Ruth's monthly family service (which the children from her new St Ann's school are expected to attend) was from 7.30 - 9am, and we then had a 50 mile drive to get to the water taxi terminal in Belize City. If we caught the 10.30am boat to San Pedro, we would get to Ambergris for 12.30pm.

(Sorry the photos aren't better - the only camera we had with us was the one on my mobile phone. A mouse click on any of the photos will let you see a larger image).

Fortunately everything went smoothly, and everything was on time. Holy Cross school doesn't have anywhere large enough, so the service, at 2pm, was held in the sports stadium at the Roman Catholic High School. It was a good occasion. People kept arriving up to half an hour after we started, and by the end there were over 200 present.

A majority of the children at the school are Hispanic, and many of their parents have little English, but we managed with the help of the school vice-principal, who translated for me during the sermon. My Spanish is slowly improving, but even though the message was kept fairly simple for the children, I'm not yet ready to try preaching in it!


We had no song books, and very few service books, so by necessity it had to be fairly informal. We found a couple of songs that most people knew, and I taught them some more, and it worked out well. We've been invited back next month for a Harvest celebration.


Of course, one of the joys of being in Ambergris is that after all the goodbyes, the beach was just a few yards from the school. It would have been impolite not to make use of the local amenities, so we had a pleasant swim off one of the docks. Definitely a good way to finish the day!

Walking back to where we were staying, we passed a child's birthday party on the beach, complete with piñata. (For anyone who doesn't know, a piñata is a brightly coloured cardboard container, often in the shape of an animal, in which are sweets / candies and perhaps small toys. The piñata is hung from a rope and broken open by children with a stick.)

I think they originated in Mexico, but we've sometimes seen them at children's parties in the UK. This was the first time I'd seen one in the shape of a mermaid, and the first time I've seen one on the beach. It was great to see that other people were having a good day too!