Christ At Work

Christ at Work in Families and Communities in Belize

A Story Related by Mario Gonzalez del Solar, Assistant Rector at St. Matthew’s and a Member of the Belize Mission Team

The Communities

The people we ministered with in Belize are centered on Christ in their families and in their communities. They are of Mayan ancestry and live in several small villages--Patchakan, Cristo Rey, and San Narciso—about 10 miles from the Mexican border. Each village has a small Presbyterian Church. Many people in these villages lack running water and electricity. The streets are not paved, and chickens and turkeys wander the yards.

Most people in these communities know one another, and many are related. Their life in Christ goes back to the late 1950’s when Manuel Beltran, a Mayan Presbyterian evangelist from the Yucatan, began crisscrossing this area and sharing the gospel. He was followed by American missionaries Tom and Helen Lacey in 1970. They built on Don Manuel’s work, and believers multiplied in all these villages as churches were built.

Omar’s Story of Christ In His Family
Omar, a member of the church in Patchakan, told me this story. His father was an alcoholic who rejected the Christian life. Omar explained that his father, Narciso, was the youngest of three brothers: Ismael, Alvaro, and Narciso. The father of the three brothers had left the family when Narciso was very small, and Omar’s grandmother was so poor that she could not feed all three boys. She gave Omar's father to her sister’s family, who were not Christians, to raise. But Ismael and Alvaro, who stayed with her, grew to be strong Christians.

Omar remembered how his father, Narciso, threatened Omar’s mother when she would take Omar and his three brothers to church with her. “If you take them, I’ll come there and take them out!” he would say. “Come on then!” his mother would dare him. He never did. Omar and his brothers grew up to know and love Jesus.

In 2004, after decades of alcoholism, Omar’s father admitted to his family that he needed help. They took him to a Christian residential alcohol rehabilitation clinic in Mexico, where he stayed for a year. He learned much about himself, and how he had taken refuge in alcohol from things that were beyond his control. Most importantly, he admitted his sin and received the Lord Jesus Christ as his savior.

Omar shared that Christmas 2004 was the first Christmas his father had ever been home with his family. Every other year—29 years of Omar’s life—his father had been drinking with his cronies. But that year, his father was at home with Omar’s mother, and his brothers and their wives, and all the grandchildren. Omar told me it was the most joyful Christmas of his life! “It erased all those other years,” he explained.

But early in 2005, Omar’s father began to relapse and sneak alcohol. One day Omar received word that his father had ingested some poison—herbicide. They rushed him to the hospital where they pumped his stomach, but it was too late. There was nothing to be done. The family gathered: Omar and his mother and three brothers, and Narciso’s older brothers, Ismael, a teacher at the Presbyterian in Cristo Rey, and Alvaro, pastor of the Patchakan church. Narciso had been despondent over his relapse, but Alvaro and the family forgave him, and urged him that the Lord would forgive him, even this, if only he would ask. With tears in his eyes, barely able to breathe, Narciso asked Christ to forgive him, and a peace settled over him. Looking at Omar, the eldest of his four sons, Narciso said, “I have always loved all of you, but I didn’t know how to show it.” They again assured him of their forgiveness and love. He said in Spanish to Alvaro, his brother the pastor, “Lo hice,” (“I’ve done it.”) and then, “Señor, estoy listo.” (“Lord, I’m ready.”) After two or three more breaths, Narciso went to be with Christ.

This is a very moving story, yet I was even more impressed by Omar’s proper understanding of what to me seemed a life of tragedy. Omar explained, “You know, we prayed all our lives for my father to change. And he finally did.” Omar’s focus was not on the years of misery and pain his father’s drinking had caused, but on the beautiful transformation that Christ had made in Narciso in his dying moments. Omar understands--much better than I do--that God answers prayer in ways we can’t imagine, and that his working with us is a matter of grace and that none of us deserve.

A Clinic Is Established
Through this experience and the recognition of the huge need in the community, the Presbyterian church in Patchakan established a small Christian residential alcohol rehabilitation clinic in their village. Omar’s uncle Ismael, Narciso’s brother, came to the U.S. for training, having been granted a year’s leave of absence from his teaching duties, in order to establish this clinic, which currently has 5 patients. Miguel, one of the elders at the Patchakan church that is supporting the clinic and a teacher at the Presbyterian Day School, told me, “You know, humanly speaking, from the human point of view, people can’t believe a person can change. But we are seeing it at this little clinic. We have a young man 28 years old who would lie in the streets drunk and filthy. But now he knows the Lord and has meaning in his life. God is so good.”

Amen.

Mario