PHOTO: Sunset over San Pedro

Sunset on San Pedro
Originally uploaded by eandjtrygg.

(By Erik)

Great people and great seafood. Exactly what I’d recommend in a mission trip.

I spent about a week in Belize, which, if you don’t know, is a small country of about 266,000 people just east of Guatemala and just south of Mexico. It’s about one-fourth the size, population-wise, of the Oklahoma, and, as you might expect, everybody there seems to know everybody else.

I joined a mission team that goes down to Belize at least once per year. Windle and Barbara Kee of Onalaska, Texas, headed up the team. I know Windle’s brother, Doyle Kee, through my work with the Chronicle. Doyle is a longtime missionary to Switzerland, and Windle and Barbara have done extensive work in Belize and Cameroon, where their son is a full-time missionary.

Dale Gaither, a member of our small-group Bible study here in Edmond, has gone to Belize with the Kees before and recommended the trip to me.

I also recommended the trip (before I went on it) to Dennis Cady, one of the elders of the Faith Village Church of Christ in Wichita Falls, Texas. Dennis is a longtime missionary to Indonesia. He wanted to take all three of his children, their spouses and all six of his grandchildren on a mission trip, but, since the kids are young, he didn’t want more than a two- or three-hour plane ride. And he was looking for an English-speaking country outside the U.S. Belize fit the bill.

At the time I recommended the trip, I didn’t know I’d be going on it myself, but the timing worked out, so there we all were in Belize. At one point there were 31 of us on this trip, but we didn’t all do the same thing or go to same places, so it was a manageable group.

I’ll post some more about the trip as I get time. The photo, by the way, is of a sunset over the marsh on the island of San Pedro, where we spent the last three days of our trip working with the local church. It’s a beautiful island with a lot of touristy stuff, but a lot of great people, too.