Bridge The Gap Ministries

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

First of all, thank you all for your prayers. The most important thing for us is the prayers of God’s people!

Beate and I have been back in Belize for a couple of weeks now and things are getting back to normal. Rainy season has arrived, so it rains 3 to 4 times a day. There is so much moisture in the air that even when it’s not raining you’re still wet.

The smallest creatures God has created spend most of their day looking for a dry place to get out of the rain. They seem to really like a house with no doors or windows. Just yesterday Beate called me into the bathroom where she was in the process of taking a shower and asked me to look at the wall. Well, I guess a snake lizard wanted to share her shower. One of them had to go. And being partial to Beate, I decided to take the lizard out. Well, that’s what life is like here in the jungle: a couple of scorpions in the kitchen in the morning and an ancestor to the cock roach large enough to carry off a small dog in the afternoon. It sure makes for an interesting day!

The work on the team building is going well. I just finished installing the door, which only took 2 days. Yep that’s right Frank (my carpenter brother in N.Y.) 2 days! First I had to go and cut the tree down and then plane the log… just kidding! Actually I went and bought several ruff sawn 2X12’s than cut them in half with my circular saw, and then ripped them in half. I then fixed Pastor Ron’s planner, planned them and then made the door frame. Man the things you miss back at home. Next to install are the window frames and screens and then, God willing, the windows.

The Bible study has been going well at the Saraoia home. We Plan to have our first communion with them tomorrow night. Praise the Lord! We also plan to build a thatched roof building for prayer, so that we can have more people come and to keep us dry.

God has brought to us, Bridge the Gap Ministries, a man named Allen Garbutt. Allen’s testimony will be posted on our web site (bridgethegapbelize.com). Allen will be teaching the mechanic class. Being a native Belizean, Allen will be able to demonstrate God’s love to them and the hope that he can only bring through Christ Jesus. Praise the Lord from whom all blessings flow! We are having class start the first week in October for small engine repair. We start every day with a devotional and then split up into different classes: reading, math and small engine repair. We will rotate classes every 40 minutes.

The preschool is starting at the end of August. Beate will be teaching 7- 3 year olds, 5 boys & 2 girls. The Belizean children are not use to following direction. Instead, they are used to doing what they want. Out of the 7 children 2 are in still in diapers, one still takes a bottle and Beate was informed that one still throws fits. So as you can see she has a challenging job ahead. Our prayer is that while teaching the children Beate may be able to show the parents the importance of training up their little ones in the fear of the Lord.

Thank you all for your prayers and petitions to God your Father for us. May the God of true peace be with you?

Your coworkers in the ministry of Christ Jesus,

John & Beate Vandermark