Mennonites in Belize

  Evening shadows engulf Reimer's Feed Mill   Known as the bread basket of the country, Spanish Lookout is also a commercial center for all of Belize. From vast cornfields to hardware stores, it has supplied the country with food, jobs, and a financial boost to the economy. The most modern community of all Mennonites in Belize, it is also the biggest Mennonite "city" in Central America as far as commerce and shopping. It is not the biggest Mennonite community in population though.   Supermarkets, pharmacies, restaurants, hardware stores, meat processing plants, banks, grain mills, glass importers, fuel stations, auto repair shops, metal fabricators and lumberyards are all found on the main road or a little off it. Unlike a typical town, the main buildings are not packed close together but scattered along on the 4 mile stretch known as Center Road. There is a new commercial zone opening up just outside Spanish Lookout, on Iguana Creek Road, the main highway tha...

  When I took up this subject I had no intention or will ever make it my intention to write negatively or discriminate against any of the 6 or 7 Mennonite denominations living here. I simply write about them, their lifestyles, their benefits to the country, the not-so-beneficial things, etc. because there are a lot of misunderstandings about the different Mennonites residing in Belize. Perhaps some of my readers think my articles are written in a negative or derogatory way. I apologize for that but the truth is I'm not a North American or European reporter just passing through. Nor am I associated with any resort, hotel, or tour company. If I was I would have to fill my articles with praise and compliments for all the Mennonites, conveying a false representation. No, I'm simply writing from the viewpoint of someone who has lived, worked, sweated, laughed, cried and slept with them for most of my life. Therefore I hope I am portraying to the rest of the world a more practical an...

  I owe my readers a little explanation. I label all plainly-dressed, white-head-covering Mennonites as Beachy Amish simply for the sake of distinguishing them from the other 4 branches of the Mennonite religion. On a closer investigation though, there are many that are quick to point out "no, we're not Beachy, we're just Mennonites." At the very first I felt like rolling my eyes. Of course they're Mennonites. But the reason I had been using the term "Beachy Amish" is because it is a large, varied group of Mennonites that are halfway between conservative Mennonites and liberal Amish. The whole story started somewhere in the early 1900's in the middle-eastern US. No central government, varying degrees of conservativeness, some resemble Amish while some are very close to the Holdeman Mennonites.    The truth is, there are at least 4 groups that look like they are part of the Beachy church but are not. I will refer to these as Conservative Mennonites, ...