Mennonites in Belize

Students gathered outside Belize Christian School It was a sultry day in May. The high humidity caused our shirts to stick to our backs while all around us fine white dust from the unpaved road penetrated our nostrils and coated everything else. As parent of a student, I had been invited to accompany the teacher and school children on their end-of-year field trip. Memories flooded my mind when I saw the cute little girls with bright dresses, the mischievous grin on the little boys as they vied for the best position in the vehicles. I was asked to supervise the boys while the teacher oversaw the girls. By 8 we were on our way. The Martinez family run a nursery and use horse-and-buggy transportation since they are part of a strict group of Beachy Amish Mennonites.   Our destination was the teacher's home, snugly nestled in the central highlands of the Cayo District. She grew up in a conservative Beachy Amish Mennonite home where her father dedicated himself to f...

      See above a  video posted by a Finnish vlogger. The video, which was obviously not filmed this year, features Spanish Lookout and Upper Barton Creek.                                                        A. Mendoza

    Note: A post titled  Things You Will Not Find in a Mennonite Colony  was recently published from my blog. Unfortunately it was prematurely published since the information was not complete nor was it all correct hence I have already discarded it. If you are a subscriber and received such an email, please disregard it and look out for the updated article in the near future. My apologies for the error.                                                 A. Mendoza

    A pensive little boy  Have you ever driven through the Mennonite colonies at night and on Sundays during the day and marvelled at how peaceful it was? Except for the usual murmur of livestock, the whisper of vehicles on the paved roads of the modern ones and the clopping of horseshoes on the hard-packed limestone roads of the traditional ones, no other "noisy" sound is heard in their communities.   "Noisy" as in ear-splitting songs from your neighbor's house at 8PM, thunderous worship from the Pentecostal church down the street, wailing prayers from the church directly beside your house, the constant popping of firecrackers during Christmas, the 32 stray dogs competing for first prize in barking, boisterous adult laughter accompanied by DJ's blasting from a speaker at gatherings, children throwing yelling tantrums for hours. These are all ordinary sounds of an ordinary non-Mennonite village; I grew up in that environment and considered it perfectly norma...

     When you are expelled from the Church of God in Christ, you are excommunicated from the global church, not just the home congregation. The social avoidance and silence when greeting other Holdemans in this northern country made life nearly unbearable. Unable to cope with the questioning looks, the solitary sitting arrangements, the nods instead of warm handshakes, (one elderly lady invited me to her home only to place my food in the sewing room while she and her family ate down the hall in the dining room; I barely managed to choke down two bites), I headed 2,000 miles west towards the Rocky Mountains. Six months later I returned to Belize,  the following year I left again for a different part of the world. I was still trying to accept the reality of the painful breakup with my girlfriend, as well as the fact that I was never going back to the Holdeman church.   When I arrived in Belize this time, I settled down at home, made it clear to everyone t...

     Not quite a year after being reaccepted into church membership I fell in love with a slender, green-eyed blond with a bubbling personality, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, and a passion for serving in the church. Unfortunately her church was the exact opposite of mine. It was part of the Word of Faith movement sometimes labeled as "prosperity gospel". Women wore jeans, mini skirts, jewelry, boyish hairstyles, a few teenage girls sported tattoos. Sunday worship was wild and chaotic. It was like entering a foreign country to a sheltered conservative Mennonite boy. Our Holdeman ministers had repeatedly warned us about these worldly churches where women wore pants and preached, Holdeman writings constantly pointed out the dangers of these false gospels, I myself had vowed never to be close friends with this type. Yet here was this cute young woman with short hair and earrings openly sharing her faith with customers and employees alike, claiming to be free in Chris...

     I left the Holdeman (Church of God in Christ) church over a decade ago. Sometimes I wonder how life would have turned out if I had remained a member all these years. Would I be a minister or deacon by now? Or perhaps sent to a remote missionary outpost somewhere in a neighboring country? But I chose another route and even though I will admit it wasn't the best choice at the time, God has worked things out for my spouse and I.   I was born into a Holdeman Mennonite atmosphere. Grandparents and some of my uncles and aunts were Holdeman members. To a certain extent although it was done unintentionally, I was brainwashed into believing that only baptized members of the Church of God in Christ were the only ones in  the world who were truly saved. I grew up with a horror of being excommunicated, scorn for "ungodly" females who dressed in pants and used jewelry, fear of breaking the doctrines which forbade photography and music, and vowed that when (there ...

     I have decided to publish the  story of my time as a Holdeman (Church of God in Christ) Mennonite into 3 parts. While this blog contains articles and info about the various other Mennonite groups living in Belize, it is also available for anyone wishing to post their personal experiences as they leave their traditional home churches in search of spiritual freedom. At first my spouse and I thought of asking one of our Mennonite friends to share their life story (with names changed for privacy) but then decided the best way to start was by posting my own.   In my story I have attempted to remain neutral by avoiding three things:    1. exaggerating the shortcomings of the Church of God in Christ which is what many resentful ex-Holdemans tend to do   2. placing myself as a victim by writing in a defensive tone   3. calling it a "cult" as some ex-Holdemans have done and encouraging members to leave the church   No doubt my experience wi...