Virginia Episcopalian Magazine Fall 2012 Issue | Page 29

Mission to Belize: A Love Story
Martha-Lynn Corner
Thinking back on my mission trip to Belize with Grace &
Holy Trinity Church, Richmond this past July, one thing
immediately stands out: the hugs.

They started on a Wednesday, and they took me
completely by surprise.

By then I was well into a summer camp mission trip that
was a joint venture between my parish and St. Andrew’s in
San Ignacio. Kris Boyd and I served as co-leaders of chaplain
time, while other teams would lead programs in sports, arts
and crafts, and music, all loosely draped around the theme of
the Jonah story.

Between the two of us, the Internet and the Holy Spirit,
I boarded the plane on Saturday reasonably confident that
we could pull this off. I’d packed some picture books that
I knew would be excellent springboards into discussing
Jonah’s call, his need to trust in God, and themes of salvation
in the story. I’d found a straw tower exercise online that I
knew would be a hit with the older kids, and Kris knew lots of
icebreakers and had a suitcase jammed with crayons, paper,
balloons, squirt guns and an inflatable monkey life preserver.
Obviously we were well equipped.

And we were, in that the Holy Spirit didn’t let us down.
Again and again we turned the barest hint of a lesson plan
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Children at St. Andrew’s in San Ignazio, Belize build a straw
tower in a summer camp exercise hosted by Grace & Holy
Trinity, Richmond.

into a jam-packed 45 minutes that always included games,
songs and laughter and always included discussions about
God and his good works. Moments that shone at the time
have begun to take on new meaning as they’re processed
3,000 miles away. One little boy wrote a poem basically
telling us that he envisioned going into the priesthood one
day. One of the five year olds said that God’s love is like a
doorbell. Take that one and sit with it a while.

But at some point, even in the hustle and bustle of each
day, I’d begun to get to know the kids and they’d begun to
get to know me. They knew I had children back in the States
and had listened, enthralled, as I’d described what it was
like to get my nose pierced. They knew I was 33 and that Kris
was full of it when she said she was 257. I knew that some
of them lived in town, and that one trio of siblings walked
several miles each way to be with us. I knew what they
wanted to be when they grew up, because they’d drawn me
pictures. By mid-week, our customary pre-session high fives
had turned to hugs.

And that’s what I miss about San Ignacio. As thrilling as
it was to basically build summer camp sessions in Christian
formation from the ground up, it was the interactions with
those amazing kids that made it so hard for camp to end
on Friday.

Upon arriving back home, I reveled in the hugs of my
own children. It wasn’t easy to be away from them for so
long, but I had no idea I’d be leaving camp aching for about a
hundred more.

When people ask me what I did on this summer’s
mission trip, I’m happy to explain the games and activities
and lesson plans, but really what we did was love people. In
seeking to serve God in the spirit of the first and greatest
commandment, we fell head over heels into the second. t

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Fall 2012 / Virginia Episcopalian

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