Published: July 09, 2008 10:49 am         

Mission group brings Christianity to Belize children through Bible school

By Melanie Patterson

The North Jefferson News



What started out as an idea in the back of one man’s mind has turned into an international missions project.

For 18 years, the Rev. Stanley Kilgore, pastor of North Gardendale Baptist Church, has been traveling to Belize twice a year to conduct training for pastors in that country.

He began to notice a few years ago that there wasn’t much for the children to do.

“I began to have a burden for the children of the parents we were training,” said Kilgore. “There was nothing for them. They literally just combed the village here and there.”

Kilgore started out trying to get other churches in the Gardendale area to take on a children’s ministry in Belize.

“A couple of them tried,” said Kilgore. “They were good churches, they just didn’t feel impressed to take it on.”

So four years ago, Kilgore took a group of his own from North Gardendale Baptist.

That group trained the leaders at one Belize church to teach vacation Bible school (VBS). About 35 children attended that year.

This summer, the fourth year that Kilgore’s church has traveled to Belize for VBS training, the Gardendale team saw 790 children attend two vacation Bible schools in two different villages.

“It has really grown beyond what we could ever imagine,” said Kilgore.

Five people from Gardendale traveled to Belize June 6-12. They were Kilgore and his wife Lynn Kilgore, Stephanie Sloan, Scott Crews and his wife Candace Crews.

North Gardendale Baptist’s own vacation Bible school got involved this year by raising funds for the mission trip. Less than 200 children raised more than $1,000.

Now, after four years of teaching, Kilgore and his group have handed over the reigns to local church leaders in Belize.

“The leaders in each church worked with us the past two years,” he said. “They really feel it’s their calling now to take this ministry on. We have handed the ministry over to them.”

Kilgore said that Bindicto Chung, pastor of a church in the Golden Stream village, has led the effort in Belize.

Chung will conduct his first VBS in August, then a second one in Guatemala in April 2009.

The team from North Gardendale Baptist will again be involved, but in a different way.

“Our role has now changed,” said Kilgore. “Rather than going down and training in 2009, we will observe two of their churches doing their own vacation Bible school.”