New season at the Lighthouse:
June 1 is the official start of the Rainy/Hurricane Season in Belize and we have been preparing for this season for some time now. As you know, we had a butane powered back-up generator donated to us and after many months of planning and learning a lot of lessons in the process, we are only days away from getting everything being hooked up and operating. This past month has been filled with scheduled and unscheduled black-outs as the country is making adjustment in its electrical power-grid with Mexico so the back-up generator will be a great blessing to both listeners and staff. Each time we experience a black-out, one of our staff has to turn off and unplug our transmitter to assure that we don’t get surges when electricity resumes. A surge can burn out delicate instruments and parts of our transmitter that can take up to several months to repair or replace. Also with the Hurricane Season soon approaching, we are required to be on-air as long as possible to give warnings and instructions. We are very grateful for your prayers and provisions as we have been able to purchase the butane tank, platform built, and preparation of the storage/bodega for the generator, and finances for the engineers and technicians who will do the installation this week to enable us to literally ‘Shine the Light in Darkness’.New Staff:
Shelly, a volunteer who joined our crew in Mid-April has just received approval of her volunteer work permit by the Immigration Department so we are very grateful for that good news. She has been trained in all aspects of radio broadcasting and is doing a great job preparing and delivering the Daily News. She is a great addition to the team and adds a woman’s touch to the Lighthouse. Shelly and her husband Brian, both Americans has been in Belize for several months and after finding out about the radio station and being blessed by listening, Shelly stopped by to see how she can be of help to us. Unknown to her that we have been praying for helpers as both Dennis and Simon will be leaving at the beginning of August. As a former worship leader in her home church in Colorado, she has blessed our devotion time by leading us in worship. We also brought Nelson Caliz, a Belizean of Spanish descendant, on board as another addition to our team. He has been a listener to Lighthouse Christian Radio for some time and when he had the opportunity to serve as an intern with us for 2 weeks he jumped at it. He shared how honored he was to help out during his internship and offered to help whenever possible. Nelson spent all of last week in training and will be a great addition to the crew and has already been a blessing as he translates and broadcast portions of the News and Verse of the Day in Spanish, his first language. Johnny Wall, a Belizean of German descendant, will be moving from Canada to join us in July and I’ll introduce him to you more fully in upcoming updates. We are so excited about the team the Lord is forming and appreciate very much your prayers in this time of training and transitioning.
The Island shook:
We woke up last Thursday morning to a 7.1 earthquake centered off the coast of Honduras! For a brief moment I thought I was in California before remembering that I was on Ambergris Caye an island in the Caribbean Sea. We suffered no major damages just the rattling of nerves for many who had never experience an earthquake before as it is very rare in Belize. There were some damages in the southern districts of cracked pavements, buildings, and the collapsed of a water tower and some power lines. With the poorly constructed buildings in Belize, much severe damages would have occurred if the earthquake center was closer or in Belize.