By Jenny Scott
September 2021
The LCMS Northern Illinois District is witnessing God’s work in action through its partnership with the Belize Mission Society. The BMS helps support the village of Seine Bight, Belize through a feeding and scholarship program.
The elementary school feeding program started about four-and-a-half years ago when construction workers on a home site noticed that some of the children coming home from school for lunch had nothing to eat. The workers shared their food with the children but soon noticed they weren’t the only children in the area who weren’t getting lunch.
Mission coordinators began to ask, “How do you study if all you’re thinking about is where you’re going to get your next meal?” Hence, Food for Thought was born, the umbrella organization for the feeding and scholarship programs.
Cathy Dulgar, executive director of the Belize Mission Society, is fond of using the example that it takes only the price of two McDonald’s Happy Meals to feed one child for a week. To break that down even more, just one dollar a day feeds a child and pays for a uniform and registration.
When the feeding program started, the organizers noticed that the children would only eat a small amount of the food. They were saving the rest to take home to their families. The BMS now feeds 65 students. The principal feels that number could go up to feed 150 students who are most in need.
“This whole program is completely God-driven,” Dulgar said. “I never thought I would be doing anything like this!” She also stresses that the BMS works shoulder-to-shoulder with the people who live there.
Another blessing for the feeding program has been LCMS Hearts for Jesus. Lois Stewart, Mission Facilitator for Schools in the NID, has been the bridge between BMS and the Hearts for Jesus focus. Donations to the program brought in enough gifts to support 18 Belize students for an entire year.
The BMS has seen children’s test scores go up. Ninety-five percent of students for the scholarship program come from the feeding program. Students receiving scholarships for the high school are identified by administrators based on PSE standard testing at the end of elementary school.
Dulgar has been to Belize 20 times since 2013. She’ll be going again in September 2021 for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.
And never for a minute is the most important focus of the BMS forgotten.
They share the Gospel with the students any way they can. The students pray and talk about mercy, grace, and love. It’s a beautiful thing to behold.
The work of the Belize Mission Society fits hand-in-hand with the NID’s mission pillar of Wellness: Promoting and encouraging health and vitality in congregations, schools, ministries, professional workers, and lay leaders.