It has now been twelve weeks since we took over Sacred Heart Parish, Dangriga, Belize. We now know people in all of the sixteen villages of the parish with a worshiping Catholic community and are getting a feel for the distinct way the Church operates in each village.
A quarter of our parishioners live in Dangriga itself, a fast growing town founded in 1823 which is nearly 70% Garifuna. Here the Garifuna are fast becoming creolised – speaking Kriol in preference to Garifuna. Of the villages in which services are held just two are nearby: Pomona and Silk Grass, which are very mixed ethnically. We visit fourteen other communities. The furthest four are about sixty miles away in the Toledo District, not the Stann Creek District, and are Q’eqchi’ except Bella Vista, a very large village that is slightly more Mestizo than Q’eqchi’. Another village where the Catholics are Q’eqchi’ is just within the borders of Stann Creek. In the middle of the parish we have three Mopan Churches and beyond them two Spanish speaking Churches. Another community is Independence, the second biggest settlement in the parish, which is mixed but speaks more Spanish than Kriol. Lastly we serve three Garifuna villages, two of which are on the coast and a third inland, with a significant Mopan minority. In addition to these sixteen rural communities with active Catholics there are fourteen villages of more than one hundred and fifty people with no Catholic assembly – notably the farms and the mixed and Kriol communities
To do the work we have been provided a three-bedroom presbytery that is in quite a poor condition. The bishop has leant us a small 1994 four-wheel-drive Suzuki. We are trying to get a Mitsubishi pick-up so that we can visit different places at the same time as one another and transport materials and people. We had to immediately do some work on the fixtures of the house to make it habitable. The first accomplishment was to buy a stove and a washing machine and change locks that had no keys so that the house could be secured. For more than a month now we have had a constant good water supply thanks to new plumbing incorporating a storage tank and pump. At some point we hope to upgrade by introducing (solar) hot water too. We have recently had new beds to sleep in and doors to all the rooms. Doing overdue maintenance and improvements have been enormous drains on our time. Denis has been systematically going through the property cleaning it up and finding new homes for the junk.
We have discovered that nothing can be bought in Belize of a specialist nature. There are no Church supplies and our parish like all the others is very badly off for liturgical resources such as amplification, books and altar ware. We are in the process of sourcing them from Mexico and the USA and plan to buy Q’eqchi’ books from Guatemala once we have our own car. Almost no resources are available in the Mopan language anywhere, the population being small and found mainly in Toledo and Petén.
The most urgent pastoral need we have found is for liturgical training of leaders in the villages, especially those villages that cannot rely on immigrants trained in Guatemala or Honduras. Therefore we are running liturgy workshops on Saturdays, intending to cover each language group every two months. At these workshops other pastoral issues such as sacramental preparation are arising, the addressing of which can be met in future planning. At the same time we are having meetings with the adult members of local Church communities to increase understanding between us and foster their independence and growth. Currently, some Garifuna communities only gather when a priest gathers them, not on other Sundays.
This work of building up the communities we can do quite effectively using English and Spanish, but their would be a pastoral advantage in being able to understand people speaking in their respective mother tongues. Service materials are needed in every language (some villages have been reading the Mass including much of the Eucharist prayer). Getting the translation done will be particularly difficult for Mopan seeing as there are no Mopans with theological training. Dominic will investigate how he could dedicate time next year to the learning of Mopan, the language of the group that is least catered for liturgically. At the moment he is just reading the text of the Mass. Chris is making good use of his Q’eqchi’ and Spanish. The Garifuna communities of the parish are receiving considerable attention from our Garifuna bishop, a retired Garifuna priest resident in the parish and a Garifuna deacon on the parish team and also three Garifuna priests who make frequent visits to celebrate Mass and lead prayers in Garifuna. Dominic has done a little preaching in Garifuna and Kriol with preparatory help from Dangrigans. The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, Kentucky are giving catechetical courses in the South of the parish in the media of English and Spanish. They are also sponsoring a culturally focussed course for the Garifuna villages.
In the town we are working on several fronts to increase the diversity of ministries exercised by lay people.
At the request of the Sisters of the Holy Family, Dominic is teaching religion part time in their school for under-achievers aged 14+, other work permitting. Dominic is also involved with the Dangriga HIV/AIDS Society in their efforts to reduce the massive impact of the HIV virus on this district. We have already had funerals of people who are known to have died of AIDS.
Denis is a daily visitor to the Special Education Unit where he supports the staff and is becoming known to the pupils.
Chris is the manager of the majority of primary schools in the area covered by our parish – no small task! Dominic takes on the governor posts on two of the high schools’ boards.
Having so many primary schools may prove to be the most costly aspect of this mission. The Government pays most of the teachers and sometimes contributes towards new buildings but all other costs have to be met by the PTA and the Church, that is, the rest of the erection costs, maintenance, furniture and equipment. Many more classrooms and chairs are needed desperately across the parish. A lot of money will need to be found somewhere. Other things apart from schools for which we are considering budgeting are:
Up to now, most of the money that we have spent has been meeting the bills of the projects undertaken by the previous pastor and a smaller amount has been spent in getting us started here in terms of accommodation. One project adopted by us that has already been completed was the construction of toilets at Middlesex School.