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OAK RIDGERS HELP
CARIBBEAN REFUGEES
Eighteen members of First Presbyterian Church of Oak Ridge spent Easter week helping impoverished Mayans and Guatemalan refugees in Belize. The Oak Ridgers flew back to Knoxville a day after Easter, spiritually enriched by the experience of constructing a laundry facility, providing medical services and befriending orphans. The Presbyterians presented a program on their international mission trip during and after the 10 a.m. Sunday worship service April 17 at the church, located on Oak Ridge Turnpike at Lafayette Drive. Dale Hadden, a nurse practitioner, and Dr. Bob Dunlap, a retired surgeon, provided medical services and health education to some of the 1400 Mayan and Guatemalan refugees living in Belize, a small Caribbean country between Mexico and Guatemala. The Oak Ridgers stayed at Jaguar Creek, an environmental reserve and research center operated by Target Earth International in Belize. Dan Terpstra, leader of the mission group, wrote about the "breathtaking beauty" of the Jaguar Creek area in the "BelizeBlog" on the church’s website. "But when we venture out into the ‘world’ outside Jaguar Creek, it is all too easy to see the crushing poverty that leads people to destroy this very beauty for the sake of survival." The Mayans were driven out of their homes in the rain forest, which had been cut down so that first-world corporations, such as Sunkist, could grow vast orange plantations. Terpstra said the group made good progress on its goal to help build a laundry facility for the Mayan community in response to a request by the Armenia Village Council. The facility will use water from a well that the government recently built. "We wanted to give Armenia a facility with clean water so the women and children don’t have to walk two miles to the river each day to wash their family’s clothes," Terpstra explained. The local Presbyterians--several men and teenage boys and girls--poured concrete to provide a floor slab, walls and roof supports for the laundry facility. After the concrete has cured, local Belizeans will build a roof and install the already-purchased laundry tubs in the completed building. The Oak Ridge church paid for the laundry facility, medications and health education materials for the health clinic, and clothing and other goods for King’s Children’s Home, an orphanage in Belmopan where Oak Ridge adults and teens read stories to and played with abandoned children. The 18 Presbyterians on the mission trip pitched in money to cover their travel expenses. The congregation raised more than $24,000 through a talent show, live and silent auctions, and a Hal Hopson sing-along concert at the church earlier this year. The Oak Ridge Presbyterians worshipped several times with the local Belizeans during Easter week. One former Oak Ridge High School student, Cynthia Browne, wrote on the church’s website about "the peaceful lightness" she experienced by having her feet washed and by washing another’s. "What Jesus did by washing the feet of his disciples was to upset notions of hierarchy by reversing roles," she wrote. "It seems the goal of our mission trip is our attempt to be like Jesus, to reverse, if only for a moment, our privileged position as American citizens by serving the people in Belize." The other Presbyterian adults who served in Belize were Doug Allen, Elizabeth Andrews, Sue Byrne, Shirley Frykman, Chuck Hadden, Shirley Knight, Shirley Moore, Syd Murray, and Tim Myrick. |