ELLIS'S STORY

“TRULY, I SAY TO YOU, THE POOR WIDOW HAS PUT IN MORE THAN ALL THOSE WHO ARE CONTRIBUTING TO THE TREASURY. FOR THEY HAVE CONTRIBUTED OUT OF THEIR ABUNDANCE, BUT SHE OUT OF HER POVERTY HAS PUT IN EVERYTHING SHE HAD, HER WHOLE LIVING.”
- Mark 12:43, 44

In 2000, we met a man in Seine Bight village who stood out among the other villagers. Perhaps it was his spirit that stood out and made us take notice of him. He had been a Christian many years ago but he had fallen back to his old lifestyle of drinking and gambling. Ellis Guzman, lives in Seine Bight with his wife LeVerne, and their children. Seine Bight is a Garifuna village that is well known for its voodoo traditions passed on by their ancestors. Ellis had once made a stand for his Christian faith, but was seduced by evil forces that surrounded him. Shortly after we met him, he rededicated his life to Christ. He began to come to our weekly bible studies and church services in another village. After knowing him for several months, Ellis began to share with us his desire for his village of Seine Bight to have a spirit-filled church. When we first arrived in Belize, the elders of the village told us they did not need our Jesus, and they didn’t want us there. The villagers have been proud to have never had a bible-believing church in their village.

Ellis had thought over the years, during his sinful lifestyle, how they needed the presence of a church there. It was due to the lack of a church body and family that Ellis had fallen away.

One day, he told us he had acquired a piece of property in the village through an aunt who had been a believer. She had died and left the leased property to the family, and Ellis, being the oldest, had taken ownership of it. He told us that he believed God wanted him to give this property to our ministry to build a church. We were overwhelmed at his generosity and commitment to spread the gospel. You see, it is almost impossible for a white man to acquire property in this village deeply rooted in voodoo culture and tradition.
After we had all prayed about the offer Ellis had made to the ministry, we took him to the proper office, and Ellis signed his inherited land over to our ministry. He wanted nothing for it, only our word that a church would be built there. You see, Ellis could have sold this property on the market and become a very wealthy man by Belize standards. His property just happened to be located on the Caribbean Sea. It was a beautiful setting, fitting for a beautiful church. After his lease was signed over, our ministry had the land titled and we began construction on the church.

When the construction started, Ellis suffered much persecution for giving his property to the ministry. None of the other villagers were convinced they needed a church, especially a white missionaries’ church. Ellis started to receive threats on his life, as well as on his family of ten children. Some of the people in the village said they were going to chop him into pieces with a machete, and then do a pig-tale voodoo ritual over his body. Then, they told him they would burn his house down at night, with his family inside. Ellis became an outcast among his own people, sacrificing beyond what most of us could possibly understand. His choices were few. Ellis supports his family by fishing and doing odd jobs as a carpenter. He was very poor with few options and no real way to change the circumstance in his life. His only choice was to stay and stand for what he believes to be the truth. He stood on God’s word...
“BUT SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS AND ALL THESE THINGS SHALL BE ADDED TO YOU.” - Luke 12:34

Since Ellis gave away his valuable land to build a church, his alcoholic wife LeVerne has come to know Jesus as her Lord and Savior, a prayer Ellis had long asked God to answer. His children are being raised in a Christian home, foreigners in a village that is lost and steeped in ancestral traditions. Ellis is still a poor man who lives in a small shack with his large family - a shack with a leaking roof. When it rains, they huddle in a corner with plastic covering them. They live in a village where he is praying for God to bring revival to save his neighbors from their sinful ways. He is so thankful now for his church where he can freely worship. He lives with persecution in his life, but full of faith in Christ - faith not just believing God can change a village, but knowing God WILL change his village.