PASTOR AMBROSIO SHAL
Ambrosio Shal is one of the most dedicated servants of Jesus Christ, we have had the honoring of knowing in Belize. His strong conviction and love for Jesus, beams in his spirit and countenance. His wife, Bonita, is a woman of God. He is a loving father of four children, and he leads his household in the ways of Jesus, with no shame of what he stands for, with absolute conviction.

When we first arrived in Belize, in 1999, a young man from Santa Rosa village, stopped by to ask for work. He noticed the property where we now live, being cleared and he was looking for work. After chopping bush for several days, he began to tell us about his village of Santa Rosa. He rode on his bicycle everyday, from Santa Rosa to work for us. This young man told us his Pastor was praying for a missionary to come to their village. We could hardly wait to make the trip to Santa Rosa to meet this Pastor. We had just arrived in Belize and we didn’t have a clue what The Lord wanted us to do, other than give away bibles. Our first impression of Ambrosio Shal was uncertain, and he proceeded as cautiously as we did, into our relationship. This young Mayan man was a new Christian who had suffered greatly. Not long after he gave his heart to Jesus his first born baby daughter had died. We met him just a few months after this tremendous tragedy. Someone in his village had dug a hole for water and his baby, just learning to walk, fell into the hole and drown. He was confused about why God had allowed this to happen. He and Bonita had one son at the time and were still grieving the loss of their baby girl. Ambrosio shared with us the fact he felt God had called him to be a minister. He didn’t have a church and only a few people in the village were willing to listen to him tell about Jesus. He told us he was alone, feeling confused and asking God to give him answers. He had prayed God would send missionaries to him as conformation of his call. Obviously we were as new at being missionaries as he was at trying to be a pastor. We used a thatch roof dirt floor shelter in front of his house to begin our weekly services. In the beginning it was disappointing to Ambrosio and to us. The adults would not come, because they were unsure of the Americans and the 25-year-old new pastor they knew from their village.

It turned out to be a long hard journey for all of us. Every Saturday we went to Santa Rosa for bible study, and sometimes the only people there would be the two of us, Ambrosio, and Bonita. Ambrosio was dedicated, and so were we. We continued for months with our bible study. We couldn’t help but notice that if no adults came to the weekly bible study children always came. Maybe they came just to see what the Americans were doing there, but every week children came. We decided, a children’s bible study would be appropriate. We taught in that thatch roof shelter for over two years, and our children grew in numbers. We consistently had 80 to 100 children every week. Ambrosio kept asking, “Brother Don, when will we build a church?” We had no answers. All we could do was pray for God to open a door for us to build this church. Ambrosio was believing God would do something through his missionaries. He was trusting God to use us for his village. As the weeks and months went by our adult numbers for bible study began to grow and we were meeting inside Ambrosio’s house.

Even though we were gaining more people almost weekly, at times we all became a little discouraged. We had given Ambrosio a seminary course to help him become more equipped as a minister of the gospel and he had finished it. We continued to look for bible courses he could use. We didn’t have money to build a church in Santa Rosa as we barely had money to feed ourselves. We struggled and prayed, trying to stay positive for Ambrosio, who thought we knew exactly what to do.

Our second year in Belize, we went home in December for the holidays. We shared our experiences with friends we thought might become partners in our vision. We had a few appointments with churches in the U.S. to speak about our ministry and the people we serve. We were praying for The Lord to give us answers and guide us according to HIS will. After one of those speaking engagements, a man came to us and wanted to know more about what we were doing. We shared with him and his wife and showed pictures of our 80 plus children in Santa Rosa. We shared about Ambrosio Shal and the fact that Ambrosio was praying for God to supply our needs for a church in Santa Rosa.

God was about to change our ministry in ways we could not imagine. The generous man and his wife called later and told us they would raise the money to build the church for Ambrosio Shal’s village. This was a turning point in our ministry that took us to new heights in our faith. After two years of struggling and being on our own, no one else to share our work with, this wonderful man of God later told us he felt God was leading him to assist us in our ministry in Belize.

We returned to Belize elated and enthused. We could not wait to go to Santa Rosa and give Pastor Ambrosio the news. He was getting the church he had believed and trusted God for. His testimony is so beautiful. He still is overwhelmed when he speaks about his beautiful concrete church on the main road in Santa Rosa. It is the biggest most predominate building in the village.

Since that time, Ambrosio and Bonita have three other children, four in all. He bathes in a creek that runs through the village. His wife washes clothes and dishes in that same creek. His thatch roof house has no electricity, but he’s been blessed with a concrete floor inside his house. By Belize standards, Ambrosio Shal is a blessed man! Through his growing pains with The Lord, he has lost jobs because he put his church before everything else. He has been excluded among his people, because he works with white missionaries. He and his wife have been persecuted, because of their commitment to Jesus and to preaching the word of God, without compromise. Even through his persecution, he has never given up. Always standing for what is right, he now knows that the trials he has suffered, including the death of his baby daughter, were attacks from the evil one to stop him from going forward to fulfill the call on his life.

Ambrosio Shal is a righteous servant of The Lord Jesus Christ. His church has grown in numbers and he is now our lead Pastor for the ministry here in Belize. His church is open every night for service or for prayer. He is a pillar of his village and each year he becomes more accepted by the people as the pastor who will always be there to support them in prayer and visit their homes when they are sick. The pastor that will handle each situation in a Godly manner, always standing on the Word of God as his refuge and strength. The pastor who had faith for a church when it looked impossible. Pastor Ambrosio has been a blessing to us and our ministry in Belize. Sometimes as missionaries, we set our sights on blessing others, and the blessing turns out to be for us, as well as the people we minister to.