Angelica: Praise the Lord

by Hannah Sagely

There are so many stories and lessons that all of us will return with from Belize. I, personally, could not have asked for a better experience. My expectation for this trip was that God would show me something completely new. Well, my concept of “new” has completely changed.


Our first day in the village of San Pablo didn’t go as smoothly as planned. The kids were out of control and there was frustration in some organization. We figured out that it was mainly the older kids that we could communicate with clearly, so we found a few girls that were able to help us out with the younger ones. Out of the 60+ kids that told me their name, there was only a handful that I could remember that first day. One of them was a twelve year old girl named Angelica.

When we returned to the village the second day, the kids showed us around the village and introduced us to some of their parents. A few of us in a group were walking with the kids when Maddie and I spotted Angelica and another girl. She was shocked that we could remember her name and ended up following us for the rest of the “village trek.” Angelica showed us to her house and introduced us to the rest of the family. Her mom didn’t speak English but one of the first things she noticed was Roselle’s camera, and asked to have her picture taken with her daughters. I laughed as she ran back into her hut and changed her shirt for the picture. After the picture, Angelica came up to me and asked if we all liked bananas. I of course said yes and she and her sisters ran inside and grabbed some for all of us. We were all honored in knowing that they had accepted us, and I knew at that point that God had sent us to that village for a reason.

Throughout the day I got to talk to Angelica and we exchanged various questions. When the soccer game ended I asked her if she wanted to go play another game, but she didn’t want to. So we sat in the field and just talked, which was my favorite part of the day. Maddie also was talking to her during the lesson and asked if we had brought Bibles to pass out. That was encouraging, and I made her the focus of my prayers for the rest of the week.

On the third day, I looked for Angelica on the “village trek” but couldn’t find her. I asked some of the other girls that I had befriended if she was there that day, and they all looked at me funny and said no. I started becoming disappointed and thinking that I wouldn’t get to see her. Right after lunch time, she came to the place where we were doing the Bible story for the day. Maddie was able to give her the Bible that she asked for the day before and she paraded it around like the proudest kid in the village. Before the day was over she asked to have her picture taken with us at least three times. On the last picture we took, we were posed and ready when she said “Wait!” and held her Bible up in front of her so it could be in the picture with us. Definitely a cool moment. When we were driving away on the bus, the kids were on one side waving goodbye. Angelica spotted Maddie and I on the other side of the bus and ran around so she could say goodbye, all while proudly displaying her new Bible.

Tonight at dinner, Roselle mentioned the woman from the village who wanted to have her family portrait taken. She said that she had talked to the preacher from this morning and that he had talked to that woman the day before. He said that the woman he talked to said that she had a daughter who wanted to accept Jesus. Maddie and I immediately looked at each other with big smiles, knowing that the girl that the woman was talking about was Angelica.

As I mentioned before, my main prayer for this week was that God would show me something completely new. Looking back, I am pleasantly surprised at what I saw. The “new” that I was expecting wasn’t what God decided to show me. I expected to learn something new about the Lord and about my walk with Him, but that’s not what I saw. He didn’t show me something new about MY life, He showed me someone else’s new life in Jesus. That in itself was the highlight of my trip, and definitely the best kind of story to return with.