X

Jamaica

1989

Central America 1989: I lay in bed tonight rather exhausted but happy. I had a glorious day. Joy, my wonderful, daughter is on this trip with me and she is driving the car and carrying the supplies in front of me as I carry the cross. We came from the border of Belize and Guatemala walking along the road. There is a very wonderful response as people begin to gather. It is so good to be able to witness in my poor Spanish but most people speak English. We saw a sign saying there was a Mayan pyramid just about a mile and half off the road. We wanted to carry the cross up to the top of the pyramid. We took the cross across on a little ferry boat that a man pulls across the stream then walked to the pyramid of Xunantunich. It was so hot; I climbed all the way to the top with the cross, and almost passed out from the heat. It was beautiful to look out over the surrounding jungle and countryside and to remember the people who built this and the life they had lived and how we now stand atop and lift up the cross over these old ruins.

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Today the road was total dust. Actually, the dust is so deep when you step in the dust it comes up to the top of your shoes. When a vehicle or a logging truck passes by the dust nearly chokes me. My eyes are full of dirt and dust. Tears pour from my eyes.I wear contact lens and can hardly see as the dust gets under them and the dirt is just eating my eyes up. But glory to God, Thank you Jesus, we are on the road in Belize.

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We were up this morning at 5:30 a.m. to carry the cross. What a great day of walk and witness. We met so many wonderful people, we prayed with many blacks, Mayan Indians and some white people that live in this area. It is like a United Nations of people. Belize probably has more missionaries per capita than any other place in the world. I have never seen so many different gospel missions. Today we carried the cross to a mission. After dinner we carried the cross to a river. There was a small boat connected to a cable that a man pulls to move the boat across the river. I led the cable boat puller named Simon to Jesus. I said now you can witness to everyone that you take across this river, coming and going. Just remember that Jesus was a boat person. His first disciples were boatmen just like you. I am going to count on you to be a fisher of men and a strong man of God. Tonight I preached at a little church called The House of Prayer. Rev. Hooper and his wife and daughter are beautiful people. He is an American married to a Belize woman and they are true missionaries. All kinds of people coming and going, they’ve got avocado, orange, and banana trees, they have parrots, dogs, and cats. Joy and I were blessed to spend two nights in their home. I just loved them.

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Had a wonderful hot walk today. I heard on the news that in the capital of Belize a mad man with two machetes had attacked at a revival meeting and injured upto fifteen people. On the same day a preacher’s wife shot and killed her husband. The country is really shaken and horrified. Looks like the devil is at work as the cross makes its way toward Belize City.

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Today we’re in the small city of Punta Gorda where we carried the cross. We walked in a circle all around the town. Many people were saved. This is a former British colony and there are many British troops here as they do a lot of their jungle training in this area. Joy said she wanted to get a hat so we went into a store. Things were piled everywhere and it was very unorganized. She bought a big hat and in a few minutes she was scratching her head. I asked, “Joy, what’s wrong?” And she said, “Daddy, something is bothering my head.” I took her hat and looked at it, crawling around in the hat were lice and ticks. I said, “Joy there’s lice and ticks in this hat.” And she cried, “Oh Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” I looked in her hair and there were ticks and lice. She was having a fit, crying and jumping up and down, I said, “Lets go over to a house where we know some people”. So we rushed over and asked the lady if we could come in. She said yes, I sat down and picked lice and ticks out of my Joy’s hair The lady said that Joy needed to wash her hair with a special flea shampoo. No one read the instructions. What you were supposed to do is to use one tablespoon full of the contents and mix it with one pint or quart of water. The lady didn’t do that. She leaned Joy over a sink and poured the entire contents of the bottle into Joy’s hair. I was in the other room while the lady was washing her hair and all of a sudden Joy started crying, “My eyes are burning, my eyes are burning, Daddy, oh, oh, my head is burning.” She started screaming. When she stood up the medicine was running down her neck, her chest, and down her back. I said, “Joy in the shower.” I just led her to the shower and pushed her in. She was screaming and I ran and looked at the instructions on the bottle and I saw that what she was using 100% pure. I was so afraid that it was going to actually burn her eyes out. Her eyes swelled shut, she couldn’t see, her head was red, it burned and all her skin peeled. She thought her hair was going to come out, that she was going to be blind and bald headed, but praise Jesus, after a few hours, she got better and could see.

Tonight we are sleeping in a little thatched roof hut out in the jungle. We have a lantern and there is some mosquito netting. Mosquitoes and spiders are everywhere. The other night we were also in a jungle hut, and I had to get up for something in the night. As I walked over to pick up the flashlight where I had left it laying between our beds, I saw something dark beside it. I had this strange feeling not to touch the flashlight, it looked like something was down there. I reached over and got a small flashlight out of my backpack and there was the biggest spider I had ever seen in my life beside the flashlight. Its body was as big as the palm of my hand.

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Belmopan: Tonight we had a wonderful gospel rally. We carried the cross through the city and then arrived in front of the church where we were to have our meeting. There was a big crowd waiting as we stood the cross up and I preached the gospel. I stood the cross upright on its wheel and had two people hold it.The cross in front of me so that the whole focus is on the cross. Two local pastors wanted to hold the cross. They were standing on either side of it when a man ran up screaming and raging. I just kept preaching, I have been through many attacks in my life and my general principle is to never stop, to just continue. The man charged up through the crowd, attacked the cross trying to push it over. I then heard pop, pop like fist against flesh and then I saw the cross coming down, I tried to help grab the cross as the man had hit one of the preachers. I stopped preaching, put the microphone in its stand and lifted up the cross.

No matter what, the cross must be lifted. If I die, I die; if I live, I live, but I am not going to leave the cross lying on the ground when it has been knocked down. Joy looked at me and she knew my expression and she came up next to me. Two British soldiers had been walking with us that day, they were just the most gentle and sweet of believers. They took the cross and stood it upright. The man had created total havoc. He was like a wild man trying to hit people, trying to attack them. Soon, the police came and took him away. I finished the message and gave a call for people to give their life to Christ. We invited those who were converted to come inside the church so that we could talk with them. All of a sudden the man came back with a machete to kill the preacher and me. The police were still around and they grabbed him, taking the machete away from him. This is just another one of Satan’s attacks to try to destroy me. Just last week at a rally in Belize City just before I started to preach, a man came up with a knife and asked, “Which one is Arthur Blessitt?’ He was coming at me. The devil sure gets stirred up at times.

We had an awesome time in Belize and love the people so much.

Pilgrim followers of Jesus,

Arthur and Denise Blessitt
Luke 18:1