| Santa Cruz Church, The Pastor |
| Pastor Marcus Shal Pastor of Santa Cruz Church |
We first met Marcos Shal a few weeks after we came to Belize. A small quiet man, with 4 children, at that time. His children always came to our bible studies under the thatch roof to sing songs & learn bible stories. Anna his wife is just as quiet as Marcos and they both always stood on the outside of our children's bible study, under a palm tree listening to what we taught. Efforts to talk with them over the years failed. The conversation was always the same. Thank you for allowing your children to come study with us, and the reply would be "yes brother" or "yes sister". No matter how we tried to lead the conversation each time, that was it. In those early years, we taught the Mayan children, but it took years to gain the trust of their parents. Even after we built the first real church building in Santa Rosa. Several years had gone by, when one day Pastor Arturo Chal the pastor of Santa Rosa Church, told us Marcos Shal wanted to have a meeting with Rev. Don my husband. He went of course, and was very surprised at what Marcos had to say. This was in 2005. Marcos felt called to be a Pastor. He wanted to know more about our training courses & what he needed to do to work with us. At this time our ministry had just obtained property in the village of Santa Cruz to build a church. We had been praying for a Pastor for that village. As we all know "all things work together for those that are called, according to his purpose." In talking with Marcos, there was only one major problem with him training to be a Pastor. HE COULD NOT READ! Marcos had to stop school in third grade, to work with his father to help grow crops & support the family. We all prayed for weeks. We had considered trying to send him back to school to learn to read, or maybe even a private tutor if we could find one. He wasn't able to read any of our training material. However, as weeks went by and we came to know Marcos better, we noticed he couldn't read a bit of the material we gave him.....but he could read scriptures from the bible. Yes, we were completely amazed that he could read the bible. But, if he tried to read something else, he didn't know the words! Marcos said, " yes brother I read & understand the bible very well". We discovered through Pastor Marcos Shal, "If God be for us who can be against us?" Marcos had the best tutor possible...THE HOLY SPIRIT! Who are we to say he can't be a Servant of God and Pastor a church. The money was raised to build Santa Cruz Church and Marco Shal is a strong spirit filled Pastor of that church, since 2007. "God's ways are not our ways " and HE is always in control of HIS TRUE SERVANTS. Marcos now has eight children and one of his oldest boys Angel, now teaches the children in Santa Cruz Village and plans on becoming a teacher. As for Marcos, hes a Mayan teaching and preaching in a Spanish village and is the pastor of the Spanish church in Santa Cruz. This is Pastor Marcus Shal If you would like to know more about this Man of God Click the link Ministries of the Son of God |