(as told by Zac Hood)

During my senior year of college, I went on my first mission trip to Belize. In a time when everyone was looking towards the future and trying to chase their dreams, I was still trying to find out who I was and what I offered to this world. I had many doubts and fears and I wanted to go to a place where I could stop thinking about myself. While all of my friends were going on trips to the beach, I couldn’t bare the thought of trying to have fun while all of these questions raced through my mind. Through a series of phone calls, I said yes to going on a trip to a place I didn’t know with a group of people I had never met.

During the week, we helped build onto a school and did a Vacation Bible School for children. But something happened to me during that week beyond the standard work. I still cannot really explain it. I found myself, normally shy and quiet, getting into conversations with Belizeans every second of the day. Something in me longed to know these people better, hear their stories and see the kind of life they had inside of them. As they shared their hearts, I began to search my own. These people seemed content with who they were, who God was, and the life they had- something I longed for. I realized that my whole life was about trying to be somebody important. I wanted other people to like me and think I was special by the clothes I wore, the girls I dated, the sports I played, and the friends I had. I started to realize that I was letting other people shape me. And if I was most concerned about what other people had to say, how could I find out who God had made me to be? All of a sudden, I found myself searching for truth. Life started to make sense more than it ever had. Through my work in Belize, I started to realize that I was made to serve and help others. I didn’t care if it brought money or fame or power. I just wanted to love others well. Much more than that, I wanted to know I was living a life that would make a difference. And with all of this happening, I fell in love with Belize.

During the middle of the week, I started asking local missionaries and Belizeans what the kids did for recreation. “Outside of the schools, they do not have much to do,” one worker told me. “The older children either work in the fields or help take care of their younger brothers and sisters”. The sports programs and activities I loved and learned so much from as a kid were not even an option for them. The missionaries and locals expressed an overwhelming need for such programs, but a lack of funding and resources have kept anything from becoming reality. In the final days of my trip, I started to see a vision for organized sports programs throughout Belize and even into other parts of the world. As I began writing and thinking about a potential plan, I realized it was not a question of “if,” but a question of “when.”

I have grown to realize that God does not want his people to ask the question “How?” If we trust him enough, he’ll show us the way and it will be more beautiful than we could imagine. Well, without asking how, I started taking small steps towards making this idea a reality. The result was an amazing year of discovering friends and allies who wanted to see this vision happen. I met a man named Mac Kelton who has started an organization called The Belize Project. His mission is to support local churches in Belize through health care, education and micro-enterprise to enable them to share the love of Christ through word and deed in their communities, throughout the country, and to the ends of the earth. Over the past 4 years, Mac has sent over 250 people to Belize to build – to build understanding, to build infrastructure, and to build trust through relationships. He has forged relationships throughout the country in numerous communities in all of the areas mentioned above—education, health care and micro-enterprise. We have partnered with The Belize Project to bring organized youth sports programs into Belize. Eventually, we plan on moving out of Belize into other projects. It’s a vision that continues to grow and the potential seems to be endless.

These last few years have been an ironic journey because I came into college with a dream of being a professional tennis player only to have two stress fractures in my vertebrae that made hitting a tennis ball no longer an option. With a career in sports seeming doubtful, I transferred schools leaving the world of athletics and those dreams behind. And by God’s grace and mercy, sports is now back in the forefront and a story has unfolded that is greater than anything I could imagine.