Holy Cross Anglican School

Dear Friends of Holy Cross, Please take a few minutes to read the following email from long time Holy Cross supporter, Jean Willard. Jean and her husband John along with many friends from St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Durham, NC have brought numerous mission teams to the school. Jean is doing a fund raiser for the school which will help us get wonderful library books. Now you can do your Christmas shopping AND support Holy Cross at the same time!!! Many thanks and blessings, francis

Greetings,

I'm here to help you with your Christmas shopping this year! I am hosting an e-show of Usborne Books. In hosting this e-show, I will receive free books. The $$ amount sold determines the number of free books. All free books received from this e-show will go to the library at Holy Cross Anglican School in San Pedro Belize. Our church has taken mission teams to Belize for the past 9 years and has spent the last 3 years helping build Holy Cross. We have watched it grow from 3 classrooms in a mangrove swamp with 62 students to 15 classrooms and 525 students from K-8th grade. We return in February 2010 with 25 team members and hopefully lots of new books!! The annual trip is one of the highlights of our year!

Never heard of Usborne Books? They are high quality, award winning books. They have earned the Learning Magazine Teachers' Choice Award, Dr. Toy's 100 Best Child Products Award, Parent's Choice Gold Award and Mom's Choice Award and more. Their 1300+ book selection ranges from baby board books through High School reference books. They have readers, fiction, puzzle stories, finger puppets, maze books, jigsaw puzzles, hands-on activity books and kits and much more. The sales representative for this e-show is my daughter, Jill Baird. When we went to visit them in Hawaii this past September, I got to help host her first sale. She had gotten a box of sample books and John and I spent hours and hours reading those books to our grandsons. They couldn't get enough of them! We later saw them at Volcanos National Park in the gift shop and have since found them at other National Parks we have visited. We were VERY impressed with the quality of the books, and I am very picky about children's books!!

Please take a minute and visit the website for this e-show and check it out! They're wonderful gift books for all children. And they'll be delivered right to your door! Or, you can do a separate order for each family and have it delivered to their door! Can't beat one stop shopping! If you're not sure what they would like, just send them the e-show site and ask them to make up a wish list for you!

If you have questions, please send me an email at willarjm@mindspring.com or give me a call at 919-471-0816. To learn more about Holy Cross Anglican School, check out their website and Julie's blog who is volunteering for 2 months at the school and writing about her experiences. Feel free to pass this info on to friends! The more the merrier!

Thanks for your support of this e-show!!

:-) Jean

Blessings, Francis

Dear Friends,

Happy Friday the 13th! We’re having a wonderful day here at Holy Cross Anglican School. The sun is shining after many days of rain, the sounds of learning are quietly (or not so quietly!) echoing around the school and construction has begun on our incredible state of the art composting toilet system. Thanks to a generous grant from the Episcopal Church Women, by September 2010 we will have two girls’ bathrooms and two boys’ bathrooms, 24 toilets, 10 urinals, 4 staff bathrooms and the ‘greenest’ sewer waste disposal system available!!!! I never thought I could get so excited about toilets but providing bathroom breaks for 500+ students and 29 staff with only 6 toilets and 3 urinals is more complicated than rocket science.

I know you each rejoice with us as the school blooms and grows. And I know most of you could recite the critical needs we have here at Holy Cross from memory….feeding program, land fill, school supplies, shoes, uniforms, first aid, electricity for the computer lab, water bills (most recent was for $850US), medical bills, eye glasses and the list goes on and on. And, most of you know I have a thousand and one ways to ask for your financial contributions. Now I have one thousand and TWO ways…my birthday, the BIG 60, will be on November 18th, 2009. (I can hear you gasping in shock since I don’t look a day over 59 – smile.) Anyway, a few folks have asked what I want for my birthday. That’s an easy question to answer!

If the Spirit should move you to make a donation to Holy Cross Anglican School in honor of my big event then God Bless You! Of course I want your birthday prayers too! As always, checks should be made payable to: Holy Cross Anglican School and sent to:

Holy Cross Anglican School

San Pedro Town

Ambergris Caye, Belize

Many thanks and blessings, Francis, The Birthday Girl!!

Please take a moment to read Volunteering in Belize part 2. a great blog done by one of our volunteers Julie.

November 13, 2009

Dear Friends,

Happy Friday the 13th! We’re having a wonderful day here at Holy Cross Anglican School. The sun is shining after many days of rain, the sounds of learning are quietly (or not so quietly!) echoing around the school and construction has begun on our incredible state of the art composting toilet system. Thanks to a generous grant from the Episcopal Church Women, by September 2010 we will have two girls’ bathrooms and two boys’ bathrooms, 24 toilets, 10 urinals, 4 staff bathrooms and the ‘greenest’ sewer waste disposal system available!!!! I never thought I could get so excited about toilets but providing bathroom breaks for 500+ students and 29 staff with only 6 toilets and 3 urinals is more complicated than rocket science.

I know you each rejoice with us as the school blooms and grows. And I know most of you could recite the critical needs we have here at Holy Cross from memory….feeding program, land fill, school supplies, shoes, uniforms, first aid, electricity for the computer lab, water bills (most recent was for $850US), medical bills, eye glasses and the list goes on and on. And, most of you know I have a thousand and one ways to ask for your financial contributions. Now I have one thousand and TWO ways…my birthday, the BIG 60, will be on November 18th, 2009. (I can hear you gasping in shock since I don’t look a day over 59 – smile.) Anyway, a few folks have asked what I want for my birthday. That’s an easy question to answer!

If the Spirit should move you to make a donation to Holy Cross Anglican School in honor of my big event then God Bless You! Of course I want your birthday prayers too! As always, checks should be made payable to: Holy Cross Anglican School and sent to:

Holy Cross Anglican School

San Pedro Town

Ambergris Caye, Belize

Many thanks and blessings, Francis, The Birthday Girl!!