A Langley teen is organizing a Christmas market to raise money to build a school classroom in Belize.
Seventeen-year-old Chelsea Leyenhorst, a student at Credo Christian High School, is travelling with a 14-person missionary team to a rural village called San Narciso in Belize for two weeks in January.
The Aldergrove Help Another Nation Develop a School (HANDS) mission team will be building an extension onto a preschool in San Narciso that will allow for another classroom space.
Earlier this year, the team held bottle drives to fund the trip.
And now the mission team is raising money for the school’s building materials at The Merry & Bright Christmas market on Nov. 24 at the Christ Covenant Church.
“We will help to build an addition onto a school while we’re there. Most of the time we will spend building the extra addition. It’ll be used for a second classroom because they have a small one-room school and more than thirty-five children, so they needed an extension done to it.” Leyenhorst explained.
Leyenhorst will be accompanied by her dad on the trip, who also had the chance to go on a missions trip in high school.
“It was really beneficial for him and he wanted me to have that same chance,” explained Leyenhorst.
Leyenhorst said she’s mostly excited to see the impacts of education.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing what education does for rural communities and hopefully getting to grow closer with the other people on the trip.”
The market features 25 local vendors selling gifts such as beauty products, jewelry, books, Christmas decorations, essential oils, and much more, with all proceeds going towards the Aldergrove HANDS mission team.
For more information about HANDS and the local missions team, visit https://edudeo.com/hands/aldergrove/
The Merry & Bright Christmas market is on Nov. 24 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Christ Covenant Church on 6866 Glover Rd.