Our Open Door
History in Hopkins, Belize

In 1986 Steve Hanson, then Youth pastor, experienced his first cross-cultural mission in Haiti. Several months later Open Door entered the short term mission arena and has not looked back. Over 1,000 people from Open Door have experienced a short term mission since that first trip.
After five years of building a base in Haiti, Steve and Cossette Dussault began to talk about looking for another people group that the church could potentially work with. The criterion was as follows:
v English speaking
v One day, relatively inexpensive flight, with little jetlag
v A third world country
Shortly after that meeting Cossette traveled to Belize to investigate possibilities of future involvement. During that trip she was lead to Hopkins, an isolated small community of Garifuna people. The Garifuna are a people in Belize that is a minority even within the country. She liked this village, feeling it was one we could impact. On that trip she also met a pastor of a small church, Pastor Edwin Castillo (Herdie). During that first visit she came to know and love Herdie, his wife Victoria, and their family.
After further research the first short term team was assembled, trained, and sent under the leadership of Cossette and Pastor Tom Johnson.
One year later another trip occurred. This trip under the direction of Jill Peterson and Jim Skelly, both of whom had been on the inaugural trip. This trip, like the first team went to establish positive relationships. We wanted the name, Open Door, to be a positive one throughout this small isolated village of Garifuna people.
The fall of 1993, Cossette, Jim, Jill, Steve, Pastor Herdie and his wife Victoria, and YWAM representatives Trevor and Bonnie Middleton sat down to discuss common goals and dreams. What seemed to evolve from those four days of prayer, worship, community and discussion was two fold. First, there was a significant confirmation of our ministry style. Pastor Herdie reported that our teams were being well received. We were meeting the initial goal of a positive relationship. Second, was our need to recommit to the family and ministry of Pastor Herdie. Hence our future direction will continue to be very connected to his church, with teams continuing to look for ways to encourage him and his church body.