Honored by Britain’s Queen and Heaven’s King in Belize

Leticia August, 60, sitting in a Seventh-day Adventist church in Belize’s capital, Belmopan. Image by Andrew McChesney / Adventist Mission

June 21, 2017 | By Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission

The most exciting day in the young life of Leticia August was when her mother sent her from Guatemala to live with her grandmother in neighboring Belize.

Her parents were staunch Sunday-keepers, and Leticia was tired of being told that she couldn’t behave like the other girls.

“When I moved, I said, ‘Yes this is it!’” Leticia said.

Leticia started going to dances and parties. She felt like free at last. But she worried nearly every day, “What will happen to me if I die tonight?”

After some time, two Adventists started visiting Leticia’s home and giving Bible studies to her uncle, who also lived there. Leticia, who was 17, eavesdropped from her room and thought, “That’s not what the Bible teaches.” The Adventists were speaking about the gift of tongues and read from the book of Acts that everyone understood what the disciples preached in their own language. Leticia had been raised to believe that speaking in tongues produced gibberish that no one could understand.

Finally, Leticia came out of her room and bluntly told the Adventists, “What you are teaching is not right.”

She tried to show them her way of thinking. Through the discussion, Leticia began to study the Bible with the Adventists. Then she started attending church and decided that she wanted to be baptized.

But her relatives called the Adventist Church a cult and told her, “If you ever decide to be baptized, forget that you have a family here.”

Her baptism was a real struggle, and she did not show up on the baptism date. She went partying instead and decided that she wouldn’t be baptized.

“But the Lord did not leave me until I went to ask for baptism and the pastor replied, ‘Are you sure?’” she said. “I was sure, and from that moment to now I am sure I made the right choice. Praise God for His mercy and His giving me a second chance.”

Leticia’s relatives were furious about her decision. They pressured her to renounce her beliefs by putting pork or lard in the food so she couldn’t eat it. Leticia lived on cookies and milk for much of the week. She only ate a full meal on Sabbath when church members invited her to their homes.

“That is when I learned that you should always open your door to newly baptized members because you never know what is happening in their lives,” Leticia said. “Get to know them and love them.”

Soon Leticia returned to her mother in Guatemala. Even that move was blessed by God, she said. Shortly after her arrival, she met her future husband, and they were married.

Leticia went on to become a nurse and to plant three churches in Guatemala and Belize with her husband. Together, the couple have led about 1,000 people to baptism.

Leticia’s husband has since passed away, but she remains an active 60-year-old church member in Belize. In 2016, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II named her a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in recognition of her community service.

“Somebody submitted my name,” Leticia said. “But really what inspires me to move forward is not the awards of people. I always imagine that God is saying, ‘Go, do this for Me.’ We are His servants. He says, ‘Do it.’ I want to hear Him say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’

“I know that God called me for a purpose,” she said. “It has been 43 years since I was called to the church, and His loves grows deeper and deeper every day.”