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On October 23, 2026, the tight-knit faith community of San Ignacio Town in Belize is grappling with seismic upheaval after prominent local pastor Kevin Tzib, founder of the well-established Dunamis Ministries, was remanded to Belize Central Prison to face six counts of sexual assault and one count of unnatural crime, all alleged to have targeted young men. For years, the church was a bustling weekly gathering space, with services drawing packed crowds across morning and evening sessions that drew multi-generational local families, many of whom had been founding members since the ministry first launched.

News Five correspondent Paul Lopez visited the church compound in the wake of the charges to document the community’s fallout, finding the normally active facility shuttered and quiet, its entry doors standing unused for the first time in most long-time members’ recent memory. Multiple local residents and congregation members, many of whom spoke anonymously to protect their privacy, shared conflicting waves of grief, disbelief, and lingering questions about unaddressed red flags in the ministry’s operations. One founding male congregation member, whose entire family has attended the church for years, admitted he still cannot reconcile the allegations against a man he considered a close spiritual brother, noting Tzib never behaved inappropriately toward him or other longstanding adult male members of the congregation. The member explained that his family, including his own children, are still processing the shock, and that he intends to continue attending services under Tzib’s newly ordained brother Erwin Tzib, who was installed as the ministry’s lead pastor on September 23, just over a month before Kevin Tzib’s remand.

A separate local San Ignacio resident who has observed the ministry for years noted that the congregation’s makeup had long struck him as unusual, with almost all new attendees being adolescent and young adult males, while the adult membership was almost entirely made up of the original small group of founding parishioners. The resident added that Tzib’s long-noticed atypical mannerisms made the allegations far less surprising to him than they were to many loyal congregation members. Multiple attempts to reach newly appointed lead pastor Erwin Tzib for official comment went unanswered at the time of reporting.

In an official public statement released by Dunamis Ministries leadership, the organization acknowledged the gravity of the pending criminal charges, pledged to uphold full accountability, procedural fairness, and adherence to the rule of law as the case moves through the court system, and assured parishioners that the church’s community outreach and spiritual programming will continue without interruption, emphasizing that the ministry’s core mission is not tied to any single individual.

On October 23, 2026, prominent faith leader and Church Senator Reverend Louis Wade publicly criticized the leadership of Dunamis Ministries over their slow, inadequate handling of sexual misconduct allegations that led to the recent arrest of Pastor Kevin Tzib. Speaking during a late-night broadcast segment, Wade emphasized that while Christian communities are called to extend grace to all people, including those who have committed wrongdoing, they bear a non-negotiable responsibility to root out exploitative actors he described as “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
Wade elaborated that the distinction between a struggling, repentant believer and a predatory leader lies in the repeated, sustained pattern of harmful acts perpetrated over time. He stressed that church institutions cannot avoid accountability for how they address reports of harm, noting that their core mandate is to build fully safe spaces for children, youth, and vulnerable community members. He outlined that these safe frameworks must guarantee that survivors who come forward are taken seriously, with their testimonies given equal weight to those of accused leaders, rather than allowing pastoral authority to override the voices of victims. While Wade affirmed that all victims retain the full right to report incidents directly to law enforcement, he noted that many survivors first seek accountability within their faith communities, and churches have a moral duty to not fail them in that process. For independent congregations that lack the internal capacity to navigate complex misconduct cases fairly, Wade urged leaders to bring in neutral, trained representatives from other trusted local churches to oversee proceedings. He went on to state that he was deeply disappointed by the specific missteps Dunamis Ministries leadership took in this case.
Shortly after Wade’s remarks, the National Evangelical Association of Belize released an official public statement expressing profound distress over the Tzib case. The association called the reports of alleged misconduct and the church’s delayed response both alarming and shameful, noting that they directly violate long-held biblical standards of holiness, ethical leadership, and personal integrity that all pastoral figures are expected to uphold.
This report is a transcribed adaptation of the station’s evening television newscast, with all originally spoken Kriol language rendered using a standardized, consistent spelling system for accessibility. Viewers can access the full unedited broadcast via the official linked platform shared on the news outlet’s website.

On October 23, 2026, the untimely death of 21-year-old Jamir Arana, an autistic resident of Belize City, has reignited widespread scrutiny over Belize’s existing protocols for locating and supporting at-risk missing individuals. Arana was reported missing on a Wednesday evening, but just hours later, law enforcement discovered his body along Hummingbird Highway, with investigators confirming his death is linked to an apparent fatal hit-and-run collision. As forensic teams work to reconstruct Arana’s final movements across the region, local autism advocacy groups are amplifying longstanding demands for both the general public and law enforcement agencies to elevate the level of urgency applied to cases involving vulnerable neurodivergent people. Diana De Leon, a representative of the leading local support organization Autism Belize, shared that Arana’s death has sent waves of devastation through the country’s entire autistic community and family support network. “When the alert about this missing autistic young man started circulating in our group chats, it triggered the deepest, most universal fear for every parent of an autistic child,” De Leon explained. “Our kids and young adults often have a tendency to wander or elope from safe spaces, and we have already lost far too many loved ones to preventable tragedies tied to that behavior. Every single parent in our network was praying he would be found unharmed, so the confirmation of his death on the highway felt like a gut punch for all of us.” The tragedy has also reopened unhealed wounds for families who lost two other autistic Belize residents, Gabriel Orellano and Xue Liu, in similar high-profile prior incidents that previously spurred calls for systemic reform. Adele Catzim-Sanchez, Chief Executive Officer of Belize’s Ministry of Human Development, noted in a 2025 public address following Orellano’s death that a well-documented psychological phenomenon called “unintentional blindness” often leads bystanders to overlook signs of distress in vulnerable people, even when they cross paths with them. “This is never a deliberate choice to ignore someone in need, but people tend to fix their full attention on their own daily priorities, and fail to register that a person they pass is disoriented, unsafe, and in need of immediate support,” Catzim-Sanchez clarified. Even though Arana was legally an adult, De Leon emphasized that his neurodivergence left him significantly disoriented and unable to navigate unfamiliar, high-traffic environments safely, and that many members of the public who crossed his path may have missed subtle cues that he was not acting as a typical adult would. She urged all Belize residents to cultivate greater awareness of autism traits and intervene proactively whenever they encounter someone who appears disoriented or out of place, rather than assuming the situation is none of their business. In the ongoing hit-and-run investigation, police have already detained a male suspect and seized a pickup truck that forensic teams believe was involved in the fatal collision. ASP Stacy Smith, a senior staff officer with the national police, highlighted a recurring frustrating pattern from prior missing persons cases involving vulnerable populations: dozens of bystanders often come forward on social media after a tragedy to share that they spotted the missing person wandering unaccompanied in public spaces, but never thought to alert authorities at the time. “It takes no more than 30 seconds to make a quick phone call to our dispatch line to report a sighting of a disoriented person, and that single call could very well be the difference between a safe reunion and a devastating loss,” Smith stated. Advocates are now pushing for formal policy changes that require law enforcement to prioritize missing person reports for neurodivergent, disabled, or otherwise vulnerable individuals immediately upon filing, rather than treating these cases as routine absences or waiting for extended mandatory waiting periods before launching search operations. For the grieving families who have now lost three beloved autistic community members to preventable tragedies, the core public message is unambiguous: never scroll past a missing alert for a vulnerable person, never assume someone else will step in to help, and never delay reaching out to authorities if you spot someone in obvious distress.