Hanging out with some of the older kids.
Playing soccer.
Out for a drive ... "solidarity"
August 10, 2008
El Salvador Pics 3
July birthdays at Sunday service.
Hanging out with some of the older kids.
Playing soccer.
Out for a drive ... "solidarity"
Hanging out with some of the older kids.
Playing soccer.
Out for a drive ... "solidarity"
El Salvador Pics
Below are two pictures that show the driveway in the process of being dug out and re-poured with concrete, after day 1 and after day 2.
Group shots.
Me with Mark and Loran in the van.
Zoila, then the little kids watching us work.
Group shots.
Me with Mark and Loran in the van.
Zoila, then the little kids watching us work.
August 03, 2008
El Salvador 8/2/08
8/2/08
I'm home now. Again, I find myself caught in that realm between travel and return, where the mind has yet to catch up to where the body finds itself, walking these Arizona streets that are familiar enough to deceive me into believing for a moment that I never left. This was another trip whose influence on me I can gauge by how it felt to leave: it's been an amazing week. This morning - 16 hours ago, while now I'm sitting at the bar of a California Pizza Kitchen in Tempe - when we said our goodbyes and boarded the van, we looked back to find many of the kids that had come to see us off in tears, some embarrassed and trying to hide it, most openly.
I've been given a really unique, wonderful opportunity through this and in addition to the experience as a whole. I'm sure you've seen those commercials asking you to sponsor or support a child; you may have wondered how much of your money would actually benefit the child, or allowed procrastination to stretch into forgetting, or felt a strange distance. Would it help to have met him or her, to know her story? Would it help to have held her? To have sat with her and sang with her and prayed with her and laughed with her? I have. The child I felt closest to this week - Zoila, 5 years old - the one that sat with me at the devotionals and services, was one of the ones that still needs sponsors. I've become one for her.
Looking back over the week ... we poured 35 x 17 feet of concrete 6 inches deep or more to make a new driveway entrance for the orphanage and school. But we weren't called there, brought there, because they needed a new driveway. On our first night, Rick told us that on work and witness trips like this, it is often the missionaries who are changed, and now I think, Of course, how could we not? In a few years, will I return as a long-term missionary or teacher? I can't know yet, God's plan is only observed in hindsight. But it is an option now, and one that is more than a backup plan, and that's something I could not have said a week ago.
This morning I was in a third-world country (maybe developing ... second world?), and visited some of the poorest people in the world. Now I'm sitting at a restaurant's bar where the drink in front of me costs the same as an El Salvadorean's daily minimum wage. How's that for culture shock?
I don't know the actual definition of a third-world country, but I haven't thought of Belize as that, and El Salvador is said to be the most industrial/developed in Central America, and yet the term third-world seems more appropriate somehow. In Belize, the people seemed, if not happy, at least content; in El Salvador, there was a kind of desperation in the way many lived. El Salvador is the most densely populated Central American country and, though industrial, not everyone benefits. In Belize, tourism and agriculture are big sources of income, so even when a corrupt government takes millions form oil or other resources, there's something else. My best guess, after one week there, is that in El Salvador, as the whole country grows, it stretches out, so the top reach higher, while the bottom falls further; we saw both, but it's the latter that gave me the sense of it as a third-world country.
I'm home now. Again, I find myself caught in that realm between travel and return, where the mind has yet to catch up to where the body finds itself, walking these Arizona streets that are familiar enough to deceive me into believing for a moment that I never left. This was another trip whose influence on me I can gauge by how it felt to leave: it's been an amazing week. This morning - 16 hours ago, while now I'm sitting at the bar of a California Pizza Kitchen in Tempe - when we said our goodbyes and boarded the van, we looked back to find many of the kids that had come to see us off in tears, some embarrassed and trying to hide it, most openly.
I've been given a really unique, wonderful opportunity through this and in addition to the experience as a whole. I'm sure you've seen those commercials asking you to sponsor or support a child; you may have wondered how much of your money would actually benefit the child, or allowed procrastination to stretch into forgetting, or felt a strange distance. Would it help to have met him or her, to know her story? Would it help to have held her? To have sat with her and sang with her and prayed with her and laughed with her? I have. The child I felt closest to this week - Zoila, 5 years old - the one that sat with me at the devotionals and services, was one of the ones that still needs sponsors. I've become one for her.
Looking back over the week ... we poured 35 x 17 feet of concrete 6 inches deep or more to make a new driveway entrance for the orphanage and school. But we weren't called there, brought there, because they needed a new driveway. On our first night, Rick told us that on work and witness trips like this, it is often the missionaries who are changed, and now I think, Of course, how could we not? In a few years, will I return as a long-term missionary or teacher? I can't know yet, God's plan is only observed in hindsight. But it is an option now, and one that is more than a backup plan, and that's something I could not have said a week ago.
This morning I was in a third-world country (maybe developing ... second world?), and visited some of the poorest people in the world. Now I'm sitting at a restaurant's bar where the drink in front of me costs the same as an El Salvadorean's daily minimum wage. How's that for culture shock?
I don't know the actual definition of a third-world country, but I haven't thought of Belize as that, and El Salvador is said to be the most industrial/developed in Central America, and yet the term third-world seems more appropriate somehow. In Belize, the people seemed, if not happy, at least content; in El Salvador, there was a kind of desperation in the way many lived. El Salvador is the most densely populated Central American country and, though industrial, not everyone benefits. In Belize, tourism and agriculture are big sources of income, so even when a corrupt government takes millions form oil or other resources, there's something else. My best guess, after one week there, is that in El Salvador, as the whole country grows, it stretches out, so the top reach higher, while the bottom falls further; we saw both, but it's the latter that gave me the sense of it as a third-world country.
El Salvador 7/31/08
7/31/08
It's been a few days since I've taken - no ... HAD - the time to write more about the past couple days because we've been that busy, and that exhausted during the little down time we've had. In four days, only one of which was actually a full day, we've dug out the end of the wide driveway and some of the street's shoulder, then poured three 9-foot wide strips of concrete above a drainage pipe. We have a gas-run cement mixer and handheld jackhammers, but everything else has been done by hand. We worked all of Monday, except for the trip to Oasis, ; finished digging Tuesday , then poured the first concrete in the afternoon. Wednesday was a scheduled half day: in the morning, we went to a market to buy souvenirs and to a mall to see one of the Christian bookstores HIS runs, then up to a volcano for lunch. This restaurant was a beautiful place with gardens, but the cloud cover obscured the view of the volcano and the valley. We finished the other two concrete sections Wednesday afternoon and this morning, but while doing so, ran into a different, unscheduled delay both times.
"The wind turns cold before the rain comes."
"What is a rainforest, afterall, without rain?"
We were lucky our first three days not to see rain (though the sun was rather strong!), but this is Central America in the rainy season, and rain is to be expected. The above quotes are from my writings about Belize last summer, and are just as true here. Yesterday, the rain hit fast and hard while we still had about 2 concrete batches to mix and pour, and once we begin a section we can't stop. But we knew it was coming, and had tarps ready, which we taped to a truck parked on the road and held up over the new section while the rest finished; we went back at night so Rick could smooth and groove the surface. Today it only sprinkled at the end of pouring the concrete, and Rick smoothed most of it out before the rain, but we're done working for the afternoon now.
The camaraderie on this trip has been great: the five other guys I'm living with, the seven girls in the team in a second apartment, but also the three American missionaries, the staff, and of course the kids. We've made friends with many of them, and they like waving to us and greeting us every time they see us. But we've also played soccer and talked with the older ones, and played with the younger. They've nicknamed most of us in Spanish, but some of us have additional nicknames: Rick is Ricardo, but also Goliat (from the skit), and poquito or chiquito (meaning little boy); Loran is Lorenzo, but also Samson, and they sometimes refer to he and I as brothers; I am Matteo, but have recently been re-named David Beckham because of my earring. As a team, our evenings have been spent having devotionals and discussions together, talking both all together and split into guys and girls in our rooms. I've learned a lot from them, and had a chance to tell some of my own stories, and they have all been wonderfully receptive and supportive. And a lot of fun. You know that sort of light-headed endorphin rush you get when you laugh a lot within a short but prolonger period of time? I think I've felt that at least twice a day with them.
One of the things we've talked about and that I've thought a lot about is why we're here. Why I'm here. We are thirteen people out of a church of over 500 to whom the trip was opened, and God was the only adjudicator of applicants. So why me? I had reasons to come - four recent trips to Latin America, a novel-in-progress set in part in a Latin American orphanage, my hope to see as much of the world as I can, the desire to do missional work – but these are the things that got me here, the how, not why. I understood why very early into the trip, the first or second day, and confirmed this yesterday. The founders of the orphanage – Don and Rose Ann Benner - took us to lunch at the volcano yesterday, and they answered a question I had without my asking: their greatest need for staff right now is for English teachers. I spoke with Don after, and he said my experience in writing would also be useful for their newsletter. This is an ever-growing organization in many exciting ways, and my experience in other ways too really suits them. I have a feeling I may be coming back here in a couple years.
It's been a few days since I've taken - no ... HAD - the time to write more about the past couple days because we've been that busy, and that exhausted during the little down time we've had. In four days, only one of which was actually a full day, we've dug out the end of the wide driveway and some of the street's shoulder, then poured three 9-foot wide strips of concrete above a drainage pipe. We have a gas-run cement mixer and handheld jackhammers, but everything else has been done by hand. We worked all of Monday, except for the trip to Oasis, ; finished digging Tuesday , then poured the first concrete in the afternoon. Wednesday was a scheduled half day: in the morning, we went to a market to buy souvenirs and to a mall to see one of the Christian bookstores HIS runs, then up to a volcano for lunch. This restaurant was a beautiful place with gardens, but the cloud cover obscured the view of the volcano and the valley. We finished the other two concrete sections Wednesday afternoon and this morning, but while doing so, ran into a different, unscheduled delay both times.
"The wind turns cold before the rain comes."
"What is a rainforest, afterall, without rain?"
We were lucky our first three days not to see rain (though the sun was rather strong!), but this is Central America in the rainy season, and rain is to be expected. The above quotes are from my writings about Belize last summer, and are just as true here. Yesterday, the rain hit fast and hard while we still had about 2 concrete batches to mix and pour, and once we begin a section we can't stop. But we knew it was coming, and had tarps ready, which we taped to a truck parked on the road and held up over the new section while the rest finished; we went back at night so Rick could smooth and groove the surface. Today it only sprinkled at the end of pouring the concrete, and Rick smoothed most of it out before the rain, but we're done working for the afternoon now.
The camaraderie on this trip has been great: the five other guys I'm living with, the seven girls in the team in a second apartment, but also the three American missionaries, the staff, and of course the kids. We've made friends with many of them, and they like waving to us and greeting us every time they see us. But we've also played soccer and talked with the older ones, and played with the younger. They've nicknamed most of us in Spanish, but some of us have additional nicknames: Rick is Ricardo, but also Goliat (from the skit), and poquito or chiquito (meaning little boy); Loran is Lorenzo, but also Samson, and they sometimes refer to he and I as brothers; I am Matteo, but have recently been re-named David Beckham because of my earring. As a team, our evenings have been spent having devotionals and discussions together, talking both all together and split into guys and girls in our rooms. I've learned a lot from them, and had a chance to tell some of my own stories, and they have all been wonderfully receptive and supportive. And a lot of fun. You know that sort of light-headed endorphin rush you get when you laugh a lot within a short but prolonger period of time? I think I've felt that at least twice a day with them.
One of the things we've talked about and that I've thought a lot about is why we're here. Why I'm here. We are thirteen people out of a church of over 500 to whom the trip was opened, and God was the only adjudicator of applicants. So why me? I had reasons to come - four recent trips to Latin America, a novel-in-progress set in part in a Latin American orphanage, my hope to see as much of the world as I can, the desire to do missional work – but these are the things that got me here, the how, not why. I understood why very early into the trip, the first or second day, and confirmed this yesterday. The founders of the orphanage – Don and Rose Ann Benner - took us to lunch at the volcano yesterday, and they answered a question I had without my asking: their greatest need for staff right now is for English teachers. I spoke with Don after, and he said my experience in writing would also be useful for their newsletter. This is an ever-growing organization in many exciting ways, and my experience in other ways too really suits them. I have a feeling I may be coming back here in a couple years.
El Salvador 7/28/08
7/28/08
It's a few minutes before 9 pm now, and I'm exhausted. I could have gone to sleep an hour ago, and will once I've finished writing this. Today was our first day of work, and we spent it transporting sand and gravel uphill in wheelbarrows to the beginning to the driveway, then digging out rock, concrete, and asphalt with jackhammers, picks, shovels, hands. Our project is to refill this area where the drive meets the street with concrete so that the driveway makes a smooth transition to the road (right now many cars bottom out just pulling in). The gutters here are also drains for gray water from the homes nearby, and this gutter added to the bump traffic had to deal with; the water also flowed into the trench as we worked. We will also bury a pipe beneath the new concrete so the water will drain without affecting the traffic. Tonight, Loran said, "I feel like I got in a fight ... and lost! But it doesn't break you down spiritually." This sums up the experience so far. We're tired, sore, a little sunburned ... but we know for whose benefit we're working - God, this facility, the kids - and having this cause makes all the difference.
After lunch, half our team took a short van ride with three other visiting American missionaries to one of the satellite projects of the orphanage, which they call Oasis. The facility is a very simple room with a roof and some screening over a concrete floor; three times a week, staff from HIS bring food into this neighborhood, do a devotional - prayer and worship - for the children, then distribute the food and spend time playing with the kids. For many of the people that come, this is the only meal they will have that day, and most live in houses made of tin sheet metal and cardboard. This setting, contrasted to the Shalom orphanage, is different as these are some of the poorest people in the world. But I was told that. I would not necessarily have known this, despite seeing the neighborhood, for our interaction with the kids felt almost the same as with the ones at Shalom, who call the orphanage (Shalom) and school (Amilat) their home, with three meals a day, dorms, clothes, etc. The kids at Oasis were thrilled to see us, as joyful and attentive in worship and as happy as the others. I played a version of tag with them for a while at the end. These people don't have much, but they can be happy with so little because they have their primary need placed in God, and they have Him. And He provides through HIS.
In Matthew 18:1-6, Jesus tells his disciples that they will never enter the Kingdom of God unless they humble themselves like children. I have learned what this means, as a witness to it in practice. These children put God first: they spend 4 hours every Sunday in service for 2 hours at a time, and were involved and focused with more attention and enthusiasm than I could pull together. They are patient and treat each other as family. And us. And they love strangers, as I wrote yesterday, without hesitation or judgement. They represent the simplicity that Jesus called his disciples to understand and become. I have seen the face of God in these children, and He was smiling.
It's a few minutes before 9 pm now, and I'm exhausted. I could have gone to sleep an hour ago, and will once I've finished writing this. Today was our first day of work, and we spent it transporting sand and gravel uphill in wheelbarrows to the beginning to the driveway, then digging out rock, concrete, and asphalt with jackhammers, picks, shovels, hands. Our project is to refill this area where the drive meets the street with concrete so that the driveway makes a smooth transition to the road (right now many cars bottom out just pulling in). The gutters here are also drains for gray water from the homes nearby, and this gutter added to the bump traffic had to deal with; the water also flowed into the trench as we worked. We will also bury a pipe beneath the new concrete so the water will drain without affecting the traffic. Tonight, Loran said, "I feel like I got in a fight ... and lost! But it doesn't break you down spiritually." This sums up the experience so far. We're tired, sore, a little sunburned ... but we know for whose benefit we're working - God, this facility, the kids - and having this cause makes all the difference.
After lunch, half our team took a short van ride with three other visiting American missionaries to one of the satellite projects of the orphanage, which they call Oasis. The facility is a very simple room with a roof and some screening over a concrete floor; three times a week, staff from HIS bring food into this neighborhood, do a devotional - prayer and worship - for the children, then distribute the food and spend time playing with the kids. For many of the people that come, this is the only meal they will have that day, and most live in houses made of tin sheet metal and cardboard. This setting, contrasted to the Shalom orphanage, is different as these are some of the poorest people in the world. But I was told that. I would not necessarily have known this, despite seeing the neighborhood, for our interaction with the kids felt almost the same as with the ones at Shalom, who call the orphanage (Shalom) and school (Amilat) their home, with three meals a day, dorms, clothes, etc. The kids at Oasis were thrilled to see us, as joyful and attentive in worship and as happy as the others. I played a version of tag with them for a while at the end. These people don't have much, but they can be happy with so little because they have their primary need placed in God, and they have Him. And He provides through HIS.
In Matthew 18:1-6, Jesus tells his disciples that they will never enter the Kingdom of God unless they humble themselves like children. I have learned what this means, as a witness to it in practice. These children put God first: they spend 4 hours every Sunday in service for 2 hours at a time, and were involved and focused with more attention and enthusiasm than I could pull together. They are patient and treat each other as family. And us. And they love strangers, as I wrote yesterday, without hesitation or judgement. They represent the simplicity that Jesus called his disciples to understand and become. I have seen the face of God in these children, and He was smiling.
El Salvador 7/27/08
Since I didn't have internet access while in El Salvador, I wrote my blog entries by hand, and will post them now by the dates on which I actually wrote them.
7/27/08
I'm in Central America – for the fourth time - and I don't care that I'm in the jungle. I never thought I would say that. In Belize, simply being in the rainforest is perhaps my favorite part and why I've returned each year (along with the people and culture and archaeology, of course). And the forest is by no means absent of faraway here either, it's just eclipsed by why I am here.
HIS - Harvesting in Spanish - is an American non-profit that runs a fundraising company, a school, and an orphanage, along with several satellite projects in the San Salvador area. We are here as missionaries to work and witness at the orphanage. The construction - concrete - work we'll be doing will start tomorrow because today is Sunday, so our first day was spent getting to know the campus, in church services, and interacting with the kids. And they, already, are why the jungle remains peripheral.
This morning we had some downtime, so Loran (Lorenzo) and I (Matteo, here) went outside and sat at a cement table (at the kids' height!) talking. It was while we were there that we first interacted with the children, though we had talked with a few of the older ones Rick knew from the last trip after breakfast. When the kids finished Sunday School, they came running down the stairs from the church to the playground where we sat, boys first then the girls, and the first two boys that reached us - who had not seen us yet until then - ran up and hugged us. They were probably about 7 years old. During the first church service, I sat in the second row behind the 4-7 year old girls (the youngest sit in front in tiny chairs). They would turn around to play little games with me over and over, or lean their chairs back against my knees with their heads tipped back for me to poke their nose or forehead, or just turned around to smile. In the afternoon, we played soccer on a concrete, fenced-in basketball court – Americans vs. Latins - and finally won 9-7 when their team got down to just three players against our six ... and even that was close. All the boys now give us a high-five followed directly by a touching of fists. At the second church service, we all went up on stage and introduced ourselves (translated), led them in two songs, and put on a skit of David and Goliath. Toward the end, they asked the young kids to come kneel at the stage to pray and be prayed for, and for our team to come with them. They all knelt along the stage, and we stood or knelt behind them, and all of them gathered to us like iron filings to magnets, wanting to be in physical contact. The one five year-old girl I was with was holding on to me the entire time.
This open need for affection and physical contact with other people in these orphans left me wordless most of the day, and it's taken this long for me to be able to write about it, now before bed. I am surprised by it, not in its simple existence, but in its intensity, and honesty, and innocence. They don't know who we are, but they don't care - we're here to help them and be with them, and that's enough. These youngest don't speak or understand a word of English, but they don't have to, all they need to say is communicated in their actions and smiles. If this isn't the first time I've understood what Jesus meant about us needing to be simple like children to get into His Kingdom, then it is at least the strongest, clearest, and most beautiful reminder I've found.
7/27/08
I'm in Central America – for the fourth time - and I don't care that I'm in the jungle. I never thought I would say that. In Belize, simply being in the rainforest is perhaps my favorite part and why I've returned each year (along with the people and culture and archaeology, of course). And the forest is by no means absent of faraway here either, it's just eclipsed by why I am here.
HIS - Harvesting in Spanish - is an American non-profit that runs a fundraising company, a school, and an orphanage, along with several satellite projects in the San Salvador area. We are here as missionaries to work and witness at the orphanage. The construction - concrete - work we'll be doing will start tomorrow because today is Sunday, so our first day was spent getting to know the campus, in church services, and interacting with the kids. And they, already, are why the jungle remains peripheral.
This morning we had some downtime, so Loran (Lorenzo) and I (Matteo, here) went outside and sat at a cement table (at the kids' height!) talking. It was while we were there that we first interacted with the children, though we had talked with a few of the older ones Rick knew from the last trip after breakfast. When the kids finished Sunday School, they came running down the stairs from the church to the playground where we sat, boys first then the girls, and the first two boys that reached us - who had not seen us yet until then - ran up and hugged us. They were probably about 7 years old. During the first church service, I sat in the second row behind the 4-7 year old girls (the youngest sit in front in tiny chairs). They would turn around to play little games with me over and over, or lean their chairs back against my knees with their heads tipped back for me to poke their nose or forehead, or just turned around to smile. In the afternoon, we played soccer on a concrete, fenced-in basketball court – Americans vs. Latins - and finally won 9-7 when their team got down to just three players against our six ... and even that was close. All the boys now give us a high-five followed directly by a touching of fists. At the second church service, we all went up on stage and introduced ourselves (translated), led them in two songs, and put on a skit of David and Goliath. Toward the end, they asked the young kids to come kneel at the stage to pray and be prayed for, and for our team to come with them. They all knelt along the stage, and we stood or knelt behind them, and all of them gathered to us like iron filings to magnets, wanting to be in physical contact. The one five year-old girl I was with was holding on to me the entire time.
This open need for affection and physical contact with other people in these orphans left me wordless most of the day, and it's taken this long for me to be able to write about it, now before bed. I am surprised by it, not in its simple existence, but in its intensity, and honesty, and innocence. They don't know who we are, but they don't care - we're here to help them and be with them, and that's enough. These youngest don't speak or understand a word of English, but they don't have to, all they need to say is communicated in their actions and smiles. If this isn't the first time I've understood what Jesus meant about us needing to be simple like children to get into His Kingdom, then it is at least the strongest, clearest, and most beautiful reminder I've found.
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