One decade for me - 6 for Anna

According to the t-shirt I packed, it has been 10 years since I first came to El Salvador. I feel like a lot has changed over that period (except for the food), the presence of Shelter and the number of Shelter homes  has increased, the transportation to the communities is safer and efficient (slightly less fun than on the back of the cattle truck). 

I feel blessed that I get to experience this trip with my wife and my two oldest children.  At the time of writing this post, our entire team has helped to build 12 houses for 12 families. Getting to build along side these families and getting to know them is one of my favourite parts of the trip. 

Today, the team I am a part of got to build a house for Anna. Anna has lived in this community for 6 decades and has had 12 children. Two of the other houses we have built this week are for other members of her family. Anna has been here through the civil war and through periods of gang violence. One of the differences today for her children and grandchildren is that there is now a church and a school in the community that her family can walk to. Now they have a safe place to live that will keep them dry in the rainy season!

She took our picture today so she would always remember us as she continues to pray for us after we leave. It is clear that God has been at work in this community long before we arrived this week and He will continue to be at work after we leave. I am grateful that we were able to play a small part and experience that this week.

Scott

A Full Day

Q: What does a day look like on a global mission team?

A: 

1. 7:00am meet for breakfast, team devotion and prayer

2. 8:00am we get into the vans and trucks with our drivers and translators and head out a one hour drive to the community. 

3. Then we meet with families, play with families, listen to families, laugh with families, cry with families, are blessed by families and be a blessing to families. It's here where houses are raised and bonds are forged. Our team of 25 is split into 3 teams for this part. 

4. We all come back together for a delightful lunch of PB&J sandwiches, fruit and something to drink - undoubtedly accompanied by the hilarious active antics of our 5 teenage boys. 

5. We head off in our teams to build again. See #3 above. 

6. Somewhere in the 4ish area we assemble again for the long drive home, amid the sweaty smells, and dirt covered arms and legs, which are mostly ignored, as stories get told back and forth.  Our transportation involves 13-15 of us in a micro van (that's a lot of people), and three trucks.  The ride home is longer as there is more traffic on the way back to San Vicente.  

7. After a short pit stop at our hotel we head off for dinner (so far, we've had to push dinner time to 6:15 or  6:30pm. Tonight was Taco Tuesday at the Shelter offices!  And they were awesome!

8. After dinner we try and get out into the city for a short visit. Last night was a grocery store (Super Selectos) and tonight was an ice cream treat (Boston ice cream). 

9. Then back to the hotel around 8:30ish for a time to debrief - This is a special, sacred even, time. We take time to listen to one another's experiences of the day. 

And then bed...because the next day God has already prepared good things to experience and good people to meet. 

All of this, takes a toll...the sun is HOT...some of the work is hard...but the experiences take a significant emotional, spiritual, psychological toll, as God breaks up some comfortable places in our lives and challenges is us with His faithfulness and provision to the beautiful people we meet in El Salvador. 

All this to say, thanks for following, for praying and for your encouragement.  

Deve

Nap Time

 Sometimes the sun is just too hot. The work is just too hard and the day just seems a little too long. So why not have a little nap?

Eli had no problem borrowing the shoulder  of one of the Shelter translators to recharge and reset - to be ready to go again when we arrived at our destination. 

Amanda

Good Apple

 This is my second time visiting El Salvador. If you haven’t yet, I would highly recommend coming someday. Since arriving to the country, lots of things have been very familiar, but there was still tons of newness to note. For example, the people. Mainly, there’s a lot of them on this team. There are 25 of us in total (including nine high school students who are all super cool), and we’re split into three sub-teams for building the houses.

  

  Today was our first build day. Each team built one house in the morning and one in the afternoon. I found this process to be very smooth. Everyone got involved and made sure they helped wherever there was a need for it. There weren’t any slackers. I was particularly proud of my sister, Eden, who dug lots of holes today. Let me tell you, that is not an easy accomplishment.

     There is so much more that I could write about today, but I will go into too much detail and then be sitting here for hours. So, I’ll just stick to one main highlight:

     Ansley and I met a little girl, Allison, on the first build site. Allison lives with her mom in another city, but she’s currently staying with her grandma and uncle—who were getting a house—while she’s on her vacation from school. I’m so glad she was there today because we had a blast. This girl might be the most smiley person I’ve ever met. She did seem pretty shy initially, but that smile was there just about the whole time. She eagerly picked out some elastic colours for Ansley to help her make bracelets out of (mostly rosa y some púrpura). I braided her hair. She coloured in a colouring book. She got to teach me some colours by pointing out different elastics and crayons and saying what colour it was in Spanish. She was very amused when my pronunciation was off and thrilled when I said something correctly.

     Later, Allison brought out a bag of toys; a baby doll, a couple Barbies, a keychain, some action figures, etc. All of which seemed inharmonious together. She was so excited to bring them out and show us. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much time to play with her toys because we had to go and talk with the family. Allison and I sat, squished together, on a hammock during the interview. Before we started, she got up to talk to her grandma, and then ran into the house they’d been staying in. A few seconds later, she emerged with a sneaky smile, carrying two small apples (manzanas), which she tried to conceal as she walked to the well and washed them off. She handed one to Ansley, and one to me. It was a touching gift. We were very grateful. She was beaming.

     After the interview, I rinsed my manzana with water and ate the whole thing, core and all. It was a good apple. 

Abby

Thankful

 

Today was a good day, we have 3 teams and each team built 2 houses. 6 families lives are changed! I was reminded today when the home owner became emotional about having a cement floor, how truly blessed I am. I am so thankful to be here this week. 

Karen

Abundance

How would I describe the past two days? Abundance. 

This may sound like an odd word, as a Canadian who is in El Salvador with a purpose to build homes alongside families who do not have a dry, safe place to lay their heads. 

One mother shared with me her concern for her mentally disabled daughter, who is the same age as me. Her concern as a mother is that if she were to die, her daughter would not be able to take care of herself, particularly in regards to the threat of rape. In their current living conditions, their structure that does not have a lock, which would enable someone to take advantage of her daughter without someone there to protect her. But this personal story doesn’t lend one to think of “abundance”, but if you look past the materialistic emphasis when thinking of this word, you’ll see it. This mother has an abundance of care for her daughter, in how she makes sure her daughter is included. While the young kids were all playing with a piñata at our meet-the-family event, she made sure her daughter was also a part of it. This adult daughter, is a kid at heart. I witnessed her abundant joy in the simplest things. Yesterday, I was colouring with her nieces, and when she joined, holding a green crayon, she made the smallest scribble on the page. Her face lit up and she had an abundant outburst of joy. You could see joy in her toothless smile, and hear it in her gleeful laugh.

 The first day when we gathered to meet the families, the food was served in abundance. It made me emotional to see these families who have so very little, to offer so much to us, out of gratitude, love, and celebration. Yesterday, at our first build site, the children flocked around a few of the ladies from our team. Kids ranging from 3 months to 12 years. They coloured, made name bracelets, and paper airplanes. As I was walking around taking photos, I joined in with the boys who were flying the planes and despite our language barrier, we ended up evolving our interaction into a game of keep away. There was abundant joy and laughter. 

At lunch time, as all three build teams assembled for lunch together, a neighbouring house brought out wooden furniture for us to rest on. He first brought out a couch, which was such a lovely gesture. And then a chair…and another chair…and another chair. He brought out his best, for a bunch of strangers he had never met. A team member shared that she received an apple from a child who played with the girls on one of our build teams. After asking her grandmother if the gift was okay, she washed two apples in water from the well and blessed the girls with them. “That was the best apple I ever had. I ate it all but the stem!” Another example of an abundance of giving, and sacrifice. 

There is also an abundance of community. At our group talk last night, we heard of one house recipient who was going along with a member of our team to screw two sheets of metal together around the perimeter of the house. At each corner of the house stood another lady. Friends, who were encouraging the soon-to-be new homeowner, as she progressed through this task. And in our interviews with the families after the houses are built, we hear their hearts and their stories. They all have an abundance of gratitude as they share how a house will greatly impact their lives…to help them be able to raise a family in a house without having to move locations, to have a cement floor, to have a lock on a door, to have a window that opens and closes. 

When we consider purchasing a new house back home in Canada, how often do we evaluate how many bathrooms and bedrooms there are in relation to people living there, to optimize the space each individual can live in? These houses we are building are not large. One house that is being built this week will house 9 family members. The toilet we had access to for two of the morning build sites was not at the house we were building. It was around back, down into a valley and up the other side to a neighbouring house. A cement toilet in a three walled structure with a piece of fabric for a door. A community outhouse. There is abundance in simplicity. 

As I introduce myself to the family members during our interviews, I am sharing about how despite the difference in countries, we serve the same God. The God of abundant love, and abundant grace. Praise be to Him, our Provider!

Nicole