Jeff's El Salvador blog

Honduras Semana Santa Trip

2009-04-13T11:59:00.000-07:00

Last month 5 of us went with some Salvadorean Cruzada staff and 5 students, 4 from Matias and 1 from Evangelica, on a Semana Santa trip to Honduras. Semana Santa is kind of like spring break here, except it's for everyone in Central America to have off to be with family, go vacation, do things with church and for some, celebrate Jesus' death and resurrection. But we took the opportunity to go out to Honduras and take the gospel to some poor rural communities.

We took 2 12-passenger vans northeast with luggage for all 16 of us and equipment to show the Jesus film in public (3 old school projection systems with 5 cases each, probably totalling 300 pounds.) We headed out at 7:30 am and drove 9 hours through El Salvador and Honduras, with me driving the Cruzada van and Manuel driving a rented van with a lot more power. I ended up trailing pretty far behind much of the time because of significantly inferior power and tons of big hills and windy roads almost the entire way. We saw many crazy passes on the two-lane highway we were on, and drivers with little concern for their own safety or the safety of others.

We finally arrived in Honduras at 4:30 with sore butts, coming to a kind of camping area with a bunch of tents set up, and old buses set up on blocks to provide extra living space. The biggest tent had a big stage set up for music and dancing, and plenty of room for chairs. The whole thing looked like an old hippie tent revival.

We really had no idea what to expect with this whole thing, and knew that as Central American culture goes, anything we had planned could be completely thrown out the window and replaced with something new. So we were quickly told upon arrival that we would be split up into 3 teams and go to different towns for most of the rest of the trip. Manuel told us that Kristen, Joe and Brenna would go with three Matias students, Ruben, Herman and Jenny, that Jenna and I would go with 2 staff, Selegna (from Panama) and Janette, and a student from Matias, Jairo, and that Manuel would go with his son Geovanny, Rocio (a girl from Evangelica), and this lady Veronica and her son Daniel, who I had no idea how were connected to the group at all. And so the adventure continued!

Our team got into the back of a pick-up and rode to Zacapa, a little town with about 1000 people, mostly dirt roads, a town square with a park adjacent to the Catholic church -- the biggest building in town -- and streets dominated by kids, dogs and chickens all running around unrestrained. We quickly found out that we would be splitting up for sleeping and eating. The girls were in one house with one pastor, Jairo was in another, and I in another with another pastor. My house was all the way across town, and I had to take my stuff nearly a mile over there the first night, but a couple kids helped me out.

The pastor and his family had a nice house, as houses in Zacapa go, and they were very nice and hospitable. I did feel really awkward being a gringo there and being the only one, and it didn't help that they really weren't too social and didn't engage me much. I ate most of my meals alone, for whatever reason I know not, and after a couple unfortunate plates, ended up being apprehensive of what would come next. At lunch on the second day I came up to the table to find a bowl of soup which didn't appear too harmless at first, but ended up being quite the experience. Mandongo as I learned it was called, consists of plantane, potato, squash, and cow liver (tripa) and just about made me vomit. The cow liver was about as tough as a car tire except slimy, and I spent so long trying to chew one piece that I looked around for possible witnesses and spit it out into a napkin and put it in my pocket.

As for ministry, one afternoon we taught a bunch of youth in the church we were helping the 4 Spiritual Laws. One Guatemalen that was with us drilled them for an hour, just having them memorize each point and the scripture references associated with them. Then we showed the Jesus film -- kids version -- twice, once in the church and once in the town square. The second time we were feeling a lot of discouragement for showing it as we walked around town and saw a version of it playing in many homes. We wondered, has everyone seen this already? And the pastor whose church we worked at was asking us are you really showing this again? But ultimately we felt led to still do it and though it seemed like no one would show up, there ended up being over 100 people with dozens that accepted Christ!

The trip was so cool in how it allowed us to connect with students of Matias and allow them to lead out and take steps of faith. At the Jesus film in town, I went with one of our student leaders, Jairo, and he led a lady and her kids through the 4 Spiritual Laws and his testimony, with the end result of her accepting Christ with tears in her eyes. It was so cool!

On the third day, we left to go have a kind of debriefing time at the beach, where, believe it or not, we stayed at a military base! We got a big warm welcome from some soldiers that scolded us for taking pictures on the base, which is a big no-no apparently. We slept in the barracks alongside some soldiers, on hard concrete floors, and the Central Americans played loud games and sang songs all night right outside where Joe and I were trying to sleep -- it seems like they just don't value sleep like Americans do. We also were scolded for playing cards on base, which was fun too. But the coolest part of this part of the trip was hearing students tell stories from the week, how they were impacted and how they saw God move.

But I think the beach was the most memorable part of Honduras. When I heard this was a port city, I knew it wasn't a good sign, but I could have never been prepared for what I witnessed. Trash like you would never imagine, drunk people watching distasteful beach concerts, stagnant water crammed with people and even a huge shipwreck. Joe's comment was "Even if you told me to imagine the worst beach I could imagine, I never would have imagined one this bad."

The last thing we had to do to complete our grand adventure was make the little 12 hour jaunt back to El Salvador. For some reason, Central Americans feel the need to start super early for things in the morning -- probably because so much time gets wasted later on -- so we were leaving the base in our vans at 4 am. Then I drove one of the vans the ENTIRE way home. I just got in a groove, popped my iPod headphones in my ears and charged it, with a carfull of sleeping girls. Joe also did an awesome job driving with a carfull of loud Salvadoreans. All in all it was a great trip that I will remember for a long time.

Spring Break

2009-03-31T14:31:00.000-07:00

We've had a really crazy last few weeks with El Salvador national elections, people coming to visit, a little team crisis which I will explain further later, and finally the spring break team from Cal Poly, SLO coming for a week from the 22nd to the 28th. There were no less than 30 people! This was way bigger than the team of 13 that I came with last year and bigger than most other spring break trips that SLO Crusade has ever sent, domestic trips included. The idea of that many people coming was a bit daunting in the wake of the things just mentioned, but it turned out to be such a blessing and boost of energy for our team.

The 30th passenger on the airpline from LA was a secret passenger, and happened to be Matt Hall, my teammate Brenna's boyfriend. He told some of the rest of us previously that he would be coming down with the spring break team to see and propose to Brenna and that we had to keep it a secret! So Trev picked him up at the airport behind everyone else that had just left in the vans, and brought him to the girls house where Brenna couldn't wait to jump on skype to talk to him when she got there. He stayed in one of the other rooms as she came in, talked to her online for a bit, and went and knocked on her door, ring in pocket. She opened it to him on a knee and asking if she would marry him, to which she could only reply "Oh.... my.... GOSH," which was followed by a pause and Matt having to ask the question again, to which she finally exclaimed, "Yes!!!" I had the pleasure of taking some engagement photos for them.

On Sunday we took the team out to Juayua where we exposed them to all kinds of exotic native foods and street shopping, then took them to a coffee plantation along La Ruta de Los Flores. I hadn't been there since our first week in El Salvador so it was great to go back. The team ordered all kinds of cake and pie and awesome fresh coffee and had fun hiking around the beautiful plantation. It was so fun seeing how new and exciting everything was to them and reminded me of how it felt for me the first month or so that I was here. It reminded me of how cool and interesting this place really is, when a lot of things have just gotten so commonplace. Trevor heard Dustin Yoder (a Crusade intern in SLO) exclaiming one day as they waked by some random tree, "This is a ficus!" I thought it was so funny how crazy they thought the driving was and how amazed they were with my ease as they held on tight as I dodged motorcycles, cars coming into my oncoming lane, and unpredictable roundabout traffic. One student asserted "Wow, you're going to get so many tickets when you get back to the states!" Again, I guess I've just gotten really used to some things here!

Hunting for food in Juayua. Get the frog!

Feeding the animals at the plantation.

I had been put in charge as our team's outreach leader to plan a campus outreach for the team to participate in, which would end in a big "fiesta" for all of us and Salvadorean students on Wednesday night. The idea that the Spirit led me to was a "Heroes" themed outreach, which originally came to mind as I thought about how funny it would be if everyone dressed up as superheroes on campus for a few days. That didn't happen, but we did make a survey that asked questions like "Who are your heroes?", "What are qualities of heroes?" and "What kinds of sacifices has your hero made? How has this affected you?" We also had two huge blank banners that we posted up in the hallways with the latter two questions for people to freely respond to by writing down their thoughts. We had the outreach from Monday to Wednesday but after one day they were completely full!

One of the discussion walls we put up. Sooo full.

Spring breakers brought so much enthusiasm to both Matias campuses (we finally got access to Campus 2!) and the Lord blessed them with so many amazing conversations and so many students He had prepared for hearing the gospel taking the next step in their faith. My team heard story after story after story of good conversations whether or not the survey was used, and they came out of those three days on campus loving Salvadorean students and really seeing a spiritual hunger and need for Jesus on both campuses.

The Wednesday night party was indeed hero themed and I dressed up as our director Layo, a costume which included khaki pants, a short sleeve button up shirt with plenty of chest hair showing and a towel stuffed into my shirt for a belly. He and his wife loved it. It was fun. It was great to do some line-dancing again with people who still got "the fever" from SLO, see students interacting with some Salvadoreans, have some great pupusas for dinner, and watch a Spiderman piñata torn limb from limb.

On Thursday we went to Victoria, our favorite town out in the boonies of El Salvador by the Honduran border to do some humanitarian work out there. I spent the day bonding with some awesome spring break guys (and one girl -- yeah Sarah Kelly!) as we painted a church building. Other students played soccer with some high schoolers (getting their butts handed to them) and others spent some quality time with some small school children. It was an awesome fun, rewarding day. On Friday we had a beach day where a bunch of people surfed, many for the first time and others sat and had fresh fruit smoothies ("frozens") by the pool. We had fun hanging out and having great conversations about the week, and even about the possiblity of some spring breakers coming back for STINT (maybe even next year!)

A school in Victoria (photo by Joe)

They left on Saturday and we took both Monday and Tuesday off of campus to recover! But it was so incredible having them here, helping to give us a big boost of energy to go back on campus and win students to Christ with passion.

(Also a school in Victoria.)

Matias Bible Study!

2009-03-19T15:48:00.001-07:00

We have a Bible study for students now! We're so excited about a recent big step in our movement here, in forming a weekly co-ed Bible study for students to come to. This is the next big step for us in moving towards a cohesive community of students that strides together with Christ. We've had it 2 times now, and students of both genders have come each time to have our Salvadorean staff, Manuel and his wife Cecy, lead them through studying God's word. Both times, my reliable disciple José Valencia, came and was an enthusiastic contributor.

Today we studied Colossians 2:6-15, which part of the passage says: "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross." José shared the experience where he went out to share the gospel with me on campus (his first time doing it on campus!) and the 4 students we talked to seemed very unsure of their salvation, saying on a scale from 1-10 that they were a 5 in how sure they were they'd go to Heaven. But he got it that we should be totally sure (a 10!), by God's grace and Jesus' triumphant victory over death, that we're saved.

We're looking forward to having more weekly Bible studies on campus, and eventually having ones that are not co-ed and able to go deeper into personal issues and spiritual topics. We hope to start a weekly meeting in the next several weeks as well, in a hope to further develop community and momentum for the movement on Matias. Please pray for these things, in addition to praying for José's continuing growth in the knowledge of Christ and development into a student leader in our movement.

Mid-Year Vacation: Costa Rica

2009-02-13T22:23:00.000-08:00

Due to us being the first STINT team to go to El Salvador, things weren't really set up perfectly for our mid-year vacation and retreat, so we had to plan both of them. Our vacation was in mid-January for which we decided to go Costa Rica. That was a ton of fun, so relaxing for us and a great time to recharge before getting back into the full swing of things on campus. We stayed just outside of Jaco on the Pacific side of the country in a couple bungalows right by the beach. Lauren led the charge in finding our lodging because she was quite driven to be somewhere where surf was plentiful.

Surfer at the beach in front of our bungalows

We spent most days there laying by the pool, body-surfing in the water, or just sitting on our porch and reading. It was sooo laid back. It was also way more humid and overall more hot than El Salvador, so it left you not really wanting to move around much, which was especially good for people like me that often have a hard time stopping themselves from moving. After watching spectacular sunsets (props to God), we barbecued for dinner, which was sooo nice for us guys who hadn't had the chance to express our grill skills before then on STINT. We bonded well over grilling steak, chicken, burgers and veggies.

However, excitement was something that was not lacking on our vacation. Throughout the week we saw big floppy things flying a few feet out of the water, soon to be identified by Lauren as stingrays, right after she claimed seeing one leap a clean 10 feet out of water. Well, Trev and Brandon and I were out body-surfing one day when one really big wave came which Trev and I were awaiting to dive under; however, we were immediately deterred by the sight of maybe 8 to 10 stingrays suspended in the face of our wave like paintings on a wall. We looked at each other in complete astonishment and started swimming away from the wave though we knew this would just leave us tumbling in its white wash. We made it away fine, along with Brandon who was probably even closer to them than us but hadn't seen them.

Injuries were also part of our trip. A bunch of us were out throwing the frisbee around in the really shallow ocean water when we decided it would be fun to make some diving catches. Well, this was fun for a while, but I think I got a little too confident in the 1 foot of water's ability to break my fall, and lo and behold, I ended up with a separated shoulder. Really painful, and I've still probably got a few weeks to go before I'm fully recovered. I haven't been able to run or anything.

Beach at Manuel Antonio national park

My favorite day of the vacation was when we made it out to Manuel Antonio Park, possibly Costa Rica's most beautiful national park. We took a bus -- which we nearly missed -- for $4 and 2 hours down the coast to get there, and then we strolled through some tropical rainforest, checking out some sloths, lizards, birds and monkeys, and finally arriving at an absolutely gorgeous secluded beach. There we snorkeled, laid out and explored. So amazing. God is a good artist and maker.

Sloth chillin in the trees

First Week on the New Campus

2009-02-05T09:31:00.000-08:00

After a very long and, in many ways, difficult break, we started work back on campus last Monday. It was our first day all together on Universidad Matias Delgado, and the start of a very busy week of ministry which centered around reaching the brand new freshman class. The last week of our break was a big planning week and we planned a bunch of events to get our name out there, meet new students and get the gospel to the students of Matias. We made calenders of our first month and a half to give out to students, which included a Valentine's Day event we call Amor Real -- an outreach -- an English event, which we hope to develop into an English club, a movie outing, a Super Bowl party at our house and a big pizza party and raffle the first Friday of school. All of this was aimed at bringing in students to hear about Vida Estudiantil, gathering Christian students into community, inviting non-believers into a life-transforming relationship with Jesus and being a service to students.

We had a table set up on campus with free stuff for students, our calenders, fliers for the pizza event and contact cards for students to fill out, if they were interesed in hearing more about Vida Estudiantil. We also had a big banner with our brand new Vida Estudiantil logo designed by our very own Lauren Sexton. It looks epic, which is especially important at Matias because it has a very big art department with the country's best art and design students. We spent the week meeting masses of new students, looking for freshmen especially, sharing the gospel, telling people about our vision and reason for being there, and inviting them to the huge Friday event, the climax of the week. It was so exciting to see students so excited about Vida Estudiantil and our mission on campus, and actually coming to us to hear more and asking how they can be involved.

<--Our table with students filling out cards + the old banner

The most exciting moment of the week for me was on Tuesday, the first day we had the table set up on campus, when a huge flock of freshmen communictions students came to our table en masse to fill out contact cards and meet us. One girl from the group came over and was so excited about it, then went back to her group of about 20 chicos and chicas. I went over to try to get some students to come over to the table and when I got to this group, that same girl invited me to tell all of them about Vida Estudiantil. I didn't have to say much before every last one of them came over to the table and were filling out contact cards, asking how they could help and asking about our various events. I was stoked out of my mind.

The Friday event was a huge success as well. Bean and I were in charge of food and bought 27 pizzas for the event, all of which got eaten. Passing out pizza to students who -- unlike in the states -- never get free food given to them at school, or even anywhere, was a great way to serve them and draw them to hear more about us. We raffled off a purse for the girls, a soccer ball with bag for the guys and a brand new Vida Estudiantil shirt with the new logo. The students were so excited about that part. We got to meet so many students who were excited about what we're doing, and even a handful of students who were involved with the small ministry that was here before we came. Our Panamanean staff member, Selegna, filmed the entire time with her professional camera, helping to draw even more attention, and Manuel, another staff member, MC'd with our sound system.

Bean and I passing out pizza and meeting students ------------->

Victoria

2009-01-22T19:35:00.001-08:00

We had quite the adventure today. We've been wanting to get out and do some work in the community here for quite some time and we're still hoping to make community service / helping the poor part of our ministry here. So we were very excited when given the opportunity to go visit a school out in the outlying mountains of El Salvador, outside of a small town called Victoria. We didn't know exactly what we'd be doing but knew it had something to do with giving out school supplies to kids.

Well, this turned into a crazy adventure, as I've already mentioned. We had to meet at our director's cousin's church at 6am to meet to caravan out to the school. We got up and were actually all in pretty good spirits for this exciting opportunity to serve and get our hands dirty out in the countryside. After having a great Salvadorean breakfast made free for us at a restaurant owned by some friends of the people we went with, we set out to school trailing behind our Salvadorean friends hauling a truckload full of boxes with backpacks and school supplies.

The roads were intense and I was seriously doubting our Kia microbus even had a prayer. But we made it to the school and it was so fun seeing the kids so excited about getting a backpack and supplies. It was also funny to see them totally in wonder of seeing white people, which they had probably never seen in person before. Their teachers had them form lines, smallest to biggest to go through and get backpacks and they took what was given without ever complaining even some were much better than others. They were just so overjoyed by this free gift. Makes me think of something God did for us.... hmmm....

So as we were getting done, our leader tells us we have to leave quick because we still have a couple schools to hit up. Turned out they had plans to take us to 4 schools that day, which we did finally accomplish, ending somewhere around 4:30. But every kid at every school ended up with a backpack. We probably ended up passing out around 300 mochilas.

But this adventure was not complete without one of the van's in our caravan running out of gas, for which we tried syphoning some out of our van. This was unsuccessful but left one of our guides with the taste of gasoline in his mouth -- you have to suck the gas out through a hose -- eeek. And finally the day ended with us getting a flat tire while driving on the highway home. But miracoulously -- totally something set up by God -- we rolled to a stop right in front of a little tire repair shop. 30 minutes and 8 bucks later and we were back in business! It was a fun day.

The Holidays, El Sal Style

2009-01-13T20:02:00.000-08:00

Sorry it's been a while since my last update, but I'll fill you in briefly on our holiday season here, with more to follow soon. We had a huge influx of parents, siblings and boyfriends over the holidays which made life quite different. We celebrated a Salvadorean Christmas on the 24th (that's when they celebrate it here) by sitting on our roof and watching a massive, chaotic display of fireworks all across the city. Our whole team along with a bunch of siblings sat up there and watched the show begin at midnight and we sat with our jaws hitting the floor at the panoramic view of flashing lights and the incessant sound of popping and crashing. They celebrate the Savior's birth in style! And they also have very few safety regulations, and besides, no one ever gets in trouble for anything here, let's be honest. We played it safe with a safe with a few -- well, 100 -- sparklers of all sizes.

Christmas morning was quite different, but still fun. All the families that were there (3 of em at this point) came over in the morning and we made a big breakfast and sat around and watched those that had them open presents. It was funny being with my team and a bunch of parents and siblings, but not my own for Christmas, but it was still a good time.

My family came on the 26th, flying in early with Kristen Potter's family. We decided to rent a big 15 passenger van to cart both families around together for the week, as Kristen couldn't envision anyone in her family driving around this city with these drivers, with me as the driver. We thought we were originally just getting a 10 passenger van, but we ended up with this beast. People on the side of the road were trying to wave us down thinking it might be their bus! JK.

The first couple trips we did with it involved fully packing it out with people, so as to minimize cars we were taking. It was fun dodging the cars coming at me in my lane as they tried to pass, the stray dogs, and the buses who cut you off without thinking twice. But then it was just the two families. My family was staying at the Hilton so I decided to stay with them which made logistics much easier with us meeting and getting around. So we ended up just hanging out there a lot of the time, which was quite relaxing and made me feel like I was on vacation and not even in the same city I'd been living in for the last 4 months. So weird.

New Years was one of the most fun I've ever had as my family and the Potters celebrated together, and watched the fireworks (even crazier than before) from the Potters' hotel room on the 9th floor.
Olesons and Potters at the beach.

Luke Potter, making a sand castle.

Men's Retreat

2008-12-23T11:36:00.000-08:00

We've been off campus for the past couple weeks now that school has been out for break and it's allowed us a lot of time to do fun stuff. A few visitors came, including two different significant others and Robb Wilkinson, who came on the spring break trip here with me in March, and who's now living in my house in SLO. It was awesome seeing Robb, who was a joy to have stay at our house. He went to Guatemala for a few days in the middle of the 12 days he was here, and miraculously got back -- we didn't think he would, especially with his very limited Spanglish.

After all this we had a little overnighter -- some might say retreat -- for the guys on the team, out at El Parque Nacional de Los Volcanes. This was a huge blessing for us as we've really been needing more time away, and more than just a few hours during the day. We've also been needing some quality time just for the guys to bond and care for one another. Though overall I think we've done well being honest with one another, we've still been lacking some vulnerability and depth in our relationships lately. So this was an awesome way to connect with each other, sharing stuff that has been on our hearts, whether it be gratitude or confession or encouragement.

We stayed overnight at the National Park's visitor's center, interestingly situated in the crater of the Cerro Verde volcano. We joked how being there was like being at summer camp, which actually gives you a good idea of what it was like. There was a "cafetería" which was a tiny little snack shack kind of thing, 6 little cabins with 3 beds and a bath that had that same camp cabin smell of dirt and disinfectant, and little trails you could walk on for views and exploration. We actually really loved staying there, especially for the amazing views it afforded of surrounding cities and volcanoes. Pretty awesome place.

We got in on Sunday and on Monday we climbed Volcán Izalco, one of the world's youngest volcanoes, thus making it one of the best formed -- and most difficult to climb. It was a huge pile of loose volcanic rock that made climbing difficult for us, especially with there being knee problems and other injuries or sicknesses. At a lookout point during the drive up on Sunday we met René and his godson, Andy, two guys originally from Honduras who are avid hikers and volcano climbers. They had tried to climb Izalco before but were unsuccessful because there weren't enough climbers for the guides to take up, so they were very excited that we were also planning on summiting. We thought it would only be us and the guides, but were very surprised when dozens of other people including families with kids came up with us. We didn't feel so hard core when we saw this, though a lot of these people didn't make it all the way up.

Our guides included a park worker and two tourist policemen, one of which charged the volcano like it was a molehill. We had to go down the Cerro Verde volcano first, a 1800 ft. descent, then up Izalco, another 1600 ft or so. Then back down Izalco and up Cerro Verde, so we really climbed two volcanoes in the span of 3 and a half hours. Izalco's summit elevation is about 6000 feet, and Cerro Verde about 6800. Here's some pictures of Izalco and us.

Newsboys!

2008-12-13T08:14:00.000-08:00

So, another random Christian band came through here to play a show, and I think the title of this post betrays who it was. Yes, the Newsboys (insert girls screaming with delight here). I was much more excited about this show than the last one with Hillsong, though it was the opposite with most Salvadoreans, as Hillsong has songs in Spanish. But the Newsboys concert actually ended up being a lot better too. It was a free concert for charity -- had to bring in canned food -- but as we know some pretty awesome Salvadoreans, we also got VIP passes which allowed us seats way up front.

So we brought in our box of Captain Crunch -- separate from the food drive food, it's a Newsboys thing -- and got some awesome seats. There were maybe 4000 white plastic chairs set up neatly in rows in this huge convention center room at the fairgrounds, and there were soon 4000 stairs thrown haphazardly about as the Newsboys came on stage. People started standing up on chairs right in front of us and everyone just pushed towards the stage, despite MC's telling them they couldn't do any of this. But this is pretty characteristic of things here in that few Salvadoreans actually follow rules and there's hardly ever consequences for breaking them.

But we had tons of fun especially when the old classics come on, like Shine, Entertaining Angels, and Breakfast (which includes "Captain Crunch" in the chorus -- we threw some everywhere when this was sung). Yay for British bands. They seem like they're much more likely to come to a place like El Salvador. I guess their little island is too small for huge tours within itself.

Role Out!!

2008-11-28T15:17:00.001-08:00

Well, it's been a while since I posted something, so I'll try and give some of the most significant happenings here. It was after much anticipation that 8 of us team-members (minus Trev and Kristen, our leaders) requested and received our roles on the team. Many of us had been having a hard time finding our place on the team or taking ownership, and so we were very happy to take responsibility for different components of our work here. Trevor and Kristen planned a big "roles" day for us where they decorated with toilet paper (roles), put up happy birthday signs with "roles" replacing birthday, gave us roles of Lifesavers and told us each our 2 roles one at a time as they called us out onto the balcony of the girls house.

So here's our roles:

Trev and Kristen: Team leaders (so many different things entailed here)

Jenna:

Campus Liason: Communicating with campus administration; explore ways of partnering with or serving the university; notify administration of any activities that affect them.
Student Events Leader: Leads the team in gathering the students for community events, possibly including a weekly meeting in the future.

Bean:

Prayer / Encouragement Leader: Focus the team on and lay a foundation of prayer; lead our team in making each individual valued.
Freshmen Outreach Leader: Explores ways of contacting / reaching out to freshmen every semester.

Brandon:

Transportation Leader: Communicate and coordinate transportation needs for the week ( we only have two cars amongst us):
Men's Bible Study Leader: Set direction for the men's on-campus Bible studies; not leading the studies themselves but leading them in purpose vision and content.

Lauren:

Women's Time Leader: Give direction and leadership to weekly men's / women's sharing times.
Foundation Layer: Paints a very broad and accurate picture of what life is like here; pursue interested students in our Pacific Southwest Region for future STINT teams; compile a book of all gathered information.

Brenna:

Team Communication leader: Set out an outline of a weekly team schedule at the outset of each week; as people come to this person with relevant information, they will be in charge to effectively communicate new or pertinent information.
Women's Bible study leader: Same as men's BS leader, but for women.

Joe ("Chepe"):

Team Activities Leader: Coordinate bi-weekly team fun times on Fridays; have a rotating monthly partner to assist in planning these times
Spanish Leader: Evaluate the next steps for Spanish learning and connect us to whatever resources we need to see this happen

Marijke:

Outside Communication leader: Encourage people to keep their supporters updated; encourage and coordinate team-wide correspondence with the "outside"; report ministry statistics to PSW each month
Database Leader: Keep contacts database up to date, including a record of follow-up / discipleship status.

Jeff (Me):

Outreach Leader: Lead our team in Evangelizing our campus broadly and creatively; this includes daily evangelism tools, as well as envisioning and coordinating campus-wide outreach events.
Men's Time Leader: Same as Women's one above, but for men. Includes things like accountability.

Yes, I'm a Gringo, but I speak Spanish!

2008-11-19T09:47:00.000-08:00

This sentence expresses the feeling of frustration I had as the result of a couple experiences during my time here. One time I was having a meal with the other guys on the team at our house when a lady from our phone company called about our service. Spanish is especially hard on the phone, so I was having a hard time understanding what she was saying. But after a while, she says in Spanish "why can't you understand?" and I reply in English "Because I don't speak Spanish well!" The other guys were there just hearing my end of the conversation and started busting up when they heard this, because they knew exactly what she must've said.

Another time, Lauren and I were looking for surfboards to rent out at Costa del Sol when we drove into a recreation center. I started asking one of the guards in clear Spanish where we could rent a board and got out a few sentences before he says "No hablo inglés," to which I replied "Estoy hablando Español!" Lauren thought it was really funny, and I guess I did too. To sum up, it's humbling trying to speak someone else's language, and I so appreciate the people that are patient and encouraging in the process of me learning it.

Another Car and an Interesting Beach Trip

2008-11-16T21:48:00.001-08:00

After much anticipation, we finally got a second car last week. The phrase of STINT for us had become "when we get a second car..." because we were realizing how many problems this would solve. On Tuesday, Brandon and Trevor surprised us by rolling up to the house, blaring the horn and bumping some music with a 2001 Honda Accord. We saw this one as another huge blessing from the Lord, and we're already enjoying the stress it takes off us in difficult transportation planning and the freedom it gives us in travel.

We took advantage of this new blessing today and went to the beach for only the third time, with Xavier, a Salvadorean student, as our guide. We gained beach access by having lunch at a restaurant right on the sand and ate, hung in hammocks and swam in the ocean. Brandon, Xavier and I watched as the tide went out and revealed a pool made of rock and concrete on the end of a rock jetty. The waves were getting smaller and smaller, so we decided to go out there and check it out, and seeing there was a romantic couple hanging out in there, we considered it safe. Well, we got there and would have done fine just being in the pool, but decided, against our better judgment, that we wanted to sit on the wall facing the waves coming in. We even told ourselves that this was probably a stupid idea, but we wanted the adventure of it. And sure enough, after several waves, there came on big enough to knock us off the wall and into the jagged and rocky pool of water behind. I got it the worst and came out with huge scrapes on my back, ankle, hand and butt. I hope I get scars.

5.1

2008-11-15T22:19:00.001-08:00

I remembered another thing that happened today that I really want to share (really, how could I forget it?). We were playing Boulderdash as a team in the girls' living room and I was reading some answers when the room started shaking. At first we thought it was some kind of big vehicle coming up to the house, or maybe a bulldozer knocking it over, but after about 10 seconds of just staring at each other in confusion, we realized it was an earthquake and all jumped up and headed outside or into doorways. It was pretty long -- maybe 40 seconds -- and significant, and I think it was the biggest earthquake I've actually felt since the '89 Loma Prieta Earthquake (6.6). This was a 5.1, and enough to make things interesting. Almost immediately afterwards, Rosa called one of the girls and made sure we were alright. To Salvadoreans earthquakes are totally normal as San Salvador is situated right next to a big volcano, but some of them are concerned we gringos would be terrified by them. Though we are from California, it was very sweet of her.

Rosa

2008-11-15T21:58:00.000-08:00

About a month ago, Marijke and I met a girl, Rosa, on campus at UFG while we were out sharing our faith. While at first she had a bad attitude towards us coming up and talking with her about the gospel, God quickly took her heart and the girls have been meeting with her consistently ever since. She's become one of our best Salvadorean friends and she's brought along some guy friends with her as well, so Joe and I have had some guys to meet with and poor into a bit.

Well tonight we went out to celebrate her birthday at a Tapas restaurant. I had never had Tapas and was confused what we were doing as we looked at the menu that had no real entrees. So I guess this Tapas thing means you just have a bunch of appetizers as your meal. Anyways, we have this birthday tradition here as STINTers of everyone at the table sharing something they love about the person whose birthday it is, so we did this for Rosa as well. There were so many great things to share about this awesome girl whose life is changing so much right now. But then she turned around and shared what she loved about each of the 7 of us who were with her (5 STINTers and 2 Salvadorean students). Tears came to her eyes as she shared how thankful she was for us, and how God had been using each of us in special ways in her life. It was a real amazing night.

2008-11-08T22:13:00.000-08:00

We had two former Cal Poly, SLO Crusade staff members, now directors at Cal Berkeley come last week. Dan and Deb Goodson are two people I love very, very much and was so excited to see them come. It was a crazy busy week, but full of encouragement and new perspective on our ministry here.

Being a pioneering team can be really hard, often discouraging work, with few obvious results, so tears almost came to some of our eyes when Dan Goodson told us repeatedly in one meeting "You guys are doing a GREAT job." I'm sometimes prone to falling into a performance-based mentality here, thinking that I'm not doing a good job when I'm not seeing a lot of visible results with ministry, so this encouragement meant worlds to me. Dan and Deb also talked to us a lot about keeping our ministry in perspective here, knowing that the partnership here will be at least 5 years long, probably more like 10 or more. If you have ever helped build a house, the foundation work is always the most grueling and slowest process to yield visible results. So it is with movement-building, but we want to lay a solid foundation centered on Christ, because it will effect the ministries of STINT teams like ourselves for years to come.

Well, after discussing a lot of things having to do with our mission and vision here, we have A LOT to talk about as a team. Starting tomorrow, we will be casting new vision for this year, coming up with clear mission and vision statements for our team specifically and making a lot of constructive changes. I'm excited, but please pray for these things!

Hillsong!

2008-11-04T19:19:00.000-08:00

There was a lot of stir amongst the younger Christians of El Salvador (and many of the older ones even) as they awaited Hillsong coming to town. And we thought it would be worth dropping $15 for some of the cheaper seats to go as well. We prepared by listening to their Spanish album over and over again to learn the songs, just to come to the concert and hear them sing it all in English on Wednesday at the Gimnasio Nacional. It was really fun though, as we saw plenty of our students there, and some of them even sat with us.

There was a kind of goofy opening worship group, then a confusing and graphic (eg: spraying blood) skit, and then a big long personal introduction to all the sponsors of the concert. All stuff which I'm sure is culturally weird to us because we're gringos. But the worship with Hillsong was great when they finally came on. What was really cool for me was seeing corporate worship of believers from all over the city (and maybe even country) and many non-believers as well. It helped me visualize Salvadoreans more holistically, bringing my heart more into a place of loving Salvadoreans as a people, and desiring true spiritual revolution in their country.

But even more cool than that, we brought Rosa, a student from Gavidia, with us. She's the one our girls have been spending the most time with, and has reflected on her life deeply in consideration of the gospel, and has started to desire something more. The concert ended up being a really emotional experience for her as the Lord continued to work on her heart in these things, so much so that she had to step out for a while. He's doing good things.

The Rain Has Gone, the Wind Has Come

2008-10-28T22:46:00.000-07:00

So the title pretty much explains it all here. It seems the rainy season is pretty much over, but this has beckoned in a period of very very windy days, which Salvadoreans say typically lasts about a month. I was so so happy when the skies started to clear up and the sun started to shine, because a sunny day almost always puts me in a good mood. And we've had plenty of those over the past week or so, so I've been in a good mood more often :) Haha, it sounds funny, but it's actually true.

Yet while the skies have cleared up, we've had seemingly hurricane-force winds come in, and it's been madness the past couple days. I could hardly sleep last night as some metal sheeting was banging on our roof, then when we left the house there was stray trash laying on our driveway, then all kinds of leaves and small branches in the girls' garage. And even when we've been inside it's been so loud we've had to raise our voices to speak.

2008-10-27T14:12:00.000-07:00

So we've renamed our teams the Xtreme Team (UFG / UTEC) and the Redeem Team (UEES / Matias) and we're having fun with that. Way better than blue team and red team. And the Xtreme team (Joe, KP, Marijke, Jenna and I) went to have a fun hang-out afternoon yesterday, which was the first time having a scheduled hang-out with just our staff and students. It was good, cause we've been talking and praying for a while now about spending more time getting to know our student leaders, and we're starting to do it more.

Another sweet thing is that we now have a second traveling American friend with us. Ryan Thomas graduated with a Civil Engineering degree from Cal Poly in '07 and Kristen and I know him from Campus Crusade there. He's here for a week or so and staying at the guys house, like Dave. They're having a fun time telling each other about travel experiences and recommending places to go and see.

Anyways, as Ryan, the Xtreme Team, a few students, and our two staff were riding in our Crusade van yesterday, he was talking to the staff and said he'd like to go to the military museum sometime. So 15 minutes later, we show up at the military museum, and we're like "what the heck is going on?" cause the plan we voted on was to go the Parque de la Familia. Haha, but this is so characteristic of our experience with our UFG / UTEC staff here and I guess just the culture in general, so we just rolled with it like we've learned to do so many times before. Then after this we went back up to La Puerta del Diablo and had our best views yet from the lookout point there because the weather has finally cleared up and we're getting some sun. I took these pics up there.

2008-10-25T21:34:00.001-07:00

I had my first solo excursion with Salvadoreans tonight. My friend Christian, who graduated with a law degree from Gavidia, has been wanting to play soccer with us Gringos for a while, and I finally had the opportunity to go and do that with him today. Him and I and 2 other students from Gavidia went to this "soccer field" (aka basketball court) in a part of town I'd never been in and had no idea I was going to to play for a while. We played 4 on 4 against some other random guys that were there, and of course, I got schooled, but they were very encouraging to me.

After the game I had a typical Salvadorean experience with Christian and Marvin as Christian drove to like 10 different places, and really taking his time at each one. Picking up stuff for his dad, picking up his mom and taking her somewhere, showing me the nice indoor field where he really wants to take me and my amigos to play fútbol (which definitely would be a step up from our ghetto street court), picking up some ice cream for dinner, etc. Stuff just is more laid back here, as there was really no rush to get back to my house for dinner.

It was our first time as guys having Salvadoreans over to our house here for dinner, and it was so fun. Marvin is probably the funnest student I know here and he is always joking around, albeit in Spanish, but he's so energetic it doesn't matter. As we rode together in the car tonight, I was helping him understand what some English phrases he'd picked up meant, including "What's the matter with you?" and another one, which I did not approve of but had to laugh at, cause he didn't know it was bad: "What the h*ll man?!" Joe and I actually heard him say this the first time together in the van and we died laughing, but lovingly corrected him.

We Have a New American Friend!

2008-10-14T12:38:00.001-07:00

We got a new friend here in El Salvador! David (second from right in this pic) is an American dude who graduated from NC State and has been in contact with one of our national staff, was referred to stay with us and shadow us in our ministry for a week or two. He's already been on STINT to Argentina and been on countless other mission trips to Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, Latin America and South America. Really cool and interesting guy with -- understandably -- a lot of stories. We're having a great time having him here as he travels throughout much of South and Central America seeking God's direction for his life. He's considering joining as an ICS (International Campus Staff) with Crusade so he's checking out our ministry here in addition to other ministries in countries like Honduras, Brazil and many others.

Unfortunately right now he's really stomach sick probably from something he ate, so pray for him. And pray for Trevor while you're at it, cause he's seemed to come down with it too. David described it in reference to a movie where an alien was about to pop out of some guy's stomach.

In other more encouraging news, I've had the joy of running pretty consistently over the past couple weeks and it's been great for me, relieving stress, having fun and giving me a time to be alone and reflect on things. I found a park which is sponsored by the Citibank headquarters office right by our house and it has a great concrete track that loops around it.

A Concert, Ziplining, and Some Crazy Buses

2008-10-11T16:29:00.000-07:00

We've also had some fun off campus since the last time I posted here. We went up to this place called La Puerta del Diablo ("Devil's Door") which we've been to a few times now, but this was with the whole team. It's this place on top of a mountain that overlooks the city, where you can hike, buy food and drinks and even go ziplining over this small canyon. Jenna, Brandon and I did the zip-line, and we were laughing about how sketchy it seemed but we couldn't resist doing it.

We have a student named Leo who I met over spring break here, and he shared with me then how he writes and performs rap songs. When I came back here, one of the first things he shared with me was how his church was having a concert with a famous Puerta Rican Christian artist coming, and how he was going to be one of the opening acts. So Brandon came with me and getting there involved breaking one of our norms of not taking the sketchy gang-infested buses. We were traveling with Leo and he insisted on taking the bus rather than a cab cause it was cheaper. The buses here are really funny and I'm gonna go off on a tangent right now about them. They go just as fast or faster than the cars and they are really aggressive and will cut you off without thinking twice. They're also all painted with different crazy designs, a common one being Jesus on the cross, and random names or phrases like "The Bird." Then there's always someone hanging out the back door while it moves yelling and calling for people to get on and pay. And the funnest part is when you're behind one and it spews toxic death smoke all over you -- yeah the exhaust is a major problem. Anyways, we watched Leo rap with one of his buddies and it was pretty fun, though we obviously had no idea what he was rapping since it was in Spanish. (There's a picture with these 2 rappers above).

Ministry Progressing

2008-10-10T12:10:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, finally I get some time to make another posting on here, cause I know it's been a while. By far the most exciting thing ministry-wise that has happened recently is that we got to communicate to our campus staff the concerns we had with the movement on UFG (Gavidia) and UTEC. Kristen, Trevor, Layo -- the national director -- and these staff had a meeting a few nights ago and God really blessed it and they seemed to receive our concerns really well. We met with them again last night after a discipleship appointment the guys had on campus and they were so humble in asking for our suggestions in how to best change things. We shared our vision for the ministry and it was so heart-warming to see them listening well, understanding and asking for specific requests on tangible things we can change right now, starting with our student leader meeting we're having tonight. Tonight we're letting our student leaders discuss and share what they believe a movement should be and we're really excited to give them opportunities to share their vision.

Things are starting to progress with some of the students I've met on both campuses. Two weeks ago on UFG I met a student named Ricardo who I've gotten to follow-up with two times. He's a really solid follower of Christ who already regularly shares his faith and knows the Bible very well. Sometimes I think he could be discipling me, which is even easier to believe after I tell you he's 35 with a wife and small daughter. Haha, that's been a funny thing about doing ministry on our two campuses, where class schedules are made for the working person. But really, it hasn't been that weird and most students are closer to our age.

The picture above is of us having a Bible study in English on the UTEC campus in the English building. Davíd, in the red shirt, is the leader of this group and is actually 39 years old. We couldn't believe it, but believed him when he showed us his license and it said 1969 for his birth date. I'm glad I'm not expected to be discipling this guy, at least yet.

2008-09-26T21:55:00.000-07:00

So a lot has happened since last time I put a posting on here. Most importantly, we got over our food poisoning, which we concluded was probably from some bad cilantro we used to make pico de gallo at the beach/ ranch house. The joke was on me when I came down with the sickness as well, after thinking the Lord miraculously spared me so I could care for the others. It didn't last long luckily and I only vomited once -- amongst other things... But we took a week off of ministry while we all recovered.

We've gotten to do a lot more ministry on campus over the past week, which we have been so patiently awaiting. Communicating with UFG / UTEC staff, Alvin and Sylvia, has been much more difficult than we anticipated and has really stretched us, especially in the area of patience and humility. We knew we were a pioneering group coming into this year, and knew we were going to have to be really flexible in our approach to ministry here, but the past few weeks (minus our brief recess to visit the toilet) has shown us how flexible we have really had to be.

A mix of cultural factors and poor communication has left us always wondering what we'll be doing on any given day. We never really know what time we're going to get picked up to go to campus and the planned time can change sometimes as much as 2 hours. Then on campus, we haven't had much of a good idea of what staff would have us do and we would be told we'd be doing something without any warning or discussion. I think the most frustrating thing has been the few times they told us, without prior warning, we were going with student leaders to sit in on classes. Sometimes we would just sit in class and do nothing as the teacher taught a lesson in Spanish, and we saw this as greatly unproductive for us. But luckily there were other times where we went into English classes and got to interact with students and invite them to our English club meetings, which we're using as a way to meet students and test their interest in God.

Despite all the frustration of the past few weeks, things have definitely progressed. I think staff have started to trust our Spanish skills a bit more, giving us more time to witness to and interact with students outside of an English class. But we're also coming together more on the strategy of focusing on English students, because firstly, we can communicate with them much better, and secondly, these tend to be the students with the biggest leadership potential for the future.

We've also started praying a lot more as a team, and with the staff, which can only help things. On Tuesday this week we went with Alvin and Sylvia for a small retreat to go and pray up on this small mountain for a while. It was so good to all pray for one another, and at this point I think we were totally desperate for God's help to empower us with patience, humility and love for one another. So please pray for these things for us. Also, please pray for a couple Christian English students who just started coming to some of our meetings -- Erick and Alex-- that they would really desire to grow in their faith and keep meeting with us. Also pray for a sweet guy who grew up in Boston -- Rody-- I met on UTEC because we heard each other talking English. He is a total leader, he speaks perfect English and he's exactly the kind of student we're looking for to build into in order to have a maximum impact on the country.

2008-09-16T18:34:00.000-07:00

After much anticipation of having some kind of team excursion, we finally were able to leave for a couple days and spend Saturday night at a student's beach house. It wasn't right next to the beach but a close drive, and we had a lot of fun and relaxation at this beautiful well-vegetated place. I had the pleasure of sleeping in the hammock outside while the 17 other people crammed onto beds, slept on the floor or slept in the van. I was excited to finally use my 100% deet.

Going to the beach was sooo fun for us, and we did a lot of body surfing, relaxing in the shade, throwing a frisbee, and getting second degree burns on our feet as we traversed the black sand between the shade and the water. Our first shot at surfing didn't yield fruit, though Lauren tried unsuccessfully. Hopefully the surf will be better next time and we'll remember to apply sunblock more often!

We had an amazing meal saturday night of chorizo and something like flank steak. And that was all fun and games until someone got hurt. Or, all of us got hurt. Yeah, so most of the team has felt deathly ill today, with symptoms ranging from fever and chills, vomiting and stomach pains to the infamous d-train. Funny enough, Kristen and I were the only ones that were somewhat spared, and lucky enough, we happen to be the ESFJ's of the team, a personality type labeled as "the nurturer." No, doesn't sound too manly, but I was doing a lot of "nurturing" today as my roommates could hardly do anything for themselves.

Having a lot of time to myself, today was an opportunity to mediate and pray, especially for my teammates and the for the situation in Orissa, India, where Christians are experiencing unprecedented violent persecution from radical Hindu groups: www.gfa.org
Hasta tarde mis amigos.

Touring Campuses and Learning Spanish

2008-09-12T22:26:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday our UFG/UTEC team got to take our first tour of Francisco Gavidia, which is in downtown El Salvador. We felt pretty awkward walking around, knowing everyone was staring at the gringos, and not really knowing what to do exactly. A bit later, I was able to share the Soularium-- an evangelistic tool using photographs to facilitate spiritual conversation-- with 3 students, with the help of the translation of our staff Alvin. That was very fun and was met by a pretty good response from them. Please pray I would be able to be patient but swift in learning Spanish, because it does really hinder my ability to relate to students and share the gospel.

Although we really don't know why, our campus Vida Estudiantil staff have had us go to multiple classes with VE stu

dents, often just to sit there and not know what's going on, haha. We're learning how to communicate. But the first class I went to was pretty interesting. Jenna, Kristen and I went with 2 students, Leo and Julio, to an event planning class where everyone was dressed to the nines. A charismatic professor led planning for an event for "Intelectuales Salvadarenos" where they're bringing together top educational leaders in the country to discuss the direction of education in the country. In the middle of the discussion, a man who we later found out was like the head-honcho of all radio in the country, came in to help plan the event as well. Everything really got exciting when students walked in with a huge cake flaming with candles for the professor's birthday. And then, we all had cake in class :)

Today we had our first Spanish lesson from, get this, a Russian Jew who has grown up in El Salvador. This man is someone I need to spend some time explaining, because he is one of the most interesting people I've ever met. So he came over to El Salvador when he was a teen, and when he was 17, was asked to be the translator for the president of the country. To get around the over 18, working age law, the president had his legal age changed! Now he s

peaks 9 languages, wears a yamaka, gets up at 3 am every morning, and translates for both current presidential candidates, in addition to helping direct their propaganda. And now his most important duty is teaching us Spanish... for free. I kid not.

To finish off today, our team of 10 went bowling with some of our staff and students, and this allowed us to experience the amazing energy and fun-loving attitudes of our beloved Salvadoreans once again. I was excited that Rody, a student I met while sharing the gospel on UTEC, came to meet and hang out with people. Alvin, a staff-member, and I were really excited getting to meet him, because he's one of those key student leader types we're strategically trying to reach on campus. He grew up in Boston, where I also lived for 2 years, and now he owns a business, teaches Portuguese, works as a translator, and go

es to school as a business student full time. And, best of all, he has background in the church and interest in the gospel.

Getting on Campus and Mapping Out Ministry

2008-09-06T20:35:00.000-07:00

We found out that same night that we were getting split up into two teams of 5 to each take on two campuses. One team is going to Evangelica and Matias Delgado Universities, and that includes Brandon, Trevor, Bean, Lauren and Brenna. The other team is going to Technologica (UTEC) and Francisco Gavidia (UFG) campuses and that team includes Kristen, Jenna, Marijke, Joe and me. The former two schools are made up of full time students who go to class the normal 9 to 6 on average. They are typically wealthier, younger, more likely to speak English and have cars. The latter two campuses have students who typically are working while going to school, thus going to class only in the morning or evening. They are typically more middle-class, older, don't have cars, and speak less English. And that just is what it is.

We were kinda bummed to find out we'd be splitting up. Then our team of 5 was kinda shell-shocked when we heard we would not be on the Evangelica and Matias campuses like we originally thought, because it meant ministry was going to be significantly different for us. But we've quickly accustomed to the new plan and are excited about what God wants to do with us on our two campuses.

We as the UTEC/UFG team have had the pleasure of going on both campuses and meeting some student leaders, participating in a Bible study with them and learning how the ministries on both campuses are operating right now. On UTEC, we'll be using an English club to meet students and test their interest in the gospel or in being discipled. We're excited about this already clear opportunity to outreach, AND speak English. Yes! We just went to a leaders' meeting last night at a student's apartment and learned about the Renuevo (discipleship) and seekers' groups that are meeting every week, and which ones we will be attending to help lead. The way the Renuevo groups work is that one week they will focus on growth and the next, doing evangelism. We loved the energy and (appropriate) playfulness of the student leaders, though they were all older than us. The meeting ended with a birthday celebration for one of the students, David, during which he face planted into his cake. We had to be patient during the meeting as everything was being translated (by David), but it was a lot of fun, and pumped us up.

Second Week in Progress

2008-09-04T23:57:00.000-07:00

Hey friends, so a lot has happened in the few days since my last post, and sorry if you have a lot to read, cause I'm making this second post before I have even told anyone I'm making this, haha. So I can say pretty much anything I want, and no one will ever know... at least until I unveil this great production. Anyways, so we had the great privilege of going over to our national director and his wife's home for dinner one evening. They're both AMAZING people with a huge heart for the people of their country, zealous energy, a strong vision and humbling servant's hearts. They shared their vision for this country and introduced us more to the ministry after dinner, and there were multiple times where we wanted to either get up and cheer or just sit silently and let tears of joy well up in our eyes. Great, now I have to do this statement justice. So we thought we were just coming in to tell some future leaders about Jesus and help them grow in their faith, but they really helped bring our hearts into our ministry. They explained that since the civil war here ended in the late 80s, the percentage of Evangelicals has grown, but the collective morality of Salvadoreans has radically decayed. They explained that this is because mission work has focused on “the masses” but neglected to influence leaders. Far from disregarding the poor, Layo passionately explained that it is because they have such a heart for the impoverished that we want to reach their leaders.

He then explained the major shortcomings in the evangelical church here. He described how the trend in the ministry has been to win students to Christ, build them up in their faith and then lose them to churches that steal their time, don’t feed them and disregard Christ’s call to “make disciples of all nations.” So now part of our mission here is to build community which transcends the university and keeps students connected in a transformative family of believers. We hope that in this way, our disciples will continue to be sharpened as tools to help transform El Salvador and the world.

The man is in El Salvador

2008-08-30T23:33:00.000-07:00

So I'm finally here! After two blocked attempts to STINT in previous years, and 5 months since submitting my last application, I am here. God knows His timing, and it's cool to see all the ways God has prepared me for this-- though I guess I'll never feel fully prepared for this.

The traveling process was long as my and Kristen's moms, with her brother in tow, took her, Brandon and I down to SLO, passing the baton to Melissa Thiede, with Ashley Sickler and Matt Johnston as well. We got there late, woke up early and flew to Houston, had a layover, then flew to El Salvador, arriving at about 9pm their time (we're Mountain time). We got asked a lot more questions than we anticipated by immigration officials, which was comical for some as most officials spoke no English. But once we got through we had maybe 12 quite boisterous friends waiting for us, composed of national staff, their family members and students. They were all wearing Vida Estudiantil (their name for Campus Crusade for Christ on college campuses) shirts and holding huge signs saying stuff like "Bienvenidos Gringos" or something. This welcoming attitude and great hospitality has been a very common theme for us here so far.

As that travel day, I spent the next pretty tired and out of sorts, as we went on a shopping spree for all kinds of stuff. It was really funny to have the director's wife, Luchy, taking us through the grocery store and telling us everything we should get. She practically did all the shopping for us, it was great. And I've NEVER bought so many vegetables and fresh food in my life. Luckily we're not having to cook it for ourselves, cause get this: our house came with a maid. Before you judge, let me explain. So in this country, if you have enough money, you're expected, as a benefit to society, to hire a maid for your home. We decided we could foot the $40 a month per person for this, and be able to focus more fully on ministry without worrying about cooking or cleaning. We're so blessed :) And now we have Julia living with us or "Abuelita" ("grandma") as we call her, an endearing title.

On our second full day, Thursday, we went to one campus, Evangelica, for the Vida Estudiantil weekly meeting there. We helped set up, then invited students sitting around campus to come. This day more than any other, our Spanish skills were put to the test as we had to communicate with most students completely in Spanish. I've been finding myself frustrated trying to understand what people are saying, while having an easier time speaking the language, the opposite problem of most others. We had 10 students show up, but there were 10 of us STINTers, and like 5 staff or VE volunteers. Julio is one of the Evangelica students that has gotten really involved and is the biggest student helper. He speaks flawless English (praise God) as he grew up in Texas after being born in Mexico, then coming here for college. I was excited after the meeting when he started playing music from my favorite band, Anberlin, a not very well known American rock band. In the hour-long meeting we watched videos, played a game, prayed for each other and sang a couple of songs. Then we hung out in the room for a long time sharing food and drinks. This community-building aspect of things is really important to them here, and people will spend lots of time together, usually over or around food. Oh, and we also got in front of the group and introduced ourselves, telling our names and hobbies. I was lucky enough to be able to share all that in Spanish. As long as there were no audience questions, I knew I was good.