Highlights of Family Campaign, June 2017

One of our favorite campaigns of the year is the "family trip."  Not surprisingly, the team is composed of whole families, moms and kids and/or dads and kids.  Christ Chapel Bible Church, Fort Worth, has filled the spots on the family trip for the last three or four years.  

This year, however, the family trip included Christ Chapel, who brought 32 people; Fellowship Bible Church, Russellville, Arkansas, who brought 24 people, and Prestonwood Baptist Church, Plano, Texas, who brought 4 people.  Yes, you read that correctly, there were 60 people on the family trip and half of them were children between the ages of 6 and 17.  

The Arkansas group arrived about noon on Saturday so I road to the airport on the bus with Guillermo.  We wanted to be sure it was easy to find us so I stood outside the airport exit with a sign.  We loaded everyone on the bus and on the way back to town we stopped for lunch at Burger King.  With so many kids, the parents find it easier to eat in their rooms at night which makes a grocery store stop mandatory.  After picking up water and all kinds of snacks we made it to the hotel about 4:00 p.m. 

The two other groups were on the same flight out of Dallas, but their flight was delayed due to storms.  Instead of arriving at 5:30, they didn't land until 7:00 p.m.  It took over an hour for them to exit customs and immigration.  Guillermo drove the bus and Stephen and I drove our pickup to hold luggage.  Thankfully, they ate on the plane so we only had to make the grocery store stop before we took them to the hotel to check-in.  

June Campaign, Sharing in the Schools

We were able to share in five different schools during the week.  Some of the schools were quite small, while others were large.  Four of the five were public K-11 schools, while one was a public vocational school.

The 30 people on the team were divided in to 8 groups.  The value lesson for the week was "Forgiveness."  There were close to 600 professions of faith across the five schools.  

Tuesday was a special day in the school, Canton Las Tunas.  This rural Aguilares schooll has only 190 students; half of them come in the morning and half in the afternoon.  Guillermo, Manuel, Hayden and I visited the school the previous week to see if we could schedule a visit.  The director was very excited to have us and invited all of the students and their parents to come during the morning.  It's always a special privilege to be able to share with the student's parents.  At the conclusion of the classes, we were able to distribute a gift bag full of clothes, school supplies and hygiene items.  The kids and the parents were so excited to receive the gift bags.

Great Week with the Team from CCBC

We had an awesome week with the team of families from Christ Chapel Bible Church in Fort Worth, Texas.  There were nine adults and ten children, most of whom were between seven and fourteen years old.

They all worked so hard sharing the forgiveness lesson at the schools in the morning and sharing door-to-door in the evenings.  The kids used the evangelism cube to share the gospel with other kids and with adults--they were not the least bit shy.

They also used "soccer" as another way to talk to the kids at the schools and in the neighborhoods--it is a universal language here in El Salvador.

On Friday we visited the boys at the Remar orphanage outside of Santa Ana.  It's always a treat for them to have visitors.  We brought food to make lunch (sandwiches, chips, watermelon, cookies, sodas) for the boys and for us.  The team brought board games (Connect 4, checkers, chess, Chinese checkers, Jenga, etc.) and one group played them with the boys, while another group played soccer, of course.  

We ended the week with a trip to Pupuseria Coty in Los Planes de Rendero, a spot high above the city of San Salvador.  Nothing like saying farewell with traditional Salvadoran food.

June campaign with Christ Chapel Bible Church

The family mission trip started today with 19 team members from CCBC in Dallas.  There are nine adults and ten kids.  They landed at 11:30 a.m. and were greeted by Guillermo and the bus.  After a quick lunch at Wendy's they settled into the hotel for a rest.  

We left the apartment about 1:30 to drive to the church in Lourdes so we could pick up the inflatable and generator.  Unfortunately, a traffic accident along the route caused the usual 15-minute drive (on Saturday) to be almost 45 minutes.  In addition, it rained like crazy.  By the time we arrived at church, the rain and let up enough to get everything loaded.  We just barely had time to swing by our apartment before we joined the team for orientation at the hotel.

We returned to the Santa Teresa neighborhood of Apopa where we tried to have a family festival during the May campaign.  Unfortunately, like last time, the rain continued to fall so we were only able to share door-to-door.  The kids in the neighborhood were excited to see us return, but disappointed again when the rain prevented us from setting up the inflatable.  They want to know when we're coming back to try again.

Tomorrow the team will attend the 11:30 service at the hotel.  Please pray for the rain to hold off for the rest of the week.