Trip to the Country

In preparation for the campaign next week, Hayden and I went to Aguilares with Guillermo and Pastor Manuel.  Our task was to make contact with the principal at a poor school and ask if they would let our team share a lesson on forgiveness in the classrooms and then distribute clothes, including more of the dresses made by the ladies from First Baptist, Ferguson, to those children who were in need.

Pastor Manuel picked a school "out in the country," which meant it was at the end of a gravel/dirt road.  He had never been to that particular school, so before we went in he prayed for God to bless our visit and provide us an opportunity to share the gospel with the kids during the upcoming campaign.  We got out of the car and a student opened the gate.  As we approached the principal, he recognized Pastor Manuel--he had previously been a teacher in a different school in Aguilares where Pastor Manuel had visited.  God was so faithful to bless our visit.

We were able to schedule to return with the team next Tuesday morning to share in the classrooms and pass out all of the donated clothes that the team brings.

May Campaign, Part 1

We welcomed a team of 12 people from First Baptist, Ferguson, Missouri, to El Salvador on Saturday afternoon.  Don Laity joined the team, as well.  The Vida Nueva youth had a celebration for their mother's on Saturday night, so we were not able to schedule a family festival.  

We had orientation at the hotel at 4:00 p.m. and then Guillermo picked everyone up in the van and we went to Los Planes for a bit of tourism and some of the best pupusas in the country.  We had the opportunity to go to one of the national parks named, Puerto del Diablo (Devil's Doorway) which got it's name for the whistling sounds produced by the wind blowing between the clefts in the rocky precipices.  We did not have time to make the climb to the top, nor were we brave enough to zip line across the chasm.  

 

Our next stop was Coty's pupusaria.  She and Guillermo have been friends for more than ten years so it is one of our favorite spots for the Salvadoran specialty.  Mark Cote, the Ferguson team leader, was treated to the "giant" birthday pupusa.  

As I have often said, it's a very, very rare person who doesn't like pupusas and this team was no different--100% loved them.

Metro America 0-20

Stephen and I work closely with Guillermo Hernandez--he is charge of the missions activities of our church here in El Salvador.  The mission emphasis is called Metro America 0-20, it is so named because the goal is to plant churches in cities with populations over one million between the 0-20 latitudes (basically from Mexico City, Mexico, to Quito, Ecuador.  We collaborate with Guillermo on all of the mission trips; he is a great man of God and lots of fun to work with.  If you've ever met him, you'll never forget him!

On Sunday, Metro America is having a "garage sale" to raise funds for next year.  So, yesterday afternoon I spent some time in our storage room in the garage to see what I could donate to the sale.  I found quite a bit of fabric, some notions and other miscellaneous items.  I delivered them to the church yesterday morning.

I also dropped off the tray of goodies I wrote about yesterday--I got the idea that the tray wouldn't be around too long!  .  

Shopping for the Orphanage

Last Friday, we went to the Remar orphanage with the team from Christ's Chapel Bible Church.  We had a great day playing board games, playing soccer and preparing and eating lunch with them.

During the visit, the house mom and I talked about their on-going needs (clothes for the boys, personal products and kitchen supplies, specifically, pots and pans.)  I told the team leaders about the needs and we had a short brainstorming session.  They decided it would make the most sense to give us money to buy the personal products and kitchen supplies here in El Salvador.  By the time they got back to the hotel on Friday evening, they had collected $200.  As far as the clothing, they will collect it and send it down in July when their high school students come down for a week.

So, today, Guillermo and I took the $200 and went shopping.  We wanted to get the most possible with our money so we went to several shops in downtown Apopa. Since Guillermo lives in Apopa he knows all of the good places and isn't afraid to ask for discounts.

At the first stop we found the large stock pots, frying pans and other kitchen items.  After our discount the total was $102.88.  

Second stop we bargained our way to two dozen Speed Stick deodorants, a dozen bars of soap, a dozen boxes of Colgate toothpaste, six extra large bottles of shampoo and a dozen toothbrushes, which totaled $98.65  The grand total was $1.53 over our budget, but we had it covered.  (By the way, I now understand why most of the Salvadorans think PriceSmart, our Costco, is expensive!) 

We have a college team coming on Saturday, and we will be going to the orphanage on Monday.  They don't know that we're bringing these things, so I'm excited to see the smiles on their faces when we unload!

If you are interested in helping these kids, we'd love to hear from you at parrisinelsalvador@gmail.com.  

Thursday in Pictures