Happy 24th Birthday, Vida Nueva

I've probably written about the church's birthday celebrations before, but decided it was time to highlight another year.  Here in El Salvador it is common practice for churches to have an annual birthday celebration.  Just like in the life of every individual, a birthday celebration seems to be a good way for the church to look back and see God's faithfulness over the years. 

This year's celebration spanned the entire month, with interviews of individuals, couples and families who have been part of the church.  Today, David Aguilar, hotel campus pastor, interviewed Pastor Julio and Pastor Steve.  If you've ever seen these two together, you know just how much fun it was too watch the interview.  Believe it or not, they started the church when they were 26 and 28 years old, respectively.  As I said, a look back over the 24 years reveals God's plans and His faithfulness.  Because no respectable birthday celebration would be without them, there were balloons, confetti, cake and also a great message from 2 Corinthians.  

We are Vida Nueva!

  

Juntos Together--Fun Day

It was off to Costa de Sol with the Juntos Together team on Friday.  We left the house at 8:15 a.m. to meet the team at the hotel and ride the bus to the beach.  The trip was about and hour and a half and it was HOT!  

We arrived at the resort about 11:15 and had time to play in the ocean before lunch.  The buffet lunch was delicious.  After lunch the kids spent time in the pool, played water volleyball, got back in the ocean and just enjoyed each other's company.  

Later in the afternoon, there were boat rides around the lagoon and more pool time.  

We left about 5:00 p.m. and drove the hour plus to the pupusaria in Los Planes.  Pupusas for 90 people, please.  Thankfully, Guillermo had pre-ordered and they were ready when we arrived.  Francisco was celebrating his birthday, so he got the giant birthday pupusa.

When the evening was over, it was good-bye until next year and/or let's connect on Facebook!  It was a great week thanks to Vladimir Vasquez, our youth pastor at Vida Nueva, and the rest of the IBVN team!  

Juntos Together--Remar Orphanage

For the second time in two weeks we went to see the kids at the Remar Orphanage.  This time it took two buses, two vans and a SUV to get everyone (more than 125 of us) and everything up the hill.

Lucy, the house mom, was so excited to see what we bought with the money Christ Chapel Bible Church left with us.  She just kept saying thank you over and over as we unloaded everything.

We didn't get there until 11:30, so we got started on lunch as soon as we arrived.  

Everyone else played a variety of games with the kids, including their version of "wet paint" Twister.  

There were so many of us we had to eat in shifts.

 After lunch we divided into teams and held a rally, with six different stations, including Bible verse (in English and Spanish), games and team cheers.

Even though everyone was worn out by the end of the time, it was an awesome day and everyone loved it.

Juntos Together

Juntos Together started tonight.  It is a combination mission trip/mission's conference.  A team of 8 came from The Bridge Church in Fresno and another 33 came from Valley Baptist Church in Bakersfield.  These teams join with the youth of Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva to learn and serve.  

We started the week with orientation this afternoon, followed by the first night of the conference.  The theme for the week is "Stand Firm/Se Firme."   The theme song for the week is Fix My Eyes by Kings Kaleidoscope.  Click here to hear the song.

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.  

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.

Residency Success

We are so happy to announce that our residency process for 2015 was a great success.  We walked out of the immigration office yesterday afternoon with our new "3-month temporary" cards in hand.  

There was, however, one glitch.  As the agent was finishing the data entry for our new card, she noticed that our address on this year's paperwork was different from the address they had on file.  She asked when we moved and we told her it was the end of November.  Oops!  Evidently there is a rule that the immigration office must be notified of any change of address within 48 hours.  Oops, again!  As a result of not informing them, we had to pay a fine.  The mistake cost us $35 each.  Thankfully, we had enough cash to pay the $180 cost of residency renewal and the $70 cost of the fines.  

All in all, the residency process cost for this year was $350.  Nevertheless, between receiving our residency cards and having a team here, we had a great fifth anniversary.

FIVE YEARS TODAY

It's been exactly five years today!  On June 8, 2010, about 10:00 in the morning, our son, Jon, took us to KCI to catch our flight to El Salvador.  We checked four large duffle bags, each weighing 50 pounds, and each of us carried on a medium size duffle weighing 30 pounds.  Jeff and Paula Rhoades picked us up at Comalapa Airport and, thus, began our journey!

We're not the same people who arrived five years ago today.  Now we speak Spanish and are able to communicate with the people around us and we consider El Salvador "home." 
  
However, the most exciting things that have happened over these five years have not come as a result of what we have done, but what God has done in and through us.  Here's just a few highlights:

• We've been blessed to meet thousands of people from churches all over the US who have come to share the gospel on a mission trip 
• We've shared our testimony and listened to other's testimonies in hundreds of school classrooms.
• We've seen the gospel shared door-to-door and in the evening family festivals during more than 60 mission trips.
• We've seen hands raised in response to the sinner's prayer thousands and thousands of times. 
• We've been part of a great church that preaches the gospel and focuses on discipling new believers.
• We've made life-long friends as we've loved and been loved by our church family in all of the VidaNueva churches.  
• We've relied on God to lead and direct us in the work of the ministry here.
• We've witnessed what God can do with believers who are faithful to share the good news.  

We still have much to learn . . . and are still very much in the process of growing into the people God intends for us to be.  It's only fitting that we have an appointment at immigration today to renew our residency visa for another year.  We don't know what the future holds or how much longer we will be here, but we trust God to let us know when it's time to move on.  Thank you for being part of our journey; please continue to pray for us as we work here.

Here's to another five years.

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.