Blogs from El Salvador, Central America Caribbean - page 12

Our breakfast was an included part of this trip. We had scrambled eggs with cheese, 1 pancake, 1/2 toasted cheese sandwich, mixed fruit and Watermelon juice (John) and Georgie had 1 toasted cheese sandwich, mixed fruit, and watermelon juice. After that we got on the bus and began our side trip to the capitol city of San Salvador. The sun was shining brightly, the views were marvelous (a mix of valleys and small mountains, about a 1 mile long area with black lava rock) and the conversations were buzzing. About 1 ½ hours later we arrived at Providence Hospital Chapel, the site of Archbishop Oscar Romero’s assassination in March 1980. This horrific event escalated the Civil War among the countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicauragua, and Honduras. Fr. Ron celebrated Mass again except the atmosphere was ... read more

The local buses in this part of the world are called “Chicken” buses, largely due to the amount of produce, chickens and other livestock that tend to ride alongside people on the buses. They’re cheap to ride and are incredibly overcrowded, often with standing room only. Any notions of personal space give way to the hope that you’ll get a corner of a seat for your journey. The combination of hot sweaty bodies , trapped in a confined space with minimal air circulation mixed with the aromas of goods being ferried from the market has to be experienced to truly be savoured. The buses are US school buses that have been colourfully painted, and decorated according to the owner or drivers particular taste. Jesus is a big theme in these parts and it is common to ... read more

Getting up at ridiculous hours for tours or buses has pretty much been the norm for us now for the past 6-7 weeks, and we therefore felt a well-earned break was on the cards for all our ‘hard work’. In particular, this seemed to come to light one evening during dinner, when after a gentle yawn I said to Donna that I was knackered and that it was probably time to ‘hit the hay’ after dinner, to which Donna responded, ‘Mike it’s 7:30pm!’. The days of staying up till silly O’clock at home seem a long way away at the moment, as we appear to be evolving and morphing into what we once feared….morning people! Hopefully, this is just a phase though, and we will continue to try work through it. So, a break from buses ... read more

Well, today was our last day with Pastor Francisco and friends! We enjoyed another wonderful breakfast of fried black beans, scrambled eggs with cheese and coffee. After devotions, we headed straight to Alba and Juan's home. Our goal was to level off the room, moving dirt again to the other side of the street. We used the pic-ax and shoveled dirt into buckets and carried them across the street...up and down the hill! The dirt was heavy and wet. The great thing is we had many of the ENLACE staff with us to help! We formed an assembly line to get the job done faster. I took a couple minutes to step back and watch the team....they were getting worn out. People were missing the bucket while shoveling, and barely able to hold the shovels. A ... read more

Ah...what a great night of rest! We met Arturo in the lobby of the hotel bright and early to head to the pastor's home for breakfast (more beans, plantains, eggs, salsa and cafe). This morning's devotional was one of my favorites - "HOW is much more important than WHAT". God asks us to serve with a Christ-like attitude and make ourselves as we are nothing. Jesus is the King of Kings and he came down from heaven and humbled himself, appeared as a man, and became obedient to death. He was not in a hurry on His journies...when people stopped Him on the streets, He listened...really listened. He ALWAYS put others first. After chowing down, we headed to the second work site, where we found a larger work-crew. Here there were two homes, one for Reena ... read more