Since we’re already in Thailand, I thought it was about time
to close out El Salvador and Latin America with the monthly summary blog. I
have a couple more blogs still to finish writing and post from last month, but
I’ll get to those later.
Here are the numbers
Number of places I made my bed/slept: 2
Number of meals that included rice: 13
Number of wifi networks I connected to: 3
Approximate number of donuts that Team Wreckonciled
consumed: 72
Approximate number of pupusas that Team Wreckonciled
consumed: 150
Approximate number of hours spent in church: 46
Number of sermons translated: 6
Number of times the van broke down: 3
Number of times I wanted to kill the cat we lived with:
countless
Number of indigenous rodent sightings: 3
Tips for future racers
If you live in San Rafael Cedros, make sure you are
selective in which bakery you choose to patronize to meet your donut needs. We
strongly recommend going into the main square and following the street that
runs to the left of Elly’s Cakes down a few doors on the right and you will
find a little piece of heaven full of chocolate coconut donuts. Tell them the
gringo misioneros from before sent you, and you’ll be their new best friends.
On a similar note, if you want good sandwiches from the
nicest, most generous woman on planet Earth, go to the shop to the right of
Elly’s Cakes in the main square and become friends with Nellie.
And, last but not least on the food front, Elly’s Cakes
itself is a gem. The woman who works there is really sweet, and so is the cake.
You can tell we didn’t go hungry this month.
If you live with Pastor Jorge Cano and his family, make sure
you beat Josue at FIFA, tease Rebeca, and teach Abuelita some new dance moves.
Also, beware of the cat and bring plenty of mosquito repellent to spray your
room with at night.
We learned that simple bar soap that you would normally use
for showering can remove oil stains in clothing. Thank you Mirna!
If you go to the Lago de Ilopango for the scuba diving,
don’t bother taking a boat cruise around the lake…the boat never goes faster
than the “no wake” zone at most marinas. And if you want to scuba there you
need to be certified.
As I’ve said about every other month in Latin America, it’s
a good idea to go ahead and learn some children’s songs and games in Spanish.
You just never know when your contact might take you to a school, hand you a
microphone, and set two hundred kids loose on you for you to entertain. Skits
are also extremely popular, as are clowns…although they’re still scary.
Ministry Summary
Our ministry was pretty varied this month. Officially, we
were helping the Jehova Nisi Assemblies of God Church in San Rafael Cedros.
Practically speaking, that entailed something different almost everyday. For
the first week we spent most of our time visiting local elementary schools,
entertaining the kids with songs, games, and skits. On Central America’s
Mother’s Day, we did a skit about all of our mothers for 600 women at a school.
Apparently it was a hit. We also did a lot of door to door ministry, led
several small groups, and preached a some outdoor rallies. Also, we attended a
lot of church services.
For our last full week in El Salvador, we partnered with a
group from Master’s Commission who were working with a ministry called King’s
Castle (Castillo del Rey). They spent the week in San Rafael Cedros leading
children’s rallies, dressing up like clowns, hitting pinatas, and putting on a
youth retreat for the church’s youth group. We pretty much filled in wherever
they needed us, which mostly involved a lot of preaching and translating.
The coolest thing about our month was definitely the healing
we saw God doing in and around San Rafael Cedros. I’ve described some of this
earlier in another blog, but to summarize, we got to see several people
physically and spiritually healed. We also got to see part of what God is doing
in a local church to restore the people to their pastor after a damaging
scandal with his family. Our team got to learn a lot about how to come together
in unity over something and let God work through us…more to come on this soon
in another blog.
To see pictures of this month, check out the photo blog that
I posted a couple weeks ago.
Prayer Requests
Please pray for Pastor Jorge and his family, and also for their
church. He has big dreams for the future of their church, but they need
financial assistance to be able to expand their building to make room for
classrooms for the youth group and the biblical institute that he started. If
anyone would be interested in helping with this, you can contact me and I can
put you in touch with him. Also, please pray for continued healing for the
community that was angry at their pastor over the family scandal. He really
needs their support to heal and be restored to his role.
Finally, as we are already in Thailand, please be praying
for our new ministry working to help the women and men caught in the human
trafficking industry. I’m going to post a blog soon that explains more details
of our ministry, but please pray for safety, wisdom for what to say, and open
communication despite a huge language barrier. Thank you so much!
