I congratulate El Salvador for completely transforming any expectation I had about The World Race. With eating pupusas every night of the week, sitting through five church services on a weekend, working in the center of two opposing gangs battle grounds, living in tents, sleeping in the back of pickup trucks, participating in a street breakdancing group, and swimming in a sunken volcano. These few days have been some of the best days of my life.
I know most people at home probably expect me to say “gosh this culture is so weird and hard, I can’t believe I’m going to be doing this for so long, and I just want to be back home to what I know” but (sorry friends and family) I’ve never been so excited to be away from home in my entire life! The scary amount of peace I have here is definitely a God given feeling which helps me to realize I am right where he has called me to be at this time in my life! So for everyone worrying how I’m doing…I am better now than I ever have been at home! (Not saying it’s bad at home)
Our host family (the Santos family) is the most welcoming group of people I’ve ever met. It has only been a week and I truly feel like part of their family. They have a 12 year old (Danny). A 15 year old (David). A 17 year old (Tanya). And a 20 year old (Christian). As well as Alberto the dad and Mariele the mom. We are going to be working at the church they attend…helping with sermons, giving our testimonies, playing worship for them, and leading some classes. We also are helping to build a park nearby the church for kids and family’s to come to, and to make the community better since it is in the middle of a gang controlled area. Also we are helping at a woman’s hospital by praying over people and trying to talk to all the patients about Christ.
Anyways, my Spanish has helped way more than I could ever imagine! I never realized how much I could communicate in Spanish but it is actually really easy for me. There are obviously a lot of words I don’t know and I’m sure my sentence structure is totally off but I’ve been able to communicate almost anything I want to with the people here. The language gap is one thing that I was really scared of coming into this but the Lord has completely stripped that fear away from me!
I love you all and cannot wait to update you on this next week I am about to partake in.
My prayer request for this week is for the relationship with the lord and me grows as a father son relationship!
The verse for this week is Isaiah 26:3 “you will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”
