I balance my keyboard on my lap as I sit in this questionably stable lawn chair staring out over the city of San Salvador. To my left are beautiful mountains covered in every kind of vegetation you could imagine. To my right lies an eruptible land mass that hides the city in its shadow. Directly in front of me sits a new friend. She’s balancing a book in one hand and a guitar in the other. It’s a quality book she’s reading…I know this much because of the “mmhmms” and “ahas” that keep escaping from her lips and the occasional straight up burst of laughter.
Sitting here I feel so incredibly thankful. I’m thankful to be in El Salvador. I’m thankful for friends who pick up 7 missionaries with giant backpacks from the airport and let them pile in their truck and feed them pupusas and invite them to church. I’m thankful that those same friends have other friends who are missionaries and pastors in the area. I’m thankful for days spent planning out our next week because we have more contacts than we know what to do with. I’m thankful for sabbath days spent at the beach playing in the kind of waves that are strong enough to make you remember how small you really are and gentle enough to carry you all the way to shore when you catch them just right. I’m thankful for more pupusas and for Don Salvador who buys us Atol, a warm corn drink, because we simply must try it. I’m thankful for teammates who share their coffee, and for Mister Donut. I’m thankful that our team got to pray for a woman from El Salvador who is going to be a missionary in a closed country. I’m thankful for God’s interruptions. I thought I was merely going to ask for a roll of toilet paper, but by simply asking Yessenia how she was, we ended up sharing laughter, stories, tears, and prayers. I’m thankful for Pastor Henry and his willingness to drive us to all of the nursing home ministries his church sponsors. I’m thankful for Maria, a woman without any living family members, and her joy in singing praises to Jesus. I’m thankful for my teammates and the way they actively jump into whatever the Lord is doing around us. I’m thankful when plans change at 5am and when our food budget forces us to make Ramon noodles in the hostel with the one working water heater we have (Shout out to Missy for bringing such a brilliant thing!). I’m thankful when teammates have differing opinions and we get to figure out how to work through it. I’m thankful for spotty wifi and the opportunity to say hello to mi familia from hundreds of miles away. I’m thankful for the amazing support and encouragement I feel from everyone back home. Your prayers are felt, please know that.
This first week of ministry has been incredible in so many ways. I am constantly reminded of Michael Yankoski’s words, “Pilgrimaging isn’t at all about efficiency. . .Pilgrimaging is about the journey, the path, the way between here and there, between now and then. The idea isn’t to get there. It’s to go, and to be attentive to the process of transformation the way offers as you go. It’s about what happens inside of you between the now and the then, between the here and the there” (A Sacred Year). As we pilgrimage through El Salvador, please continue to pray that we would respond to the Lord’s interruptions. I pray that He would interrupt you as well, and that you would have the courage to pray for that woman in the grocery store, to ask that maintenance worker how he is doing, to buy lunch for the single mom who lives down the street. May we be people of the process and not solely the destination.
