Letting Go

The first week in El Salvador was a really hard transition for me. Honduras was quiet and peaceful… well when the boys weren’t blasting their reggaetone music haha which they loved to do, but even then there was somewhere to escape it. El Salvador is vastly different. The house we are living in has two tvs and a radio which usually happen to be on all at the same time- each trying to drown each other out. We are living in a gorgeous house with a family of 6 and have gone from a huge backyard and plenty of space to roam to a neighborhood. I’m not necessarily saying it’s bad, just different. An adjustment. 

Alberto and Mariella are our contacts this month. They have three sons and a daughter. A few words I would use to describe Alberto are jokester, loving, hospitable, selfless. Mariella is thoughtful, a great cook, loving, and nurturing. Their kids are precious and lots of fun. 

Even though are contacts are amazing I had a really hard first week. I think it might have been the hardest on the race. I didn’t want to leave Honduras, I was tired, I didn’t want to put my all in again and have a hard good bye, changes were being made to our plans for next month that I didn’t like and I thought it would be so much easier to coast through the month. I wanted to be justified in how I was feeling. God was telling me that I’m here for a reason but I didn’t want to listen. I just wanted to cry and feel sorry for myself I guess. I’ve been going for 10 months so is it really a big deal for me to coast through one month? Don’t I deserve this? Besides we’re almost finished now anyways.

I was being selfish. My actions and thoughts were focused on me, me, me and I didn’t care much how it affected other people or maybe I just didn’t think about it. I just wanted to be wrapped up in my own little world worrying about only me and how awful everything was. Is this what I signed up for? But I didn’t come on this trip to coast, it was to grow closer to God. When thinking about giving things up for God the first thoughts that pops into my head aren’t my bad attitude or selfish desires to sit in my “justified feelings”. I guess I don’t really think about having to give those up. Definitely not easy. And I’m not saying that it wasn’t okay for me to be upset about things or to miss the previous month but there is also a time to move on and let it go.

I’ve been doing a lot better the past few days 🙂 Laughter and ridiculousness has helped. I’ve also started to build relationships with the family and I’m enjoying most of  the ministry we’re doing here. Our schedule is scattered and random but here are a few things we’ve done so far:

Devotionals at school which consist of skits, testimonies, songs and games.

Pan y Chocolate- Bread and Chocolate, a ministry that goes out twice a week and feeds the homeless. A couple of the girls and I met a precious old lady named Maria who lives on the streets. We’ve gotten to see her twice now and talk with her a little.

Testimonies and introductions at church(which were on the radio) and being a part of Sunday school.

Learning skits for evangelism.

Talking with and praying for people in the hospital.

Genesis is a program for poor kids in the community that are sent to school, fed and clothed by the church. Yesterday we went thinking that we would just hang out with the kids and when we got there they told our translator that we had a schedule planned haha. Nothing like spur of the moment. 

On our off day one of the many pastors took us to climb a Volcano it was incredible! It took about 2 hours to get to the top and 1 down. The hike was gorgeous and so was the actual volcano top. We talked about what we would do if it started blowing up and thought of some ridiculous ideas. (My idea was to quickly turn on video on my camera and video tape some of the explosion and before the lava hit me, take out the memory card and swallow it. However, I was informed that my body would be completely melted… dang).