I wish there was an easy way to explain my month in El Salvador, but I don’t know of one so just bear with me…
Throughout the race I have seen many squadmates fall in love with places and people we’ve met. I’ve seen connections like the one that I have with Jinja, Uganda…a place that I love with many people that I love…a place that my heart longs for, but that God has never given me a peace about going back to long term. I’ve had conversations with friends and God about why I haven’t had that connection with a place on the race. I don’t think it’s necessary to fall in love with a place for the race to be a success, but I wasn’t sure if I hadn’t connected with a ministry in that way because I just hadn’t or because I know how much it hurts to leave such a place. I still don’t know the answer, but this past month I fell in love with the people that we worked with…
Me and Gabriela at Burger King for dinner
For the first time on the race I wasn’t ready to pick up and go on travel day. I would have loved to stay longer and pour more in to the “ministry” aka living life there at Mi Casa. For the first time I connected with teenage girls (yes Dad I know you’ve been telling me this for a while now, but you know I’m stubborn and have to learn things the hard way!) There are two girls in particular that I really connected with and I plan on keeping in touch with. Gabriela (also known as Lupita, or Gaby, or she tells me her nickname is Aga but I’ve never heard anyone use it…) reminds me a lot of myself in the way that she talks and acts. It’s a little scary at times to watch her and see myself in her because my heart breaks at the thought of her ever going through the things that I put myself through when I was her age. I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with her and just hang out. I don’t speak Spanish and she doesn’t speak much English, but God created love to not need things like speaking the same language. We only had someone translate for us once or twice within the month, but I know her and I love her. I worked on teaching her guitar and she picked it up really quickly! We would just sit there taking turns playing and singing songs.
Me and Julia on my birthday
I was also able to connect with Julia…a girl with a smile that can light up the room. She is at Mi Casa with her 2 little sister and little brother and she does a great job looking after them! She would normally hang out with me and Gabriela as we played guitar and just talk and be silly with us.
I knew that I wanted to share my story with these girls and I had the opportunity to not only share with them but with two of the other older girls as well. It was crazy and amazing to see the way that God worked through my story. I could see as different parts of my story struck a chord with them. I believe that the lights went off in their head as they realized that they aren’t alone. After sharing one by one the girls spoke up and said they would share their own stories. So there we sat, listening as one by one the girls shared. Some shared that night and others later (it was a long and exhausting night). It was powerful to listen to them, to hear where they’ve been and how far God has brought them. They don’t often tell their stories so it was amazing for them to speak up and share this with us. We were able to listen, to hold them as they cried their way through their stories, and to encourage them in who they are…who God says that they are… That was probably one of my favorite nights in the past year. I was able to see God working and freedom begin as they began to open up and shed light on their lives.
I realized that I don’t think I’ve loved that deeply since Uganda. It’s a sweet gift and I’m grateful for the time that I had in El Salvador. It was also awesome to get to know our contact, Bob, who is an incredible man following God’s prompting and raising up a family that will undoubtedly change lives!
A few days into the month…just hanging out and playing guitar =)
