After over a week in El Salvador, all I can say is that I love it here! I love the people and the land! It is SO beautiful, as you can see in this picture!
We are very blessed to be staying in a very nice house, and it's in a cute and safe neighborhood. Sixteen of us share one bathroom, and though it's completely empty (no furniture), we decorate it with our tents and backpacks! 🙂 About half of us have set up our tents as a shield from the mosquitoes, spiders, ants, and roaches. Our first night here I didn't realize how bad the mosquitoes were, and I woke up to see 45 bites on my right leg and foot alone! Thankfully since I've been in my tent those have healed and I've only gotten random ones since.
Since we got here we have gotten very used to piling into buses, vans, or the back of vehicles! One time on the bus my foot was right next to a huge hole right above the tire~ I'm glad it didn't slip! This is how we get around every day!
We have church services Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Sometimes we do dramas that we've been practicing, we'll each be sharing our testimonies, and several of the girls from our teams have led worship. This is the church, which is an Assemblies of God.
Our days are all different, but many times we go out and pray in different communities and play with the kids. Yesterday we spent time playing with kids at a school and then took food into a very poor village by going door to door. One of the dirt-floored homes we went into was the home of a mother who had just lost her son… he died a little over an hour before we got there. It was a shock to walk in and see a dead body laying stiff on the other side of the room. We prayed for him, and for his grieving mother, and knew it wasn't a coincidence that we were there. We were able to bring comfort to the mother, and it was a situation that allowed our teams to have some great discussion later that night as we searched our hearts about some questions we had. I'm finding out on this trip that as some questions are answered~ through reading scripture, other books, prayer, and talking with one another~ others arise. One of my favorite things about being on The World Race is how God took me~ a person who enjoyed my independence and my time alone~ and placed me in a community where I'm living, eating, worshiping, and constantly fellowshipping with my sisters and brothers in Christ all day and night. I sleep in a room with 3 other girls, our daily meals are 16 of us sitting on the floor in the living room, we all share one bathroom, and our transportation is all of us piling into the back of a truck. Last night I was visiting with my friend, Jill, from team 'Cherished' (that we're spending this month with), and we were talking about how we're on a path of accelerated growth. In daily life in the States we spend a lot of time thinking about whatever we have going on, whether it's our job, school, tv shows, surfing the internet, going out on dates or with friends, shopping or running errands… whereas here we have an amazing opportunity of being free of those distractions in order to spend our days learning, growing, and seeking after God's heart~ which includes focusing on the needs of others, which we do in different ways each day. In a way I feel selfish even saying that a lot of this trip is about my own growth, and yet it's true! We’re only in month two and I'm so excited about the way that God is changing my heart and my mind!
May I offer a challenge to you? One of the things that has impacted me a lot is reading the book Radical by David Platt. If you can pick up a copy, or look it up on your Kindle or Nook, please read it! I can’t tell you how much it’s impacted me, and changed the way I will live the rest of my life. When we were in Guatemala, Maureen Casey told us about how she left everything behind in the States except for a couple duffle bags to go where God called her to go and start the orphanage. With that said, the book is not about everyone giving everything up or going to a foreign country to live (unless you feel God calling you to do that), but it is about reading the Word for what it really says and not filtering out the parts that we think don’t apply to us. I’m SUPER excited about continued revelations God is giving me about how I’m to live my life, and how I’m to impact others… both in the U.S., and continually around the globe after The World Race! If you have already read Radical I’d love to hear how it impacted you, or thoughts you have, and if you pick it up to read for the first time I’d love to hear what you think as you read it! What would be incredible is if one day that book could be re-titled Normalcy.
With that, I want to say another huge THANK YOU to those of you who are supporting me on this journey! Your blog comments and e-mails and encouragement are awesome! For those of you who have given financial support, I am truly grateful that you have enabled me to be here through your one-time gifts, or monthly support. Being within a couple thousand dollars of being fully-funded is amazing, and I am grateful to have you be apart of this with me!
