El Salvador reminds me a lot of the States. We’re living in a beautiful house with a family of 6 where there’s never a shortage of laughter. There are fast food restaurants on every corner, a mall within walking distance, fancy schools, huge mega churches, and more big trucks and SUVs then I’ve seen since leaving Michigan. Sometimes I forget where I am until people come up to me speaking in Spanish.
We are part of a large church in Santa Ana, and while it is much harder to make connections because of how many people we meet, it has also given us the opportunity to be involved in a variety of ministry and to reach more people. We are involved in radio and TV ministry, make visits to the local hospital, street evangelism, bring food to the homeless, visit prisons, assist in the children’s services, share at a drug and alcohol rehab center, take part in youth ministry, do dramas at services, lead devotionals at local schools, and share testimonies at church.
The biggest issues I’ve seen here are also very similar to the States. There is such wealth here, but there is also extreme poverty. Driving from our house to the mall, it can be so easy to overlook the little shacks we drive by, or all the people standing on the street in rags. Something that has been on the heart of the teams here in Santa Ana is that we aren’t meant to just feed the hungry and care for the orphans during ministry hours. We can’t just turn off our hearts for the needy when it is inconvenient; it should be a way of life.
