Tomorrow marks one week since we arrived in the beautiful country of El Salvador. We are ministering with a local church doing children’s ministry, evangelism, and hospital prayer walks. The people of this church have honestly spoiled us. They cook us great food, take us to get the best pupusas (if you’ve never had one you’re missing out), drive us everywhere, and provide us with a great place to stay. They stay up late projecting movies on the wall to make sure we are having fun and walk with us to get fresh juice and smoothies. Although they don’t speak English and I know very little Spanish (I’m working on it…), we communicate through google translate and lots of hand motions and laughter. They love serving us and continually find new ways to bless us.
The people at our church are not the only ones who have shown us immeasurable kindness. Every person we come in contact with, both young and old, shower us with generosity. It is evident that the children follow their parents example, and find joy in giving to others. On Tuesday we brought a piñata to a school. As the children ran for the candy, they would often run back to us and give us one of their prized goodies….even if it was the only piece they got. The children in our class offer us their snacks, which sometimes include old french fries they pull out of their backpack. Everywhere we go we are offered something new, and it always comes with a big smile and hug. We say thank you and try our best to eat or drink it. But sometimes our best efforts still fall short and we end up stuffing the rest in our bags quickly before anyone sees (hence the hard ear of corn in my purse).
As I watched this generosity continue throughout the week, I was blown away. I thought back at my life in America and just how selfish I could be. I would get frustrated when my mom would borrow my things without asking, or if she snagged some chips off my plate at dinner. Looking back, that seems so silly. How much more joy would there be if we would simply be more generous to the people around us?
As I go about these next 11 months, I pray that the generosity that is so apparent in these countries will rub off on me so that when I return I will shower others in the same way. (Who knows, maybe I’ll even let my mom wear my jewelry). And at the end of the day we may go home with stale french fries in our pocket or corn in our purse, but we are oh so thankful for the continual generosity in El Salvador.
