So El Salvador!
8 months later here are my thoughts on the lasting impact El Salvador had on my life
BRIEF BACK HISTORY
We lived in the capitol of El Salvador that month San Salvador, we had a beautiful house that me and the men on my team shared with twenty something boys. Our ministry was working with a home for abandoned children, that month we painted several rooms in the house and loved on the children.
THINGS I WILL NEVER FORGET
How amazing our contact Bob was with the children at the home he was a father to those children. A father that many there had never really had.
Singing the Phenomenon song by The Muppets with Gabby one of the children at the house. We would just walk by each other and yell PHENOMENON then she would start talking in Spanish expecting me to understand. Good times!
Our contact taking us to a beach house as a thank you for our time at the ministry that month.
One of the boys waking me up at 5am to sing to me and telling me I hope you get better, after I was sick for a few days. He was 7 years old and so cute, as a thank you I brought him a candy bar that night. I should have known better as he put his head on my forehead and asked if I was okay every day for the next few weeks of ministry haha
Standing in three places at the same time, the point where Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador meet. We took the children camping there many of them have never been camping before, and they had wanted to go for several years.
The good bye party that we had at the end of our month there. We danced to Shuffling by LMFAO at least five times, we took way to many group pictures, the kids wrote us all countless notes, and there were many tears.
Sitting in a bus station for 3 hours trying to buy tickets for our squad to get to Honduras. I remember thinking to myself there's no way something that disorganized and incredibly frustrating can happen on the race again. Wait until I get to the S.Sudan recap blog, lets juts say a grey hound bus looked like a five star luxury cruise in S.Sudan no exaggeration, but I digress.
I really starting to press into my team that month and forming lifelong bonds. We also really started to dive into the lies that the enemy has told individuals on my team and that got messy but it was a necessary messy. The beginning of great things started in peoples lives in El Salvador
WHAT DID I LEARN?
I learnt the power of COMMUNITY! Like I said on my last blog I came on the race expecting to do the typical evangelist stuff. Going into unreached areas, praying over sick people, preaching all the time, seeing incredible miracles all these signs that I used to be dependent on in ways to know that God was working, so I know what I am doing is not a waste of time.
In El Salvador all the kids loved Jesus and were saved, no they werent perfect but they were "reached" so I saw the point of that month in the begging to paint like a crazy person and see results that way. Yes I painted like a crazy person and yes there was a noticeable difference on the walls when we left, but there was a much deeper difference that occurred that creped up on me.
True COMMUNITY occurred True COMMAN UNITY happened. I will never forget the night some of the children shared there stories with us. Stories of pain, suffering, and abandonment, but all these stories had a happy ending. Someone called Bob Mcdonaled (our contact) obeyed the voice of God and brought this children into a home of love, a home of peace, security and hope. He brought them into COMMUNITY
It hit me hard when i was leaving El Salvador (which was my one of the hardest month to say goodbye on my race) how much they loved us and we loved them. How just being there for someone speaks volumes which is pretty much all we did that month for these kids. We didnt pray over them and see amazing miracles happen, words of prophecies, heart wrenching worship sessions, or 24 hour cycles of prayer, nope we were just there. The amazing thing with that though is that with us being there JESUS was there and he was the invisible bond that was formed between our hearts that month.
IF ANY ONE FROM EL SALVADOR
Is reading this know that
YOU ARE LOVED
I PRAY FOR YOU
YOU MADE A DIFFERENCE IN MY LIFE
I WILL NEVER FORGET YOU
AND
YOU WILL ALWAYS BE IN MY HEART
ALWAYS
8 months later here are my thoughts on the lasting impact El Salvador had on my life
BRIEF BACK HISTORY
We lived in the capitol of El Salvador that month San Salvador, we had a beautiful house that me and the men on my team shared with twenty something boys. Our ministry was working with a home for abandoned children, that month we painted several rooms in the house and loved on the children.
THINGS I WILL NEVER FORGET
How amazing our contact Bob was with the children at the home he was a father to those children. A father that many there had never really had.
Singing the Phenomenon song by The Muppets with Gabby one of the children at the house. We would just walk by each other and yell PHENOMENON then she would start talking in Spanish expecting me to understand. Good times!
Our contact taking us to a beach house as a thank you for our time at the ministry that month.
One of the boys waking me up at 5am to sing to me and telling me I hope you get better, after I was sick for a few days. He was 7 years old and so cute, as a thank you I brought him a candy bar that night. I should have known better as he put his head on my forehead and asked if I was okay every day for the next few weeks of ministry haha
Standing in three places at the same time, the point where Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador meet. We took the children camping there many of them have never been camping before, and they had wanted to go for several years.
The good bye party that we had at the end of our month there. We danced to Shuffling by LMFAO at least five times, we took way to many group pictures, the kids wrote us all countless notes, and there were many tears.
Sitting in a bus station for 3 hours trying to buy tickets for our squad to get to Honduras. I remember thinking to myself there's no way something that disorganized and incredibly frustrating can happen on the race again. Wait until I get to the S.Sudan recap blog, lets juts say a grey hound bus looked like a five star luxury cruise in S.Sudan no exaggeration, but I digress.
I really starting to press into my team that month and forming lifelong bonds. We also really started to dive into the lies that the enemy has told individuals on my team and that got messy but it was a necessary messy. The beginning of great things started in peoples lives in El Salvador
WHAT DID I LEARN?
I learnt the power of COMMUNITY! Like I said on my last blog I came on the race expecting to do the typical evangelist stuff. Going into unreached areas, praying over sick people, preaching all the time, seeing incredible miracles all these signs that I used to be dependent on in ways to know that God was working, so I know what I am doing is not a waste of time.
In El Salvador all the kids loved Jesus and were saved, no they werent perfect but they were "reached" so I saw the point of that month in the begging to paint like a crazy person and see results that way. Yes I painted like a crazy person and yes there was a noticeable difference on the walls when we left, but there was a much deeper difference that occurred that creped up on me.
True COMMUNITY occurred True COMMAN UNITY happened. I will never forget the night some of the children shared there stories with us. Stories of pain, suffering, and abandonment, but all these stories had a happy ending. Someone called Bob Mcdonaled (our contact) obeyed the voice of God and brought this children into a home of love, a home of peace, security and hope. He brought them into COMMUNITY
It hit me hard when i was leaving El Salvador (which was my one of the hardest month to say goodbye on my race) how much they loved us and we loved them. How just being there for someone speaks volumes which is pretty much all we did that month for these kids. We didnt pray over them and see amazing miracles happen, words of prophecies, heart wrenching worship sessions, or 24 hour cycles of prayer, nope we were just there. The amazing thing with that though is that with us being there JESUS was there and he was the invisible bond that was formed between our hearts that month.
IF ANY ONE FROM EL SALVADOR
Is reading this know that
YOU ARE LOVED
I PRAY FOR YOU
YOU MADE A DIFFERENCE IN MY LIFE
I WILL NEVER FORGET YOU
AND
YOU WILL ALWAYS BE IN MY HEART
ALWAYS
