I wake up on the bus from Nicaragua, and the first thing I see is a Wendy’s. This month is definitely going to be different.
My team is staying in San Salvador, El Salvador. It is a little America here. We are living with our amazing contacts, Oscar and Jackie Navarette. Our neighborhood is gated in, there’s a gym down the road, bakeries, fast food; this is not what I thought the world race would look like. Oscar is the youth pastor in San Vicente, a town about 45 minutes away from here where one of our other teams is living. Jackie’s father is the head pastor of their church, but recently was in a bad car accident and by the grace of God is alive and rehabilitating. Keep him in your prayers, he just came home from the hospital this weekend and is doing well. His hip was completely shattered, and his knees were damaged as well among many other things.
So since the head Pastor is incapacitated Oscar is filling in as head Pastor, and our two teams are taking over the youth services and ministry while we are here. Our team goes to San Vicente every weekend and the first weekend we were here I was asked to preach at the youth service (That is a whole different blog). During the week our team remains here in San Salvador and has been partnering with Tabernacle Baptist. A mega church in the area that does tons of outreach. We have been working with Pastor Freddie, their youth pastor, and about 8 of the older youth. They have a ministry called Pan y Chocolate that ministers to the homeless in the downtown area. They take at least 8 truck loads of people with coffee and bread and cookies and hit the streets praying with people and distributing bread and coffee. When people in the congregation donate money towards bread and chocolate they bring meals as well. I was really excited when they said we would be going to spend time with the people downtown, but once we were there we only got a few minutes. Just enough time to have small conversation, give them some cafe and bread and pray with them if possible. We were all pretty frustrated, but apparently they have had some problems when they stay longer than 15 or 20 minutes with mobs, brawls, someone has been kidnapped before, and things just start getting out of control, because we are there when they are shooting up, and getting high. I know all of this sounds like legitimate reasoning, but we are called to be set apart, to go where others won’t go, and minister to those who are desperate, on their last end. I trust that God has me in his hand, and that on the streets is where we should be, but we’ll see what happens. It was a big surprise to the Pastor that we would sit on the street with them, hug them, and cry with them. He said in El Salvador that most people will keep a stiff arm distance away, so maybe we are here to inspire them, to open their eyes to the Love they are capable of, and beyond. I love the churches we are working with, they have huge hearts, and they seem to have a ministry for everything, but there is definitely a safeness and a security that doesn’t resonate with me.. I don’t want to be in the church yard.
