Wrightsville, NC Students Chronicle Mission Journey to El Salvador with Daily Reflections
The following was written by Rev. David Haley, Assoc. Pastor of Wrightsville UMC
Wednesday, July 10
Our team met at the Wilmington, NC airport to begin our journey. They were excited to be able to meet at 8:30 AM instead of in the middle of the night as we typically do. We have 17 total team members, 12 youth and 5 adults. 16 are traveling today, and one recent high school graduate will join us tomorrow. About 2/3 of the team have traveled with me previously to El Salvador. The adults include a pain specialist physician and a hospital nurse. This will be my 37th team to El Salvador and my 45th visit overall to that country.
Our first flight is to Washington, DC. After a layover we then flew to Miami, barely making our connection. But we did make the connection and soon were on our way to El Salvador. When we arrived in El Salvador we found ourselves in the middle of a terrible thunderstorm which prevented us from landing. The pilot announced that we were being diverted to Honduras to wait out the storm, about 40 minutes to an hour away. I believe we landed at the Toncontin International Airport, known for having one of the shortest runways in the world! We landed safely and sat on the tarmac for about 90 minutes before being cleared to return to El Salvador. When we arrived, we were met at the airport by missionary Brian Dubberly and our bus to be transported to Ahuachapan. We didn’t arrive until about 1:45 AM. The team got moved into our lodging at The Mission House, a cross between a hotel and a hostel, operated by the Methodist Church of El Salvador. Thankfully the rooms have hot showers and a/c, and most importantly for the teenagers, Wi-Fi!
Thursday, July 11
Thursday morning, we had a later breakfast, so we could sleep a little longer and recover from our long day of travel the previous day. I left mid-morning to return to the airport to pick up our final youth teen member. Graham is a recent high school graduate who finished his college orientation on Wednesday. So, he flew down today. We hit heavy traffic in several spots on the way. Though we arrived at the time his flight was scheduled to land, his flight actually arrived more than 30 minutes early! Anyway, we were in contact by cell phone and easily connected with him.
Meanwhile, back in Ahuachapan, the team assembled 50 food parcels containing beans, rice, spaghetti, oil, salt, sugar, sardines, etc., all food staples.
In the afternoon, they divided into two teams and went to the La Gloria Community to begin visiting homes and delivering the food bags.
The La Gloria community is home to the La Goria Methodist Church where Pastor Gloria is the pastor. She is a wonderful pastor who has visited every home in the community (hundreds). She knows her people and their needs. She gave the teams an orientation to the community. Then the two teams went out with translators and visited the homes of poor individuals and families. At each home they visited with the residents, asked questions about their life, offered to pray with the them, asked if they had any special prayer requests, and then gave them a bag of food. Most of the prayer requests were about health for family members and finding jobs.
Late afternoon they returned to the Mission House. By that time, I had also returned from the airport with our 17th team member. We enjoyed dinner together. After dinner we had a team meeting to debrief the activities of the day. And then we all loaded into the truck for the brief ride downtown for ice cream. Everyone is still tired from traveling, so we had little trouble falling asleep.
Friday, July 12
Friday morning after breakfast, we headed off to work on three different projects.
Some went to work on the construction site at the new high school. Currently we are working on constructing a small soccer field and bleachers. The school will use it for P.E., intramurals, and band practice. Currently the band practices in the streets. On this trip the team will be digging trenches for the footers to support a set of the bleachers. You might say our students really dig El Salvador.
Another group continued food delivery in La Gloria. We visited in a number of homes, meeting the people and hearing their stories.
Our teams always enjoy the food project. It gives the opportunity to walk around in poor communities, visit in homes, pray for people, and give people the blessing of a food parcel. It is a gift that means a lot. These poor families are on limited incomes, many working as day laborers. Over the last several years food prices have gone up while many individual and family incomes have not. These people were already living on the edge. Many are elderly, some are raising grandchildren.
Our third project is taking place at the Methodist Medical Clinic. They announced that an American doctor specializing in joint pain relief would be visiting today. Dr. Hoff kept busy seeing 40+ patients, giving steroid injections. He brought equipment and supplies with him. His expertise was also valuable to the young Salvadoran Doctor working with him, as Dr. Hoff was able to teach him how to better treat patients with chronic joint pain. Vicky, our hospital nurse, did triage for the doctors, and a couple of our teens observed and helped.
After lunch we continued with our 3 projects in the afternoon, with most of us returning to the Mission House around 3 PM. We have to have our stuff packed and be out of our rooms by 5 PM for two reasons. One is that another team from Douglas, GA will be moving in. Our team will be moving out for the weekend as we have a special project. Our team will be joined by 12 Salvadoran youth. Together we will relocate to the mountain town of Ataco for a weekend discipelship retreat. I did this about 6 years ago with a smaller group and it worked very well. So I am very excited for this team to experience it as they are an exceptional group. I did encourage them to take the initiative and welcome the Salvadoran students when they arrive.
I need not have worried about the details. When the Salvadoran students arrived, some of our youth went immediately to greet them and welcome them. Bishop Juan de Dios said “The Americans and Salvadorans are communicating. The Americans are asking How old are you? The Salvadorans are replying My name is…” I had told our team that language is nice, but not necessary to build relationships. We knew a few words of Spanish, they knew a few words of English. They communicated with those few words, lots of smiles, gestures, and love. The relationship building continued during the bus ride up the mountain and throughout the weekend. I had also told my team that the last thing I wanted to do was walk into a room and find all the Americans in one corner and the Salvadorans in another corner. You can’t build relationships and friendships while remaining apart. Our team was also great about that. While there are barriers of language, culture, and national identity, we have two things in common: our commitment to Christ and our commitment to each other for this weekend. I was humbled to watch our team and the Salvadorans get to know each other and include each other.
Following dinner we divided into small groups and engaged in some “get-to-know-you” activities. Then we assigned rooms with Salvadorans and Americans sharing rooms.
It was truly amazing how fast they youth got to know each other, call each other by name, and overcome those language and culture barriers.
We had one other surprise blessing on Friday night. The owner of the hotel came to us very excited to tell us that a flower had bloomed. This particular flower, the Queen of the Night, only blooms at night and only one night in the whole year. Several blooms opened that night. I told the team it was surely a sign of God’s favor on our retreat! By the next morning the blooms were wilting, the flowers soon gone until next year.
Saturday, July 13
Following breakfast we assembled the group for morning devotions. Next we had our first teaching session. I taught on believing in Jesus and baptism. I had a translator to help. Afterwards, we divided into small groups for discussion. Each group had 3 Salvadoran youth, 3 American youth, an adult from our team and a Salvadoran translator. Following the small group discussions, we took a break. Next Bishop Juan de Dios Peña taught a session on prayer and Bible study. Again we divided into small groups for discussion. Then we had some free time before lunch.
After lunch went worked together on a service project. There is a very poor community on the outskirts of of Ataco. We took our last 20 bags of food, made 4 teams from the small groups, and went to that Community. Pastor Emerson who used to serve a church plant in the area went with us, along with translators. Each team had 5 bags of food to deliver. We went house to house without the usual advance notice. But the people were very hospitable, inviting us in and were very interested that American and Salvadoran youth were working together to help people in need.
A big part of our Wesleyan heritage is that when we meet a person, we offer two hands. With one we offer the good news of the Gospel. With the other hand we offer a response to human need. In so doing we certainly follow the example of Jesus who preached the Good News of the Kingdom of God, but also fed the hungry, healed the sick, and blessed the children. It is a wholistic understanding of the Gospel rooted in the Biblical tradition that God cares for the whole person. Our acts of mercy also validate our Gospel message in the eyes of the recipients of our ministry. In April of this year, I visited in a home delivering food where the recipient actually expressed this sentiment. He said, “We hear about God’s love. Then you come and visit us and show us God’s love through visiting us, praying for us, and giving us a bag of food.” My hope is that these youth will take this with them for the rest of their lives. I pray they will always remember being the hands and feet of Jesus and the positive impact of their actions. Their actions are positively impacting the lives of people in El Salvador this week!
When we had completed our food delivery, we were picked up and taken across town to meet our bus. This afternoon I have a special treat, a team building exercise of sorts. We are going to the nearby town of Apaneca where the Laberinto Albania is located. It is a gigantic laberynth or maze. We send them in by teams and challenge them to work together. This is not a maze that can be navigated in a few minutes. It takes awhile. If you make it to the center, you can climb a tower and ring a bell. Then you have to find your way back out!
There were lots of turns and dead-ends. But everyone made it to the center and then back out, 45 minutes to an hour after we started. Following a visit to the refreshment stand, we boarded our bus and returned to Ataco. We had time for a break before dinner.
One of the American boys taught one of the Salvadoran boys to play Ga-ga-ball, a sort of dodgeball played in a pit. An unused fountain at our hotel in Ataco provided a perfect pit. Every spare moment saw Salvadorans and Americans in the pit playing Ga-ga-ball with lots of smiles and laughter!
Following dinner, we had another Discipleship seminar on our Christian witness. It was taught by Gabriela Peña, the bishop’s daughter. I have known her since she was 3 years old. Now she is 24 and serves as the Chaplain for the Methodist School. After her presentation, we once again moved to small groups for discussion. After a break, our final activity of the day is a fun, team building exercise. I gave each small group a stack of newspapers and several rolls of masking tape. The assignment was to create a fashion outfit from those materials, choose a team member to be the model, and then dress the “model” in the outfit. I gave them 30-40 minutes before our fashion show. It was amazing to watch the young people work together, despite the language barrier. Interestingly, 3 of the 4 groups chose a boy to be the model! There was lots of laughter, lots of feigned protests from the male models, and a fair amount of competition between the groups! When the models were dressed including makeup and accessories, we had a brief fashion show. The amount of applause determined the winner: Alfaro, a Salvadoran teen. The adults all agreed that Ela Mac, an American teen and the lone female model, was actually the best looking and most stylishly dressed! Two other American boys were models, Ronan and Owen. A great time was had by all. That completed our planned activities for the day. But a vigorous game of Ga-ga-ball was soon in play!
Sunday, July 14
Following Breakfast and morning devotions, I asked everyone to pair up with a prayer partner from their small group, 1 American and 1 Salvadoran to pray together. They quickly paired off and found quiet spots all over the compound. Each person was to pray for the other, and pray in their own language. After about 15 minutes, we regathered and headed over to the main downtown area of Ataco. Some of the group decided to climb the hill to the cross. On the hillside (actually the rim of an extinct volcano) overlooking the town is a giant cross. Originally we had planned for the whole group to do this. I wasn’t sure we would have time to do that and explore the town shopping area, as we have a lunch reservation in a nice restaurant. As it turned out, those who walked to the cross found a more direct path than I had taken previously. So they had time for both. I found a corner table in my favorite coffee shop and talked with kids and adults as they passed by. Then I ran by the large Catholic church where there is usually a nun outside during the Mass selling religious items. I purchased a lovely green stole to wear in my church as part of my Sunday vestments.
We retrieved our luggage from the hotel and loaded it onto the bus along with ourselves. The bus carried us just beyond Ataco to the beautiful Entre Nubes Restaurant.
Entre Nubes has become a favorite lunch stop for every team. The name means “Between the Clouds.” It is a very nice restaurant, gardens, and boutique coffee plantation. Most of the Salvadoran youth had never eaten there before, as it would be a little expensive for their families. However, a portion of our mission project funds were used to underwrite the participation of the Salvadoran youth in the weekend retreat. The Georgia team was also there for lunch.
After lunch we once again loaded onto the bus for the ride back down the mountain to the Mission House in Ahuachapan. A new church plant of mostly young people meets in the dining room on Sunday afternoon for worship. Most of the Salvadoran youth on our retreat are a part of that church called The Church on the Move. Bishop Juan de Dios had asked me to preach, and I was happy to. Following church we had a little free time until dinner. The Georgia team also returned from attending a different church in the afternoon. After dinner we regathered our team and the Salvadoran youth in the dining hall for Communion. I explained that how Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper after he had been with the disciples for 3 years. I said, “It is appropriate for us to share Holy Communion after being together for this weekend, growing in our faith and building relationships and friendships.” Gabriela Peña helped me serve the bread and juice.
Following Communion, I asked the youth to divide up again into their small groups. At each table was a flashlight. They were to pass the light around each table, with each person having a chance to hold it. As each person held the light, the other group members said positive and affirming things about that person. This took a while as they had lots of good things to say about each other. When the affirmations were completed, the youth had a chance to say goodbye to each other, as that was the official end to the weekend. Note, I said the “official end.” But then the Americans wanted to go for ice cream …and invited the Salvadorans to go also. So we loaded 34 people onto the truck for the short ride downtown to the ice cream shop. Afterwards we posed for a group photo at the clock tower.
Monday, July 15
Our last full day in El Salvador begins with breakfast. Then our doctor and nurse are off to the medical clinic for another day of seeing patients suffering from chronic pain in arthritic joints. Bishop Juan de Dios had predicted that patients would be lined up down the street. He was close to being right! They saw more than 70 patients today, for a total of more than 120 in two days. Even though the pain relief is temporary, a few weeks to a few months, the patients are gratful to receive it. What a gift!
Meanwhile, our teens head over to the Methodist School where in 2 sessions today nearly 600 students will be studying. In the morning we toured the school and then visited in several high school classrooms. We were able to engage in Q&A with the students and saw many of our friends from the weekend retreat. We returned to the Mission House for lunch.
After lunch we returned to the school, this time visiting with 1st grade students during their recess time. The 1st grade girls played soccer with our girls, then our boys had their turn with the 1st grade boys. Both were spirited matches!
We returned to the Mission House midafternoon so our teens could begin packing. The Salvadoran youth wanted to play football (soccer) with the Americans. So we have reserved a soccer field for a couple of hours tonight.
After dinner and being rejoined by our doctor and nurse, we head over to the soccer field. I imagined that an American team would play against a Salvadoran team. They had other ideas. They created a number of teams, each one having 2 Americans and 2 Salvadorans. They played 10 minute games and then switched teams. That way it was about fellowship more than about winning, and everyone who wanted to play was able to. Now that being said, there was still trash talk and bantering! Haha but a good time was had by all. I assured them I am too old to play, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching from the sidelines. Dr. Hoff represented the adults well as he played very effectively on the field. However, even he said he expected sore muscles the next day!
Thus our time in El Salvador ended on a high note. I feel like everyone slept soundly that night.
Tuesday, July16
After an early breakfast, we loaded our luggage on the bus for the ride to the airport. Our goal was to arrive at the airport before 10:30, more than two hours before our flight was scheduled to depart. However, on the way we enountered several delays and traffic backups, mostly for road construction. We actually arrived at the airport only an hour and twenty minutes before departure. That’s cutting it a little close for the San Salvador airport! There was already a pretty good line at the airline counter. I went up and spoke to a supervisor and told her we had a group traveling on a group contract. They gave us the priority and within 20 minutes we were all checked in. After passing through two security checkpoints, we had time to use the restroom and grab snacks. Our flight to Miami was uneventful. Once we landed and disembarked, it seemed to take a long time to clear Passport Control and Customs. But we made it to our gate in plenty of time. We had a direct flight to Wilmington and landed about 25 minutes early. Our journey was finally over.
So how do we evaluate this mission trip? What did we accomplish? We certainly completed our four projects: medical clinic, food project, construction project, and the weekend retreat with Salvadoran youth. Additionally we interacted with the students in the school. We overcame the barriers of language and culture by focusing on our common faith in Christ and a desire to build relationships. Our team members grew in their faith by commiting themselves to the whole week. They studied, they worked, they prayed, they opened their hearts to the Salvadoran people and to Christ. I could not have asked for more than they gave! Finally, I want to thank the other adults: Dr. Jeremy Hoff, Vicky Campbell, RN, Kevin Bradley, and Pam Hutsell (Asst. Director of Youth and Childrens Ministries at Wrightsville UMC). Without their leadership and support, this mission trip would never have been so successful. Finally, we had an amazing group of teens. I am so proud of them!
Perhaps the best example of this team’s positive impact concerns one of the Salvadoran teens. He was almost 14, awkward even for a boy that age. It was readily apparent that he struggled with social relationships even though he is a really nice young man. When the youth self-designated their small groups, I distinctly remember one of our girls going immediately to this boy and saying, “Come on (name), be in our group. We want you in our group!” The other Americans who were going to be a part of the group joined in the invitation: “Yes (name), join our group.” I didn’t think too much of it at the time other than it was a nice gesture. Later, the boy’s mom shared: “He told me, Mom, you know how when they choose up teams no one ever wants me on their team, and it hurts so much. Well, Mom, they chose me. They wanted me on their team! It felt so good!!!” I shared with the team later that they had no idea what a gift they gave that boy. I told them that through their actions they not only showed God’s love, but they showed that boy that God wants him. They may have changed his life. He will certainly remember for a long time that on this occasion, for this weeked, they wanted him in their group. Our team certainly made a positive impact on his life.
I shared this with the team, then on Monday we visited the school. We happened to visit his classroom. Our teens went over to him and greeted him by name. The girls hugged him and the guys gave high fives. It was interesting to see the quizzical looks on the faces of his classmates. I’m sure they were wondering how he was friends with all these Americans!!!
