Yes, I’ve been home for over two weeks now, and still haven’t been able to sit down and write about my mission trip to El Salvadore. Of course, I’ve been busy since I’ve returned, seeing clients and having lots of company. I’ll share more about that later. But I also think I didn’t really want to write about it. Not yet. At least until now…My experiences are still too fresh and precious. I wanted to think about my experience before I wrote about it.
But I realize that the time is come and if I don’t share with you soon, you might think I’ve forgotten you. Trust me, I never forget you. It’s just that I want what I write to be worth your time to read. I don’t read many blogs and when I do I want them to be full of good information and worth my time; not just the ramblings of a self-indulgent narcissist who thinks the world hangs on every word they say. If I had any of that in me (and I most certainly have, most of my life) a lot of it got stripped from me in El Salvadore. How can one stay in that mode when witnessing first hand the struggles of those whose daily lives are so difficult, but yet who also manage to stay positive, healthy, focused on their families, and grateful for what they have…so different from what I experience here in the U.S. especially as a marriage counselor.
My first days there were about adjusting. We arrived in San Salvadore on Wednesday, July 21, in the mid-afternoon, wearing our wonderful lime green mission shirts. Actually it was a great idea. Since most of us didn’t know each other it was a way of keeping our group together until we got where we were going.
The airport was small but bustling, and the various lines we had to go through intimidating, especially customs. But in general, the El Salvadoran people were friendly and didn’t try to be harsh or unpleasant. Still…the miltant looking security walking around with rifles didn’t help me feel very safe, even though I knew I was.
The air was muggy and I immediately noticed that everything looked grimy, a bit bedraggled, and certainly not state-0f-the-art, a result of years of disaster and war, I’m sure. Of course we were a bit tired and grimy ourselves, having left Raleigh at 6 a.m. Once we completed the security process we gathered outside where we were met by Juan de Dios Pena, the very young and sweet director of the Methodist Conference of El Salvadore. My first impression of him was that he smiled all the time, and no matter how many missions groups he worked with, he made us feel special, and as if he were having the time of his life.
Juan de Dios, his wife, and daughter
We all boarded a bus (didn’t realize that all yellow school buses go to Central America when they get too old here) and bounced and laughed our way to Ahauchapan, nice-sized town about an hour or so from San
Salvadore, up near the Honduran border. En route we stopped at a Methodist Clinic and dropped off medical supplies several people had brought into the country in their backpacks. I was sad to realize that even aspirin, Tylenol, and basic antibiotic ointments are scarce in most rural villages. I was also surprised that one of the first people I met was a young man from Rocky Mount, N. C. by the name of Brian Wubberly. I learned that he was from First Baptist Church there (the place where I saw my first counseling client EVER) and when I found out we had mutual friends I shook my head in amazement. At that moment I knew this was God’s way of showing me how far I had come and reminding me of where I had started, and that I was right where He wanted me to be.
The Methodista de Clinique
After we dropped off the medicine we headed up to the Colonia de Victorias outside of Ahuachapan, a hostel for missionaries run by Della Quintanella, a sweet woman whose husband had died suddenly of a heart attack the year before. We learned that it had been their dream to build this retreat and that now she and her sister and son (an agronomy student at the university) were now in the process of building this lovely place. I was blessed to have a GREAT roommate, Brenda Hudson, a nurse from Littleton, N. C. This was her fifth trip and we were so much alike it was sometimes a bit unreal. Trust me, having a good roommate was a really big deal for me!
My wonderful roomie!
Rustic though it was, I loved where we stayed. Della was a wonderful cook who grew all of her own vegetables (we ate lots of cucumber, squash, beans) raised her own chickens and eggs, and grew much of the fruit, such as the limes, watermelon, and the fruit in the drinks she prepared. We ate our meals in a huge high-ceilinged dining hall that was cool and spacious.
- dining hall
This is Della on the left, her sister on the right, and Della’s two younger children.
Of course, there were challenges with the language. But we all smiled a lot, pointed, and used our few words of Spanish and that got us a long way in the communication. 
By the way, we did have running water, but the water is collected in cisterns, turned off during the day, and there was just enough to take one lukewarm trickle of a shower and flush the toilets when needed. There is no flushing of toilet paper in Central America because all the sewage pipes are too small, so the custom is to place used toilet paper in a plastic bag that is emptied once a day. Not a favorite memory for me….If you ever go there, make sure you take LOTS of baby wipes, as they are also needed for freshening up during the day. But the place was very clean, beautiful, and relaxing. The food was great. We had a big fan in our room and that helped LOTS. The beds were very comfortable.
After a delicious full breakfast on Thursday (bread, juice, pancakes, melon, various puddings, eggs, etc.) we loaded up on the bus and drove into the town to the church where the team would be working on building a cinder block room that would be used as a kindergarten during the week and a Sunday School on Sunday mornings, and where I would be teaching on Saturday. I was very glad to be able to see the building and get comfortable knowing where all the electrical outlets were, etc. It was a gorgeous space, and relatively cool considering that it was about 85 degrees outside and very humid. I worked on my presentation and talked to the Duke University interns there on a nine week tour, while the rest of the team worked on the building.
Thursday we all paced ourselves, getting used to life without air conditioning, the change in water and food, and getting to know our team mates. There were eleven of us altogether, including two high school kids and 
one senior at N.C. State. Half the team was from Littleton where our team leader, Rev. David Haley, used to pastor, and the rest of us represented Winstead UMC in Wilson, N. C. where David now pastors. By the way, he has been to El Salvadore 24 times! He actually is my mother’s pastor and preached my father’s funeral. It was during my father’s illness that we met and began to dream about the possibility of bringing my trauma mental health and community disaster resilience seminars to the pastors of El Salvadore. I am so grateful God used that difficult time and this pastor for His glory!
Pastor David Haley, Winstead UMC, Wilson, N. C.
Even though Thursday was a rather lightweight day, we were exhausted Thursday evening, and giddy/silly now that we were settled and getting to know one another. On Friday, the team left me behind at the hostel to work on my presentation. I was joined around noon by the young woman who was to be my translator, Sindy. She needed to read my slides (and help me make more) to make sure my presentation flowed smoothly and she could translate for me without difficulty. We immediately hit it off and she was so helpful to me. We worked all afternoon outside under the trees. Della brought us fresh pineapple smoothies–a welcome break. Later that night, after supper, we drove into Ahuachapan for some of the best ice cream I’ve ever had. Of course, by then I was in such a state of bliss that everything seemed wonderful. I even slept like a rock, something that’s not that easy for me anywhere, much less in a third-world country! By the way, this structure was in the middle of Ahuachapan, just across the street from the ice cream shop. I thought its beauty was magical. It looked like a wedding cake.
Saturday dawned bright and clear. Of course I was nervous, especially when we couldn’t open the Powerpoint presentation both Sindy and I had so carefully downloaded onto a USB stick the day before. And of course, my laptop malfunctioned. But I stopped and prayed, and we remembered that I’d also emailed the presentation to Juan de Dios the day before and he had it on his Blackberry, which he then downloaded onto HIS laptop.
I cannot tell you the feeling I had when I stood up and greeted the 37 pastors (both men and women, young and older) who sat before me. I had a huge rush of gratitude and a deep knowledge that the day was going to be good–not because I was so wonderful, but because God is so good. He had planned this day from my birth and knowing I was walking in His will and that He was using me in ways I never dreamed could be possible just took my breath way. I knew He had not taken me this far to let me down.
Of course, I made mistakes, left out some material I wished I’d put in, and put in some I wished I’d left out. But you know, God didn’t ask me to be perfect, He just asked me to be obedient. And I am oh so grateful that I was….I will never forget the look of gratitude on the faces of the pastors as they asked me to continue my work there and thanked me profusely for giving them so much practical information.
The seminar ended mid-afternoon and after it was all over we loaded up, went back to the hostel and freshened up, packed up and headed back to San Salvadore. En route we picked up a family that David has known for six years and took them with us for the weekend. We ate pizza, which was amazingly good by then, having dined on rice and vegetables for three days. We reached San Salvadore late that evening and crashed at the Hotel Novo, where we reveled in hot showers, good water pressure, and air conditioning. But honestly, I was already missing Ahauchapan and Della’s special place.
On Sunday morning we attended church services at Juan’s church in San Salvadore. The music was wonderful. David Haley preached as well as Juan. The anointing of God was strong on the place, and the joy of the people palpable. After a bit of lunch, we got on the bus and drove up to Chatelango, a mountain town about an hour up near the border where we shopped in the artisan’s markets and heard the incredible history of how this town once ravaged by disaster and war was transformed by a local famous artist who returned to teach the people how to paint and make crafts. The mosaics all over town are amazing. It was raining most of the day (it rains a LOT in El Salvadore) and the drive back down the mountain was a bit scary as there were mudslides and large rocks in the middle of the highway–all reminders of just how fragile and on the edge this country lives. After all, they’ve had over 250 disasters in the last thirty years!
On Monday we returned to the church in San Salvadore but this time to excavate. With no presentation to prepare for, I had no excuses this time. So I got in and shoveled dirt like everyone else. Of course, now I have a touch of tendinitis, but hey…just a little twinge every now and then only reminds me that I was there. It felt good to contribute in this real way. Funny how attached one can get to a hole in the middle of a garage-turned-church and a mound of dirt in a remote country far from home! This mound was only one of about five created and then hauled off by trucks as we excavated the ground floor of our renovation project.
On Monday we had the added excitement of having a team to arrive from a Methodist church near Columbia, S. C.
This team was very different in makeup from ours, but nevertheless we enjoyed sharing and the air of comraderie and competition with the new team was a shot in the arm for all of us. With their help the work went amazingly fast, and meals at night were more interesting as we met new people and shared our personal stories. Our work continued on Tuesday and at the end of the day we enjoyed a celebratory dinner at a local restaurant up on a volcano (no longer active, of course) overlooking the city. We dined on varieties of “pupusas” a traditional favorite dish of the El Salvadorans made of grilled Maseca cakes and various fillings like cheese, beans, chicken, and pork and a drink called “The Rose of Jamaica” a strong berry drink similar to pomegrante/acai juice. Pupusas are to that region what barbeque sandwiches are to eastern North Carolina, although not nearly as good, at least not to me. But I think by then I was on sensory overload!
Wednesday, our day of departure, came much too fast. Our plane flight home was quiet and lacking in incident. But one thing summed it all up. I ended up sitting next to a young woman with a 18 month old child. The young woman was crying, sad to leave her own mother behind in order to return to the states, and lonely because her husband, an El Salvadoran, was fighting for the U.S. in Iraq. I comforted the mother and offered to pray for her husband. Her baby crawled up in my arms to look out the window, and within minutes fell asleep in my arms. She stayed there for over an hour.
I looked at that baby and realized–this is the future of El Salvadore. How can we turn our backs on the people who need our help, especially the little one I held in my arms. God help us all.
