We've been home for about a week and a half and I have yet to post about this trip. Why? Because it's truly hard to put to words what happened in El Salvador…for me personally, for Pittsford YL, for all of Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo, and for the people of El Salvador. To sum it up: it was absolutely incredible. The Lord is good. And so much bigger than I ever knew. I'm going to do my best to give an overview of the trip, to share how my life has been forever changed, and a few ways I saw the Lord move on this trip.
Overview of the trip:
-Day 1: Travel to El Sal! The 38 people on the Rochester team gathered at the airport Thursday morning, all so excited and nervous we didn't quite know what to do. We traveled from Rochester to Newark to Houston to San Salvador by plane. Everything went incredibly smooth. No problems with security or customs getting into the country (which was incredible because last year a whole bunch of supplies our group brought was confiscated by customs in El Sal)! We got through with all of our supplies, all our people, and the trip began! We all packed onto a bus to drive to Taura.
-When we got to Taura, we had a welcoming committee! We were greeted by many people from the community, kids and adults alike (it was about 11:30pm by now!) We pulled up to the church, where they had made a beautiful awning type structure and there were lots of balloons, streamers, posters, confetti and hugs galore! We basically went straight to bed…everyone was exhausted after 16 hours of traveling!
-Day 2 & 3: work days! We would travel down the road (walking or by cattle truck) about a mile to Rancho Grande to join our Syracuse friends for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The food was very good. We enjoyed spending time with new and old friends, with Rancho kids running everywhere, stray dogs and chickens running everywhere and laughter everywhere.
Here's the basic schedule: 7:15 - walk to breakfast, 8:30 - come back to Taura and head out to work! 12:15 - head back to Rancho for lunch, 1:30 - Siesta time! time dedicated for everyone to take 30 minutes to spend with the Lord…journaling and reflecting on the fact that WE ARE IN EL SALVADOR! 2 - back to work! 4 - Trips to the Rio (river!), 6:15- back to Rancho for dinner, 8:30 - back to Taura to have 'cabin time' (explanation below) and to spend time with the community of Taura
-Day 4: Sabbath! We got to take a trip to Monte Christo, an island off the coast…about a 45 minute drive and a 10 minute boat ride away…to visit our Buffalo friends who were staying/working there. What a day…we got to swim in the Rio, eat lunch together, play some soccer, hear from our new friend Marvin (the president of the Taura community) as he shared his story, worship together and head on back to Taura to spend the rest of the night with the people of Taura
-Day 5 & 6 - work days!
-Day 7: Market/Hotel day! We left in the morning to head to San Salvador (the capitol) to go to a market (very much a tourist spot)…really the only time we spent in San Salvador because it's not the safest place to be…the market was gated and guarded, so we were fine to go there and the kids loved getting to get little El Salvadoran trinkets and gifts to bring home to family and friends. Then we went to a hotel on the coast! What a gift that time was…a day/night to process. To simply be with people, to go swimming, to shower with running water, to reflect on the week and have time to process with people who had experienced it with us (without having to explain everything--although enjoyable, it's just nice to get to talk with people who were there with you)
-Day 8: Travel home! Again, everything went really smooth, with the exception of an hour delay on our last flight…but if that's our only problem, then I will take it!
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