Last month, we sent a team of 5 to El Salvador to share Christ’s love in a unique way. Partnering with Compassion International, the team trained over 100 project tutors in new and motivating types of physical fitness and recreational activities. We’ve posted several photos of their trip on our Facebook page (facebook.com/wvcglobalimpact) but here are just a few of them for you:
The team made it home safe and sound – with all luggage in tow – late Saturday evening. Thank you to everyone who kept them in your prayers! We will post final thoughts and photos from the team here soon, so keep checking back with us!
It’s hard – almost impossible – to describe the extreme material poverty that exists in El Salvador. In the U.S., we often hear the word “poverty” and associate it only with lack of resources – food, water, shelter, and basic sanitation. I’d like to challenge each of us to re-think our definition of poverty.
One of the most significant experiences I’ve had this week is the in-depth conversations with the Compassion project directors and staff. I was talking with one of them over lunch and she told me a story of one of the boys in her project. His group was eating lunch and he had a plate of food in front of him. He was barely eating any of it so she asked him why. He said he didn’t want to eat because the rest of his family didn’t have any food for that day. She was weeping as she was telling the story. She said that they were able to help his family but you could tell she was crying because it wasn’t the first time or the last that she would hear that from a child.
We learned today from the Compassion Country Director that 60% of the Compassion projects in El Salvador are in gang-infested neighborhoods. The government has relinquished much control to the gangs especially in the materially poor neighborhoods. The poor in those areas have very little resources and often turn to the gangs for protection and a way out.
That’s where Compassion project directors and their staff enter the story. They stand – sometimes literally – at the intersection between the gangs and the government; between the lies that poverty tells and the Truth of the Gospel and a better way. Compassion sees the material poverty and does something about it. But just as important, they see the spiritual poverty of people and do something even greater.
In the same lunchtime conversation I mentioned above I asked some of the Compassion staff if they worked in gang neighborhoods. Many of them nodded in agreement. I asked if they felt threatened by working in those areas. They shook their heads “No”. I must have had quite a puzzled look on my face when I asked them why not. They answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Compassion has made authentic inroads in many of these communities by caring for the material needs of the poor. They give, even out of their own material poverty, so that they have an opportunity to share the spiritual riches of knowing Jesus. They have been such a bold witness that the gang members’ children are now enrolled in the Compassion projects. The gangs actually protect the Compassion staff as they work in some of the most dangerous of circumstances.
The fruit of the spiritual riches in El Salvador is that the churches that host the Compassion projects are seeing many parents come to faith in Christ because of the love and care given to their children. So, how do you define poverty?
By Heidi Baker for the team.
The team finished a great day at the project. Tomorrow is their final day at the Compassion project and they spent most of their “down” time making final preparations. They do ask for prayer for heath and stamina has they head into the final stretch of the trip.
More updates to come!
One hundred and twenty tutors came from as far away as a 3-hour one way commute, and one group rode in the back of a pickup truck, to attend our directed recess seminar. They came with great expectations to learn activities that would help the Compassion children in their projects. They enthusiastically participated in learning games, activities and teaching methods. Almost all of them live in the same poor communities where they serve and many of them have children that are sponsored through Compassion. Nevertheless, their lives shine in the richness of Jesus.
Glenn Harrison for the team.
“Dios le bendiga, hermana (God bless you, sister). I’ve heard that many times since arriving in El Salvador to work alongside our Compassion brothers and sisters. And the thing is – they mean it, and in a way many of us have not experienced before.
The past 24 hours have been filled with rich fellowship with our Salvadoran hosts, and by many recounting of the miracles God has worked in their lives. We listened as a pastor remembered how a gang tried to poison him when he couldn’t pay the bribe they demanded, how he pursued the gang leader to invite him to church and how he wept when the gang leader was shot in the head just two blocks from his church reportedly on his way to take the pastor up on his offer.
We’ve been awestruck as people have told us about times they have fasted and prayed for God’s provision of food when there was nothing to eat, for healing when they were sick and there were no other options, and for changed hearts just when all hope was gone. And God provided miraculously for them.
My first reaction was simply to acknowledge that God is working more miracles among the poor in the Majority World than He is in my neighborhood. And that might be true. But I’ve also been convicted that it is just as possible that the people we’ve been spending time with simply have the spiritual eyes to see and the faith to believe the miraculous works that God is doing all around them. They consistently talk about the Lord being all they need, and really in many cases they have nothing else.
This reality was cemented on a visit to the home of a Compassion-sponsored child. Veronica joined the Compassion project 3 months ago, about the same time her father was put in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Her mother, Marlena, has high blood pressure, but still works as a vendor selling candy on the public buses. On a good day she earns $3 profit which pays for the children’s daycare, some food for them and a little extra to drop off at the jail for her husband, and maybe enough spare change to pay for some electricity to light the one bulb in their home.
At the end of our visit we asked if we could pray with her and asked for her prayer requests. She did not ask for a house that was not damaged by the earthquake, or a roof that does not leak, or a neighborhood without gangs. Instead, she thanked God for the miraculous blessing of her children, and simply that He is the Lord of her life and the one thing she can count on each morning when she wakes. The only thing she asked of Him was to keep her alive long enough to raise her children and that He would protect them.
We gave Veronica a coloring book as we were leaving. Marlena took it, hugged it to her chest, and with tears rolling down her face said, “I thank God that my daughter now has something I never had – her very own book to keep as her own.”
The Miracles of God – children to love and care for, health to live another day to praise Him, a book….
I’m thinking now about the miracles happening all around me and asking the Lord to give me the spiritual eyes to see them. What miracles are happening all around you?
Heidi Baker for the team
The El Salvador team arrived safely Friday evening, slept well in San Salvador and got up early Saturday to start our first day with Compassion. We rode by van to our host project in Cojutepeque. We were greeted warmly by the children and adults who lined the road holding large posters, balloons, and confetti. After the children presented a program and gave a Bible lesson, we had a tour of the Compassion project and a scrumptious lunch. We then visited the homes of two families who have children in the project. Their poor conditions tugged on our hearts!!
We had a surprise visit with the first LDP (Leadership Development Program) student from a nearby project. We heard his exciting testimony and invited him along with his Compassion project director and another project tutor to join us for dinner. He is expected to be the first LDP graduate in El Salvador and he is already making plans on how to network many Christian organizations to reach the street kids of his country.
We had an exciting day interacting with the project staff and seeing how passionate they are for reaching the next generation of El Salvador with the good news of the Gospel.
Betsy Harrison for the Team
We made it safe and sound. All luggage in tact. Compassion staff is awesome as always. Too tired to blog.
Our El Salvador team leaves today! Partnering with Compassion International, the team will train and empower 100 project tutors from 12 sites in new and motivating types of physical fitness and recreational activities. The team will work with and encourage tutors in teaching children the importance of physical health and fitness – an element of Compassion’s holistic approach in releasing children from poverty.
Stay tuned for updates from the field!
We have just launched our upcoming trips! Look for our Trip Guides in both Welcome Centers and in the Impact Center at the Rockrimmon campus. Or visit us online: woodmenvalley.org/go.
Woodmen Global Impact 