Below is a copy of the email that I sent out to friends and family to thank them for the prayers and support they provided me with for my trip to El Salvador last month. Due to the lack of internet and computers in the third world country, there were no blogs from that trip. I sincerely apologize, but hope the attached link to my movie will make up for it. Muchos Gracias Amigos.
Hi everyone!
I am sorry for the delay of this email, but I wanted to finish my video of the trip first. Thank you so much for your prayers and support that got me to El Salvador (and back!!) a few weeks ago. I find it extremely difficult to even begin to describe the trip without pictures, so hopefully the movie I put together will give you a little insight into what we did.
We had a team of 19 members, most of them being from my church and then two great guys who joined us as complete strangers from Florida. We all bonded and worked together so well it was definitely God's doing!
I had the opportunity to go with The Orphan Helpers organization for one day on this trip. I witnessed things that my heart was definitely not ready for. We visited a boys' prison, with young boys, 11-18 years old, who were murderers, or gang members, or simply criminals. Crazy! We went to a half way home for young mothers. And when I say young, boy do I mean young. The one that really stopped me in my tracks was the 11 year old girl and her 4 month old baby. (There is a picture of my roommate and I standing with 2 girls on a balcony, the girl in the front is the 11 year old I am referring to.) To make matters even worse, the father of that baby was the 11 year old's brother. So sad. When we left there we went to a government run orphanage. The sights, smells, sounds, and everything, were just completely overwhelming. When you see me filming a few young boys (one of which kept flipping off the camera, sorry about that) that was at the orphanage. These boys were brought here from another orphanage, because the older boys were beginning to sexually molest most of them. Again, so sad.
The rest of the trip was spent with a construction team and a medical team. Because my knowledge of medicine doesn't go beyond Greys Anatomy, I was on the construction team! In one day I carried 1500 concrete blocks!! Needless to say, I should've hit the gym up a few more times before the trip! :-) When we started working, we began with the footing and the foundation of the parsonage. By the end of the trip we had almost built the house up to the start of the second floor! We worked hand in hand with a few local people who we have known from the past... It is always so wonderful to see the faces of the friends you make there! Aroche, one of the leaders on the job, was so excited to see me show up on the second day! It was a great feeling! Between the sifting, and the mixing, and the heavy lifting, the rebar building, and the dirt that I seemed to constantly accumulate on my face... it was a lot of hard work, but such an amazing time.
The medical group did an awesome job! Out of all the vitamins we took with us, we ran out several times and had to go buy more there! The medical team saw close to 700 patients in the 5 days we were working, with only 2 doctors!!! How awesome is that?! Sadly, I didn't get to film much of the medical team at work, but you see a couple minutes of it on the video.
A few of you heard that while we were there, we experienced a minor earthquake. It was something I had never felt before, and it was quite obvious that I wasn't the only Gringo on the trip who hadn't! All of the americans stopped what they were doing and leaped out into the biggest open space we could find, while the locals all seemed to laugh at us. Surprisingly there was no damage, but to be completely honest, I was shocked the bus didn't tip over. This was a fear that was in the back of all of our minds the rest of the trip, especially with it being only a few days after the Haiti disaster. I urge you to keep Haiti and all of the people who were affected by that earthquake in your thoughts and prayers. They have a long way to go before recovery. It could have just as easily have been El Salvador with that kind of disaster... same kind of setting and buildings and lovely people.
Anyway, as you will see in the video, in the midst of all of our hard work we did get the weekend for a bit of vacation! We got to see some ruins, the pacific ocean, geothermal vents, and some small towns. It was great. Not to mention the 95 degree weather (and no rain!) every day.
I truly love this country and all of it's lovely people. And I am so blessed to have had your support and prayers to get me there and back safely. You were just as much a part of this trip as I was! Without you this would not have been possible. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.
Grab some popcorn and about 23 free minutes and enjoy the video! http://vimeo.com/9300380
God bless!
Suz
