Sister Church, Born of the Same Father

July 20, 2013
Welcome Everybody! This English greeting spoke volumes of the brothers and sisters of Buenas Nuevas Church in El Paisnal. The hugs, warm greetings of gratitude for our presence and partnership, and a sweet cup of fresh fruit for each of us invoked the beginning of genuine hospitality and delight for the nine "gringos." This sister church of Covenant UMC was greeting friends from another land, people they didn't know but hearts they did know. The beating of those hearts has been of one accord with Buenas Nuevas for the last 23 years so this reunion only reinforced the connection.

El Paisnal is a small country village north of San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. Like most campas (country towns) El Paisnal experienced a great deal of poverty, unemployment, absentee fathers, and very few educational opportunities not to mention the lack of interest from many families. However, this campa also featured deep connection with each other, especially through the church. Buenas Nuevas provides English and computer classes on the weekend for kids and adults, time to play in the park as kids should but never get to otherwise, and scholarship funds for 73 children both from the church and not. And so this community bond extended to us this warm (way hot and humid) Saturday afternoon. We partnered with the youth to make 3 cajones and hand drums and with the kids to make Easter egg shakers, color with chalk and blow bubbles. The camaraderie we felt with them felt very much like brothers and sisters playing together, sharing resources to make and do really fabulous things.

We paired up at night to venture off deeper into the neighborhood to spend the evening (which gets dark at 6:30) host families, most of whom didn't speak any English. I was grateful for my partner because Mac and I surprisingly speak ok Spanish, but when words don't come, our actions, sounds, and laughter make up for it. Plus, we took Skip-Bo to play with the family of 2 children and mom and dad. We all practiced our numbers and phrases for "It's your turn." or "Discard!" The sheets that separated the garage size house into rooms provided us privacy, but we were very aware of their care covering us.