I’ve seen those shabby looking buildings made from aluminum siding along the roads of El Salvador. Dirt floors. I asked a friend of mine “Do they know how the other half lives?” He said they probably do because ever so often you will see a television antenna coming out of the roof of some of these shacks. Its very sad because these people are so poor and are forced to live this way. Even the poorest of the poor in the US still live better than those in these aluminum siding shacks.
I’ve seen the modest church buildings in St. Agustine and San Francisco. Unacceptable by American standards, but by El Salvadorian standards these are adequate buildings. So while we spend more money renovating our old auditorium and try to decide what color our new church van will be, these El Salvadorian bretheren are content with having just enough paperback songbooks and plastic lawn chairs. I think our priorities are messed up. Still when I point the finger at my church’s spending habits, there are 10 fingers pointing back to me as I post from my computer less than 2 years old (which I plan on replacing in another couple of years) while watching my 25 inch television.
Seeing the earnest faces of the St. Agustine congregation….. I know that they didn’t join the church because of the wrong reasons…whether it is to gain a higher social standing among their peers….or to please their spouses. Nope they joined the church because they love God. Many of them came from Catholic backgrounds and would only face negativity from family members once they drop the religion of choice and join a new one.
And I’m not saying that we in America join churches for the wrong reason (at least I hope not). I’m just saying that the people of St. Agustine have a greater burden to carry when they change religions. Sometimes family completely disown you if you are not Catholic.
Still it was a little awkward being there. Especially when our church leaders spoke to the St. Agustine congregation. As if to say their church was in subjection to us. We pay your bills, now do what we say. My hope is that maybe 20 or 30 years down the road, the churches we help establish will be partially self sustaining….perhaps even have elders appointed. But that is very unlikely. These new churches look toward their preachers for leadership and to us for financial backing.
We never worried much about germs in China. I guess maybe I should have. The aluminum can tabs in China are the type which come completely off the can rather than sticking down into the soda when you open them. So you really didn’t have to worry about contamination. I don’t recall ever washing off a can in China in order to drink it. I rarely used straws there.
I have noticed a trend with instant messenger services throughout the region. In China ICQ was big. Honduran users tend to stick to Yahoo and MSN Messengers…never really an AOL address. Yahoo apparently has done a good job marketing to Latin America, which may be resulting in more of these locals using Yahoo Messenger service.
I rarely use ICQ. The one and only person who is online via ICQ is always classified as being away. Personally I think it is a dying religion. ICQ used to be big. Now, it�s cumbersome. Its software is bloatware.