I had time to post some of my better El Salvadorian pics on my own website. Mind you, these are some of my favorite pics. Not because they showed whatever we did in El Salvador. But because it shows some of the culture there. I have been told that I have been too negative toward El Salvador on this webpage. I’ve read over my entries and the only thing is that I can say I was real. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I enjoyed El Salvador. There were some good moments. The baptisms. The expressions on the people’s faces when you gave them a toy…or even a smile. I never had a terrible moment when I spoke in my broken Spanish to the people. The people were always friendly.
And I felt like we made a difference. In our own little way. Giving out medical aid to them. All the while preaching the Gospel to them. The last day when we met the congregation in St. Agustine was particularly touching for me. Their earnest faces….sitting in a church building which we had laid the foundation for…both physically and spiritually….years before.
Maybe my motivation for putting up these El Salvadorian pics was due to stumbling across some extraordinary pics on the net.

I got these wooden wall hanging key holders from El Salvador. After I got home, I found that they are probably cheaply made….using decals. So I probably paid too much for them. These type of wall hanging decorations are plentiful among the souvenir stands and its hard not to buy them in the rush of trying to find cool souvenirs.
Meanwhile I’m trying to write up an article about the El Salvador trip for the Mt. Juliet News (local newspaper). I sent out an email to everyone asking for experiences and stories about the trip. I’ve only gotten one back saying the best part about the trip were the 22 baptisms….which is all well and good, however I’m not sure it would play well in a secular newspaper. Emphasizing the religious aspects of the trip rather than the medical aid part might mean the difference in being buried deep in the religious section rather than being put on the front or 2nd page. I’m going to emphasize the medical mission part of the trip….how many people saw a doctor….how many prescriptions were written….how many teeth were pulled….etc. Joe User doesn’t really care how many people were converted…unless he himself is a Christian himself.
This may be the one and only time I go to Latin America. Its difficult work. I know there are souls to minister to….but who is really to say which is more important….a soul here in the US or a soul in El Salvador? The truth is both souls are just as important….with different degrees of accessibility and openness toward the Gospel. A potential convert in the US might be easier to get to….more difficult to convert….whereas a soul in El Salvador is difficult to get to…and easier to convert. What will probably happen is that I’ll have a greater deal of sympathy toward the Latin American mission effort….to through more support their way….yet at the same time not really having the desire to go back myself.
Yet as far as conversions go, I am left scratching my head thinking can a person really be converted after a one hour Bible study? Yet it happened time and time again in El Salvador. I’m not questioning these people’s sincerity. I’m asking “How?” and “Why?”

What did annoy me in El Salvador? Apart from the dirt and the heat, it was the greed I saw. Greed wasn’t everywhere. It was just in a couple of instances. Beggars can be choosers….or at least try to be.
Example: On the last night we were in Usulutan, I was asked 3 times by people for bandanas. It wasn’t the fact that they liked bandanas. It was how they were asking for them. As if our main purpose for the trip was to give away bandanas. “Wealthy Americans are giving away stuff? Well that means I should ask for bandanas.” Pure old American greed. Maybe one person in our group gave away their bandana which signaled the great bandana giveaway sale at the Anita Guerrero school.
If you have to ask for something, then maybe you don’t need it after all. It feels much better when I give away something to someone who didn’t even ask for it. I preferred it that way. I enjoyed the one time I gave a boy a small matchbox-sized skateboard toy unexpectantly, rather than having a whole group of kids come up to me each holding out their hands expecting a toy. The boy with the skateboard toy must have thought it was Christmas day the way he played with that toy.
Another example: On the 2nd to the last night, they gave away toys to the children who participated in the children’s class. Laura, one of the teachers, described it as “a complete disaster,” because some people weren’t happy with the toys they were given. We were pestered by unhappy parents wanting another toy. Another example of pure old American greed filtered down to Latin American standards. I told Laura that next year they will just have to get 2 sets of toys…one for the girls and one for the boys. Or even just have one toy for everyone, so that there will be no fighting about it.
I know that I am just as guilty as not being satisfied with what I’ve got. I’m always looking for something bigger and better in the computer world. I just saw this particular aspect magnified more and more when it was in-your-face type of greed.
And I don’t feel guilty for what I’ve got. Guilt involves doing something wrong. I feel blessed. I’d be guilty if I didn’t use what I had for God.

What a long strange trip. Many many times during my El Salvadorian trip I have been left scratching my head wondering what happened here. Its the surreal El Salvador. Some examples:

• Manhole Covers – Would you believe I saw some manhole covers in Usulutan which said “Walbash, Indiana” on them? Initially it looked as if these were made for the streets of Walbash, but not I think they could have just been made in Walbash and distributed elsewhere. Who knows. I would have expected to see manhole covers marked as “Usulutan” rather than Walbash.
• Trucks with English Writing – On at least 2 occasions I saw trucks with English markings on them indicating they were from the states. Such as the truck I saw in the heart of Usulutan which had a furniture markings on it indicating it was from Virginia. Makes me wonder how and why this US truck made it to this El Salvadorian town. Driven through Mexico? Dropped off from a boat?
• Girls in Easter Dresses – Here we are the “rich” Americans wearing borrowed clothes and scrubs….trying not to sweat to much in the heat….while the Usulutanians are wearing their best clothing….dressing their children up in Easter dresses in order to make a good impression on the doctor. Going to see the doctor for the first time? Wear your best clothes, even if the medical care is free. What they don’t realize it that Easter dresses don’t make an impression on us. Rather it just comes across as strange.
• TV Antennas from Shacks – This must be the El Salvadorian equivalent of satellite dishes in mobile home parks. Can’t afford a decent home? No problem. Just get some electricity to your shack and find a TV. Do TVs come that cheap or is affordable permanent housing that expensive?
• Strange Currencies – I’d halfway expect to see local currency in El Salvador. Not so. I only saw dollars. Dirty US coins. When we came across a peso or whatever they have, it is a novelty to us because it rarely happened. Yep, they used our currency. They drove on the same side of the road as us. If I didn’t know better, I would have forgotten I was in another country and could have imagine I was in some depreciated part of South Central LA. El Salvador is a dirty little country and probably is a testimony to what the US could have been if it had not rose the living standards in the 1800s.
• Animal Farm – Similar to the movie 12 Monkeys, the animals roam the streets. Cows at the bus station. Pigs on the streets. While having a Bible Study in someone’s home, it is not unusual to see a chicken run through the house.
• I Wish I Was in Dixie – On the top of our tour bus, I noticed there was a painted rebel flag. You never can go too far from the south. KnowWhatImean, Vern?

El Salvador is indeed a strange place. At times I forgot I was in another country and thought this was some weird strange Dr. Suess parable.

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.

Reflecting back at the trip, I don’t know if I really contributed enough than what I should have. I mean the trip was completely paid for by donations and I feel as though I might have wasted it. I took plenty of pictures, but maybe I could have used up more film. If I had brought back 10 rolls of used film and used up all my digital cards, could I have called the trip a success on my part? Could I have helped more people? Given out more smiles? Counted more pills than the bare minimum I had done before? Camera work was a wimpy job. Just point and shoot. Nothing like filling up 100s of water bottles each and every day.
I’m disappointed in a way because I could have done more. I could have been a better force in getting things done instead of staying in the background. Was I vital to the trip? Nope. Things function without me.
And I was able to recover about 75% of the pictures which I previously thought were lost….using a friend’s Norton disk recovery utility. I may try going to a specialist, but I’m pretty satisfied with the results now, if nothing else can be fixed.

For those of you wondering, I made it back ok. Not too much happened today worth talking about. My only casualty was that one of my digital camera cards became corrupted, so I can’t read some of the pictures. I’m going to try to take it to some kind of heavy duty data recovery specialist to see if any of it can be recovered. I lost about 80 pictures because of this.
I’m really tired and am going to bed soon.

I would feel dishonest using the hotel’s computers and then not paying. So I hang arond the computer lab and answer questions for members of our group. People feel as though I’m some kind of genius. I’m no genius. I just use common sense.
So we drove to Usulatan. On our way there we past a couple of pickup trucks full of people. John Thomas said he saw a small child’s coffin on the bed of the truck. He said the people were solemn faced. I mistakenly gave a wave to the crowd. I didn’t know any better. It was a good thing I didn’t take their picture.
We ate at a fast food chicken place in Usulutan. I asked for a can of Coke. When I got it, it had a dead fly on the side of it. It goes to show you that sanitation isn’t the same as in the US.
Jack warned us not to eat the lettuce, nor the fountain drinks. Terry accidentally knocked his fort on the floor and the waiter immediately gave him a new one.
I’m not sure what the local think of our cleanliness. We constantly ask for cokes with straws – which surprisingly they always have – even in the smallest podunk town.
After eating lunch we drove to Janet’s bakery in Usulutan. Since it was Good Friday she was gone.
In fact there were lots of people around the churches for Good Friday services.
Next we drove to the small town where our mission group went to last year – San Francisco. The rented church was small. Armando had the key. From what I understand the total membership here was small. It is amazing how their church facilities are pretty basic while we almost demand padded pews – these people get by on a dusty building with plastic yard chairs. Are we spending too much money on nice multi thousand dollar buildings? Probably it doesn’t take padded pews to worship God.
Next was on to San Agustin where a MJ group had gone right after the earthquake of 2001. There were several church members waiting for us at the building. We sang some songs with them. Afterwards, Jack, my dad, and David Shannon gave them words of encouragement. It was a very meaningful to know the MJ church had a hand in helping build this building. Making a difference. That’s what it is all about.
After saying our goodbyes to the church members we walked down to the city square – where we had setup a medical mission right after the earthquake of 2001. It had a shabby looking clock tower and basketball court. Our mission group slept in tents on the outdoor basketball court while solders guarded their stuff.
What was really funny was seeing a shabby looking video arcade on the square. Cows walked the streets in this town. There were remnants of the earthquake still lingering. The clock tower mentioned previously is still broken. I saw at least one house collapsed. Cracks in the buildings were prevalent.
I’ve seen plenty of adobe buildings. These are made out of dirt. Since it doesn’t rain much here, except for a few months of the year, these buildings weather decently. I’ve also seen shack made from tin metal and aluminum siding.
While driving in and around the countryside I’ve noticed that the country could easily be Tennessee or Kentucky in the summertime.
We had Pizza Hut pizza tonight. We took an airport shuttle to the airport and got our pizzas. I noticed there was a subway restaurant right beside it too.
There is a singing going on tonight, but I’m not going to it. I’m a bit tired and know that there’s a chance I’ll be there longer than I want to. I enjoying singing, but really only in certain circumstances – like church camp.
Speaking of church camp, this mission trip is like church camp – the only difference is that it is mostly all adults along. Instead of ministering to kids, we are ministering to the locals. I can understand why some people are hardcore about it, after all I’m probably hard core about church camp. I really don’t plan on coming EVERY year. We’ll see what happens when next year rolls around as to if I’ll plan on returning.
I don’t even want to think about packing. I’ve got some breakable stuff and need to take that into consideration. I felt bad about dropping almost $100 on souvenirs and then being asked to help with supporting our Latin American Missions. I hate feeling guilty.

So there’s a charge to use the hotel’s internet connections. Something like $1.25/fifteen minutes. I’m just glad I was able to use it for as long as I did. The last time I used it, the hotel receptionist stopped me as I was going out and told me about the charge. Luckily he didn’t charge me for my ignorance.
I’ve seen more Americans here at the hotel than what I saw the entire trip. Many of the hotel staff can speak good English. This morning I found out my Dad’s English skills are terribly lacking. He couldn’t even ask the hotel maid for a bottle of water.
So the TV shows TNT, CNN International (I had seen this version of CNN in Shanghai before)….and a few other English networks. Many were subtitled in Spanish.
It is easy to forget you’re in El Salvador while stayin in this hotel – this cultural bubble. But once you get outside of the hotel, it is easy to be reminded this aint Kansas anymore, Toto.
Breakfast we good. I had an omelet at the hotel’s break bar.
So I’m really wondering if I contributed to this trip. I haven’t done anything incredibly vital to the trip. If I hadn’t come along would the trip had been as good as what it was? I sorta stayed in the background. Maybe I was afraid to get close to the locals due to germs. Maybe there are just harder workers in the group. Phil said he was glad I came. I’m glad I came. I just wish I could have become more comfortable to be a vital part of the group. Buddy said take pictures and so I did. That was my job and I hop I did it well. My Spanish skills were terribly lacking so I couldn’t have a Bible study with anyone.
I do feel inadequate at times. So many more people are more vital to this trip than I am. I guess we’ll see how vital these pictures are once I get back. I’ll have some homework to do once I get back. Burning CDs for everyone.
Well its getting close to time to leave for Usulutan. See you later

Yesterday we toured all around El Salvador. After paying our $30 fee, we loaded up on 3 buses and took off. From Santa Ana to Lake Coatepeque. Coatepeque is a lake made from the hole of a volcano. The view from there was tremendous.
While we drove through San Salvador, I saw many familiar sites from home….Burger King, Blockbuster Video, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Pizza Hut…. All seemed to have larger seating capacity…obviously to accommodate the wealthy American crowds which probably came through there looking for decent food. On the other hand, there is a local burger chain called “Biggest” which apparently is really big here. There was even a Biggest Burger in Usulutan. They have a unique way of delivering pizza and chicken around here. The drivers have motor bikes. We are talking off road motor bikes with little storage bins in the back. I’ve been trying to catch a picture of them, but they are way too fast and I’m slow with the camera.
Lunch was less to be desired. It was included in our $30 tour. Some kind of cheese and bean bread patties. Smelt funny. Someone said they thought it was made from goat cheese. The restaurant which served it, also had a bakery in it. The people in our group who tried the cakes said they needed more sweetness.
We went to several shops to buy souvenirs I got a couple of statues, some marindas, and a bunch of other junk. The first store we went to was a specialized art store. Then there was the store which supposedly sold authentic Indian artifacts. We did go to a pyramid, but unfortunately due to holy week, it was closed. But we did get to view it from the fence.
The bus ride was long and the roads were not in the best conditions. Phil helped everyone pass the time by singing hymns throughout much of the busride. I’m really glad I was able to see a unique country with a group of dedicated like-minded Christians. Everyone has been very positive. I’m glad I came.
Also along the way, we stopped at a Texaco station. I’ll call it an “Inconvenience Station” because it didn’t have much else but gas and Gatorade to sell. The inside of it was completely bare. We stopped to use the uni-sex bathroom (some of us peed in the woods nearby).
This initially entry might be deceptive. I have not had a chance to post my previous entries. This has not been all fun and games. We worked hard at the school in Usulutan. Sweated alot. Cold showers at night (but at least they had running water). I never thought I would crave a cold shower, but I did at that point. However something odd would happen as soon as you stepped out of the shower. You’d get dirty again. There was no escaping it.
In order not to burn up on re-entry, we’ve got to assimilate ourselves to American culture. Otherwise the shock to the system would be too great for our bodies. Hence the stay at this hotel. It’s pretty much a slice of America here in El Salvador. The hotel has pretty much everything a hotel in the US would have. Except you can’t drink the water. Close your eyes and don’t open your mouth in the shower. Use bottled water when brushing your teeth.
Tomorrow we are going to San Francisco, El Salvador (don’t confuse that with the California one). We’ll be seeing some of the congregations which we’ve done campaigns for in the past few years. We also might visit a hospital. We get to sleep in til 9 or so before we leave at 10 for the tour.
On Saturday we’ll be at the airport at 10AM. We need to get there 2 and a half hours before our departure, just in case something goes wrong.
Well I need to get some sleep and let someone else use this computer. There are only 2 computers available for us gringos. See y’all later.
By the way, here are some pictures from the trip. There is only one of me.