Buddy, our mission trip organizer, stopped by last night and gave my dad the scoop on El Salvador. My dad teaches a Bible class on Wednesday nights and was unable to attend the planning classes.
I’m feel a bit more overwhelmed by it. I guess it didn’t dawn on me that I’d have to supply some of my own food during the meals. I guess Vienna sausage is in order. That and Spam maybe. PB&J. Still trying to figure the logostics of transporting a loaf of bread to Latin America without getting it smashed.
Then again usually when it is so hot, I forget about eating anyways. I don’t get hungry when I am sweating. Thirsty, yes. Hunger, no.
I hope I am doing the right thing. I don’t want to get down there and be completely confused and lost. I hate not knowing what is going on. My whole year is planned out already. Not being able to predict what will happen once I get down there is killing me.
Still I don’t want this El Salvador trip to be an annual thing. I already do 2 camps a year and can’t afford another thing to take up vacation time. I feel as though I do camps better than what I could ever do mission trips. So I should do camps given the choice.
I’m supposed to be the photographer for the mission trip. I don’t think this is a difficult, nor necessary job that HAS to be done. I’m not even that good of a photographer. I hope I’ll do ok. Worst case scenerio is my film gets x-rayed at the airport and all my film is lost. Therefore I’m trying to keep some plastic bags around to keep that from happening.
I’m not a preacher. I’m not a song leader. I’m not even a very good Sunday school teacher. In any other situation I would never consider myself a missionary.

I got these throwaway shirts to wear when we’re in El Salvador. Basically they are misprinted or have some type of flaw on it which keeps them from selling them. After we wear them we give them to the natives for their own sparse collections. Basically I have two types. One is a boy band called “TRUEVibe.” I did some research on them. Found out they opened for Destiny’s Child and Aaron Carter. So in other words, I would never wear this shirt, if only in El Salvador. (Waiting for people to point and laugh). So the flaw might just be the boy band on it. Perhaps there was some big scandal with the boy band which makes it where you couldn’t even give these shirts away in America.
The other shirt is a high school graduation t-shirt with the class’ signatures on the back. I think its from Columbia Central High in Maury County. But I’ve yet to confirm it. No year on it. What’s the use of having no year? That must have been the misprint.
I’m glad we have these shirts. It was either this or having to go to Goodwill and buying a bunch of tshirts….which I won’t be doing.
Still, this isn’t a fashion trip. Scrubs and throwaway tshirts. That will pretty much be it.
We’ll be going to Usulutan, a relatively large city in El Salvador. I don’t have population figures for it, but I’ve been able to find it in alot of El Salvadorian maps.
Things to bring (apart from the usual camping gear):

• Scrubs…thin clothing which should be thin enough to provide with some breathing room during the hot days.
• Air matress. No beds to sleep on. I’ll need that or a cot. Plus we are supposed to “borrow” pillows and blanket from the plane ride down. Supposedly they are going to throw them away after we use them, so we are just making the best use from them.
• Plastic bags to keep each day’s clothing in – Helps keep clothing seperated. And dust free!

Things not to bring:

• Shorts…if only to sleep in. For some odd reason we are supposed to wear pants during our stay there. Mine is not to question the governing authorities there. However I kinda wish the same restrictions were placed on shorts being worn to our home worship services.
• Chocolate – it will melt in the heat. Being without chocolate and pizza for 8 days might be a turning point. Perhaps some chocolate gram crackers are in order.
• Camouflage We don’t want this to look like a military operation.
• Large amounts of money, valuables, jewelry. These people are very poor and some would be likely to steal from you.
• Bad attitudes I keep telling myself to leave any bad attitudes at home. Sometimes you just need to grin a bear it. Things don’t work the same way in El Salvador as it does here. “Tomorrow” might mean 6 months from now.

It seems like this preparation time has come very quickly. Seems like it was just recently that I was just thinking about going. We’ll see how it goes….