This is Major Tom to Ground Control

We're stepping through the door,

And we're floating in a most peculiar way,

And the stars look very different today.

  Sorry for the lack of communication over the last couple of weeks.  Our Internet capabilities have been sketchy at best.  In fact as I write this I still don’t have a way to put this on the Web, only hopes that someday I can share these words with you.

                Well we made it!  Thanks be to God.  We arrived in San Vicente, El Salvador on the evening of February 26^th, after a fairly uneventful bus ride from Antigua.  Apart from the driver not having an excellent sense of which route to take we arrived around 6 p.m., 5 hours later than we assumed,  at the same hotel that the short-term teams has been using for the past few years.  It is comfortable, secure, and easy but can become expensive quickly, so our first priority was to find suitable housing for the twelve of us.  Shortly upon arrival, we were greeted by Pastor Jorge, his wife Maritza, son Jorgito, daughter Jackie and her husband Oscar, our new family (don’t worry old family I’ll think about you from time to time).

    Sunday was a day to go exploring for our new home.  Oscar returned bright and early to go for a run with Trent and I.  He had mentioned something about this the night before, but I really didn’t believe he was serious (with the heat here you drip sweat when sitting, let alone dodging traffic through the streets of the San Vicente).  Anyway, it was a good chance to catch up with Oscar and get the legs moving after being cramped up in a bus the day before.  Later we all walked to Central Park and climbed the clock tower.  You get quite a view from the top of the surrounding area.  There was a mix of emotions from the kids; some didn’t want to open their eyes because of the height, others were ready to climb over the railing for a better look (I love seeing this world through my kids eyes as well).  We ended the day in a service at Pastor Jorge’s church (El Primer Templo Christiano), where we were welcomed as the church’s new missionaries.

                Monday morning we hit the ground running (actually walking and driving because we had learned our lesson the day before).  We gave ourselves a list of three things to try to accomplish for the week: 1) Find a house or houses that would work for the two families, 2) Find a vehicle (walking works well within the city but the majority of our building work will be in small towns outside the city, so a vehicle becomes essential), 3) Find a school for the kids.  We figured that if we could get at least one or two of these items knocked off the list by the end of the week we would be in good shape.  Well by Tuesday we had rented a house, put a deposit on a truck, and had the kids registered in school, to begin the following week.  The Lord has provided!

                We live somewhere in San Vicente?!  I know our house number is 28-A but I am a bit unsure of the actual street address because street signs are few and far between here.  I do know that we get garbage pickup everyday because our house is on a corner  (garbage gets collected in one direction Mon-Wed-Fri and the perpendicular direction on Tues-Thurs-Sat.  This alone is worth its weight in gold).  When people ask where we live, I usually just tell them that we live across the street from the offices of FMLN, the communist party in El Salvador.  I guess depending on who is in power; this could be a good or bad thing, but so far they have been nothing but friendly to us. 

Our house is really more like two houses in one, with each level having its own kitchen, bathrooms, and bedrooms.  It is clean, spacious, and functional, and I bet that if we drew a point on a map minimizing proximity to things like the church, the grocery store, the market, etc., we probably would have put a star on this house.  It is ideal in so many ways, but probably mostly in the fact that we live together but can have defined family space.

 The following weekend, a team of group leaders arrived from across Canada in order to build a couple of houses in a new area of El Salvador, to build relationships and communication, and to define some vision and goals for the World Partners organization going forward.  It was great to see some familiar faces from home, and to put faces to many of the names that we have heard over the years.  We spent 3 days in Victoria, Las Cabanas building and providing a free medical clinic to people from this village (supposedly one of the poorest in El Salvador).  We are exploring new opportunities for teams that will be coming down in the fall.

                But it was a busy week at home as well, as we rented an unfurnished house, we continued to set up our house with furniture and appliances, and Carie and Kerrie learned how to wash clothes all by hand, and then we decided it would be better to give someone else a job by paying them to do it!! Then all the kids (with the exception of our youngest Violet) began school.  They are attending La Escuela Adventista, a small private school not far from our house.  Uniforms are required so we bought material and had a local seamstress whip them up for us.  They look pretty cute in their sky blue pants and skirts and white shirts.  I’m just not sure how long those shirts will remain white, but they sure looked good on the first day.   School starts at 7 a.m. for the older kids and goes until noon.  Winnie, Elias, and Ellis are all together in Kindergarten, and they attend from 8 a.m. to 11:30.  There is no English in the school, except for an hour on Friday mornings (and I heard that Annah and Isaiah were teaching their classmates last week) so I know that our kids should be fluent by the end of the year.  Everybody has been excited making new friends and getting back into some form of a routine.  We are extremely thankful for a good school, with excellent teachers.

                And know our so called ‘work’ or ‘projects’ begin, but even as I write these words I realize that these things have begun long ago, and more often than not the important things we do are simply the small things.  Maybe my work (our work) is to say “Buenos Dias” to the neighbour 6 or 7 times day as I go in and out of our house for various things.  Maybe it’s to hand a juice box to the little girl that has been peeking in our door all morning.  Or maybe it’s to help another neighbour clean what’s left of his house off of the street at 11:30 p.m. because it blew over in a freak wind storm this afternoon.

                I leave you with some words I love from Henri Nouwen, speaking about his thoughts on our mission in this world:

                More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them.  It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence.  Still, it is not as simple as it seems.  My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets.  It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress.  But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them.

Stuart