doors

there's a lot of beautiful doors in Antigua. some are steal, some are tin, but most are wood. rich mahogany I would guess - stained beautifully. most often the door is actually two doors in one. a large one for cars and a smaller one built into it for people. they are beautiful.

more than a few people have mentioned that they see us down here as a hallway or a doorway between two rooms. a corridor between canada and el salvador. a connecting point from calgary with all our monetary wealth to the folks of San Vicente who often go with so little. from back home with so much loneliness and lack of fulfillment to down here where faith and hope and joy shines through the faces of those without much 'stuff'.

we need each other.

we feel honored to be the doorway; the hallway between these worlds. I had the idea of taking pictures of various hallways and including one each time we posted on this blog. in hindsight, i should've asked Maria before I snuck into her house for a photo. anyway, we decided to stick to photos of doors for now.

so even when we're up in the night cuz a kids got the runs, or an upset stomach. even when we feel like Spanish is not as easy to speak as English. even when our kids are homesick. and even when us adults miss our friends and family back home. we walk by another door - and remember why we are here.

they will remind us, if no one else, of one of our main focuses here, to be the doorway between two worlds. two worlds that I believe need each other...

trent

Location:Guatemala

5 chicles for a quetzal!

We made it! Mostly uneventfully to boot!! Other than finding out that an extra bag cost us $225, we had no other complaints. The kids rose to the occasion and behaved themselves quite well. We had a Burger King supper at midnight in the LA airport, which the kids held their eyes open with toothpicks to get themselves through. We got into Guatemala at 7:15 am and were met with an orange sign by Julio and Fernando. We loaded our 24 bags into two vans and drove off to our place in Antigua . When we opened the door, we were met with a sight for sore eyes. Behind a cement wall we found a beautifully lush garden, with a playground for the kids and 2 little jr suites and 2 bedrooms with double beds. We ended up having Stu and I in one suite with Violet, Kerrie and Trent downstairs in the other suite with Ben and Kade on top, and Annah and Winnie sharing a room. Eli and Ellis sharing a single bed with Isaiah in the bed next to them. So far we have put them to bed 2 nights and it has worked out great. Annah even remarked " it's like college, we get our own little room!"

Paradise I call it!!

The lovely woman who owns the place is named Lorena, she lives here with her 90 year old mother and her daughter Anna Louisa and her 2 year old grandson Nicolas, whom Kerrie has learned quite a bit of Spanish from over the last couple of days. Anna is going to be Violet's baby sitter while we at school. Lorena cooks us three meals a day, I repeat 3 meals a day!! Except on the weekends. That means I don't have to cook at all for a month! They also have woman here that cleans our place every day. Paradise!

Today was our "Family Fun Day" as Trent labelled it. We intended on taking the kids swimming, but then found out that it would cost us $75 USD a week to use the swimming pool so we decided not to. Instead we took the kids to the nicest McDonald's in the world. Where there is an outdoor garden and on clear days you get the best view of the volcano in town. Everyone had a little 'helado' (ice cream) and I had a mocha frappachino to satisfy my coffee addiction.

Along with this Ben decided that he would like to raise some money for El Salvador. We had gone to the grocery store the day before and let all the kids get a treat. Ben picked out these candy coated peanut things that turned out to be disgusting, and Winnie and Annah picked out gold gum coins that came in 100 per package. He came up with the plan that he and the other kids would sell them to people walking by at 5 gums for a quetzal. 1 quetzal is equal to about 13 cents. No one wanted to buy the peanuts, but they did make 15 quetzal in 'chicle' sales!!

Tomorrow we start school. Eli and Ellis are going to school at a Spanish Kindergarten down the street from our school. They need to bring a snack, drink, notebook and a pack of crayons, so cute!! We will spend from 8-12 at our school each with a private tutor. Well it took me 2 hours to figure out how to get all the pictures on this blog post, so please enjoy it for at least a few minutes!!

Carie

Packing, Packing and more Packing

I thought I would give a blog entry a try. I won't be as well spoken as Stuart, but we all know how I like to get my thoughts out there, so here goes.



I am Carie; Stuart's wife and mother to Kade, Winnie, Ellis and Violet. If you told me a year ago that I would be uprooting my whole family and moving to El Salvador for a year, I would have told you that you were crazy. Amazing how hearts change in a year! So many people have been asking me how I feel about the upcoming move. Excited! Excited that we are heading out on an advanture and will be able to help the Salvadorians who already have have a special place in the hearts of Stuart and I. Now we will get to share that love with our children as well.

They are also excited to go. Ellis keeps telling me that he is going to eat a whole banana tree when he is there! Kade is practicing his Spanish non-stop and Winnie keeps looking at pictures of kids, that Stuart took while he was there last month, wondering which ones she will become great friends with. I don't think we could have picked a better time to go for them. They are up for whatever we through our way it seems. They will miss their friends but they also know that they will see them again. Their schools have also been so supportive. They are giving us as much stuff as they can to keep our kids learning in line with their grades and also encouraging us as a family. Kade and Winnie’s classes are collecting bottles and juice boxes to by screws to build houses and they have asked Stuart to come in and do a presentation for at least 6 classes on exactly what we are doing out there. They also are encouraging Kade to Skype, or video conference, with his class once every two weeks and for him to write letters to them in both English and Spanish.

We have had so much positive response from friends and family. One friend of mine is even doing a project with her Sunday school class, where she is showing them a slide show of some of the kids and families that we will be working with in El Salvador, and then the kids are going to make Christmas cards to send to them. These are exactly the kinds of things that we hope our trip out to El Salvador will accomplish. We want you in Canada to feel a connection with the people we are working with, and keep you updated with pictures and stories.


I am also feeling a little anxious. Anything unknown to me makes me anxious. I am a control freak and this is really God’s way of saying “you need to leave it in my hands and trust in me.” Right now, we don’t know where we are going to be living, or what the kids are going to do for school, etc. But I know that this will all get figured out in time.
And I’m a little sad. I’m sad that I will be leaving my cat Boris for a year, (and I guess friends and family), and my weekly quilting group. But I know some of you will come and visit us (and maybe my in-laws that are living in our house while we are gone can Skype a call between Boris and me!)


And I’m a little overwhelmed. I’m overwhelmed by the language barrier and the skills that I feel like I lack. But I also have an overwhelming sense of joy. I know that this is what we are supposed to be doing right now, and I have made the decision to jump in with both feet. And I do know that God will take care of us, and he is using us for His purposes.
We do however still need more support. The more resources we have from here, the more we can do for the people of El Salvador. Please consider making us, and this mission a regular prayer item. And if you would like to contribute financially, click on www.sunwestchurch.com/paypal and click the donate button under “ This button is to support the McAllister / Berstad El Salvador mission trip.” Thank you so much!!

Just an update on where we are at right now with life.

We have sold all the ewes and ram on our farm. We still have lamb for sale and decided that any profits made will go towards our projects fund for El Salvador. Maybe we will even have the opportunity to buy goats with the money, for families there. If you would like to buy some, please check out our website at www.lambchops.ca to find out pricing, etc.


Stuart just got back from his 3rd week in El Salvador, over the last 5 weeks. Although we missed him, it was good for him to be able to do some groundwork with Trent, for our move there. Now he is back in town, and we were off to Myrtle Beach over Christmas. We decided since we don’t need presents it might be nice to get away. It ended up being a bit crazy with delayed and cancelled flights, but none the less we lived! Ellis has his last day of preschool before Christmas, and I have decided that the other kids will go back for a couple of weeks after the winter break so they don’t drive me crazy!!


Our official departure date is January 23, when we will fly overnight to Antigua, Guatemala and spend a month there learning Spanish at a language school. Hopefully they will be very patient with me! At the end of February we will go by bus to San Vicente, El Salvador. Please keep us in your thoughts, prayers and keep in touch. Email us, call us, Skype us or facebook us. We would love to hear from you.

Now to the packing, there is so much to do!!

don't the hours grow shorter...

As I begin to write this letter, I think of some Bruce Cockburn song lyrics that Trent has shared with me a few times:

Don’t the hours grow shorter as the days go by

You never get to stop and open your eyes

One day you’re waiting for the sky to fall

The next you’re dazzled by the beauty of it all.

Life feels a little like this these days.  As we prepare for a new chapter in our families’ lives, life is busy but we can’t wait for that next day that we know is on the horizon.

For those of you that don’t know some (or any) of us, maybe I’ll begin with a few introductions.  My name is Stuart McAllister and I have been married to my wife (and of course better half) for a little over nine years (I’ll cross my fingers that I have that right).  We have four wonderful, perfect children, who never cause their parents any stress (I also have a wood-stretcher and some 100lb bags of puffed wheat for sale).  Their names are Kade (7), Winnie (5), Ellis (3), and Violet (1).  We currently live on a small acreage just south of Calgary complete with sheep, chickens, dogs, cats, and one goat.

Our partners on this journey are the Berstads.  Trent and Kerrie-Lynn celebrated their 15^th anniversary this year, and we feel so honoured to be able to celebrate this milestone in their lives with them.  They have four perfect children as well: Isaiah (10), Annah (8), Benjamin (6), and Elias (4) (I just realized there’s starting to be a lot of people on this trip).

In 2006, Trent stepped off of a plane at the El Salvador airport, probably not fully realizing that this moment would change his life.  After spending a week building homes and relationships with people in the San Vicente area, he came home eager to tell the stories both of heartbreak and hope that he had seen.  He told of Carolina, a single mother with two babies and very little else.  The team that week was able to move her out of the pile of garbage and scrap metal that she had been living under and into a sturdy and secure home for herself and her children.  No longer would Carolina need to try to stay dry through six months of rain under a paper-thin tarp.

Through the prodding of Trent and our other friend Jake Fluker, I was convinced to participate in a return trip to El Salvador the following year.  I too encountered the depths of poverty and despair, but I also saw some other things.  I saw hope.  I saw joy.  I saw the love that flourishes out of us reaching a hand across geographical and cultural divides.  I met a woman named Carolina that no longer feared for the health and safety of her two young children.  Life is not perfect, but the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.  We see that light in the smile of a single mother, or the embrace of an old widow, or the laughter of a man stepping up to look after somebody else’s kids.

We were hooked, and continued to return to these communities on an annual basis.  Then in November 2009, on another trip with a group of men from Canada, our worlds got turned upside down.  As we settled into our hotel for the first night of the trip, many of us stood under the awning of the hotel watching the rain pour more and more.  But it often rains hard in El Salvador, right?  We went to bed to the sound water hammering the roof of the hotel.

As we slept, Hurricane Ida lodged itself over the small nation of El Salvador.  Water soaked mountains could no longer absorb any more moisture and began to let go causing mud slides to bury neighbourhoods.  The river through San Vicente, normally a trickling creek, rose roughly 70 to 80 feet and ripped through the town, washing entire communities away.  Hundreds of homes (and families) simply disappeared in the night.  We awoke to ground zero of a new world around us.

The next week was spent helping in whatever little ways we could; including building homes for flooded out families, providing food and blankets to shelters, and digging out mud filled homes.  I don’t think that you would find one guy on this trip that wouldn’t say that they felt honoured to be able to help in this time of immediate need.  We each brought a piece of El Salvador home with us, and now we are being called back.

So what’s the plan?  This is a good question and I don’t know if I have a perfect and concise answer to it.  The twelve of us are planning to leave mid January and spend one month in Antigua, Guatemala.  There are a number of language schools in this city and we hope to take some intensive lessons for a month, in order to brush up on our Spanish abilities.  From there we will drive to San Vicente, El Salvador and either rent a home(s) in this small city or in a beautiful neighbouring town called Apastapeque.  We hope to stay in El Salvador for about one year.

As we have focused largely on housing on past trips, this will probably be a continued focus (at least in the beginning).  And although we will always try to address immediate need that we encounter around us, we also want to long for some more long-term, sustainable solutions to the poverty we see.  Preliminary ideas include creating local building crews in order to construct multiple homes or small communities.  Likewise, we hope to find opportunities to inject a few resources so that families can start small businesses.  For example, if we can purchase a sewing machine, then maybe a lady can provide for her family with income from a small sewing and mending business.  Overall, we want to be flexible, willing, and wise when opportunities arise.

Finally, we believe that as Christians we are called to live and proclaim the good news to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to declare liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, and to free the oppressed.  We know that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, and we are excited to be a part of the moments of God’s grace in El Salvador.

There is no way, that we can (or want) to take this journey without you.  In many ways we see our role as translator in a broad sense of the term.  We hope to be able to make a connection between needs and resources, through the networks of families and friends we have in Canada.  And it is my dream that someday that connection flows between El Salvador and Canada in both directions.  There are a number of ways that you can partner with us on this adventure:

1. Pray for us – We are followers of Jesus Christ and we believe in the power of prayer.  As Jesus taught us to pray for the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth, we ask you to pray for this as well.  We also need your prayers in terms of guidance and protection as well as words to say, hands to work, and hearts that love.

2. Give us advice and suggestions – We claim to have very little experience and expertise in the things that we are doing.  We crave your words of wisdom, your ideas, and your encouragement. We feel that we are simply a small piece of a much larger team made up of our friends, families, and networks here in Canada.

3. Partner with us through your wallets – If you would like to contribute financially to this journey then we would be honored and humbled by your generosity. The simple fact is that we cannot do this alone. Andrew Browne shared this quote with me the other day. "If you want to go fast - go alone. If you want to go far - then go with other people" Over the last few months we have been left with no choice but to depend on others. This is something I (trent) need to learn. Finally, Jesus said "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" We are excited to have your hearts connected to our work in El Salvador as you give. Giving can go thru Sunwest, or EMCC. There is a link on this site to give online thru EMCC that is quite complicated, but will be much simpler in a couple of months. For now we are encouraging people to give thru sunwest by sending cheques payable to 'Sunwest' to 101 - 239 Midpark Way SE, Calgary, Alberta, T2X 1M2. Please put our names on a note inside the envelope so the accounting department knows where to allocate the funds.

4. Come and join us – We would be more than happy to have you come and visit us in El Salvador.  We would love for you to experience the people and culture that has stolen our hearts.  (I’m sure we could find some way to get your hands dirty as well).

5. Tell the story – It is exciting to us to see more and more people becoming involved in lives of the Salvadorian people.  Much of this has happened simply through one person telling his or her story to another.  We would love for you to tell others about the situation in El Salvador and how we can make big differences in the lives of families and individuals.  Read our blog and share it with others, or better yet, connect with the growing number of people that have experienced these things firsthand, and hear a personal touch.