so a couple weeks back we went to the beach and met a family from the U.S. - Mark & Gina. carie asked what they were doing down here with a family of 5. turns out they had been involved in ministry back in the States, a few years back started to rethink the purposes of the church, realized it needed to move outside the walls of the church building with its comfy chairs and move into the neighborhoods of the poor. so a year and a half ago they sold everything and moved to the village of Magdelena to serve the poor. they came with little ideas of how to do that, but simply knew that’s where they needed to be...
so this weekend we went out for a visit so see what they were up to. we had a great afternoon chatting, questioning and seeing what they were doing and being in that community. first off, you could see the love they had for the folks in the village and even more evident was the love that the locals had for them. their faces lit up when they saw them as we walked past their homes. it was obvious they spent a lot of time in the village. it seems most NGO’s are based out of the large cities, living in gated communities, coming out to the village a couple times a week to check in on their projects. the difference we saw here was a family who had moved right into the neighborhood. living, playing, working, eating and sleeping right there. cool.
quickly the similarities between their work and our vision became spookily (not sure if that’s a real word) apparent...
they started a home building project, with homes the same size and layout and cost as ours in el salvador
the situation of the folks receiving the homes were in the same state as those in el salvador
they didn’t know spanish, but learned on the fly once here
2 of their kids were isaac & eli
they employ a group of locals to build the homes (one of our main plans)
kids went right into spanish school
host many teams from the states
started their own ministry
rejected the ‘american dream’ to serve the poor
learned what was needed before they started anything
made friends first, created projects second
deepstream is the name of their ministry
12 kids among three families (i messed that up earlier for you keeners)
as we walked and talked thru the village the similarities were laughable. for us it was like a snapshot of us in a year. a huge blessing for us all, even more so for carie and kerrie-lynn i think. they got to see a family living in central america in a home similar to those in san vicente doing the same things and in all likelihood experiencing the same frustrations and difficulties as we will along the way. the kids hit it off splendidly. playing soccer in the street and riding empty 2 liter pop bottles down the street! who knew you could have that much fun on a very steep concrete road and a bottle out of the ditch. it was good to see the kids having so much fun without it being a wii game or some other electronic device. the other couple working with them is building a sports facility and starting a mentoring project for young boys - using sports as an in to teach about life and faith and health and responsibility. it brought to mind a few names of friends back home who need to move down too ;-) all in all, we are so thankful for this family, encouraged by what they are doing and filled anew with hope for life in el salvador.
Mark & Gina’s ministry website is http://www.deepstreamguatemala.com/ if you care to check it out!
trent & kerrie
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