The area of San Salvador has started to become more and more familiar and the Spanish is becoming easier to pick up each day! First I will explain the title of my post: the students of Evangelica Universidad think it is funny to call us los gringos when were in one big group. And so we just go along with it and call ourselves los gringos as well!! The students get a kick out of it so we don't mind it all! On Tuesday, it was a sports day at the University and so we went earlier to the school to join in on the festivities. The three sports they played are soccer, basketball, and volleyball. All the boys on project played soccer on a team together and their team name was "Los Gringos." Unfortunately they didn't have a chance against the Salvadorian students who are amazing at soccer!
I mentioned in the last post that we were going to Cecy and Manuel's (directors of Vida Estudiantil) church on Sunday. The name of the church was CEFAD (not sure what it stands for). The church was more than welcoming to our team and I felt very comfortable being there. Although I could not understand the sermon (since it was all in very fast spanish!), I enjoyed the pastor's personable character. He gave a very passionate sermon and had the attention of every Salvadorian in the room. It was a unique experience that I am thankful I got the opportunity to take part in. After church, we all went to lunch at Galleria mall (they LOVE their malls) with some of the students of Vida Estudiantil. They have a lot of American fast food and some other random fast food places as well. I found out today the reason they love their malls so much is because it is a safe place for Salvadorians to hang out since the malls have guards (with weapons) watching for the safety of all the people there. Now don't worry, that doesn't mean that anywhere else it is unsafe...ever since the start of the Civil War in the 80's to 1992, there has been a scar left on the country and Salvadorians just take extra precaution to maintaining peace. We are in the country duing an interesting and transformative time. The rest of Sunday was a time of relaxation before a week of business! We also had a nice surprise for dinner--Papa John's Pizza!! We were stoked!
Monday was our first full day of ministry on Evangelica Universidad. We were on campus from 10am to 2:30pm which is on average how long we will be on campus from monday to thursday. My roommate Amy and I teamed up again to go sharing with the students along with our Salvadorian friend Rafa (Rafael). Rafa is a student at Matias university and a ministry team leader for Vida Estudiantil. He has been a part of the ministry for about a year and came to be in the ministry from the past summer project. It is awesome to see how God uses summer project to play a part in the lives of the Vida Estudiantil students in their own growths with God. Rafa is very good in both spanish and english and helps in a lot of translations. Also, for those who don't know what I mean by "sharing"...when I say sharing, I mean that we go out and try to start conversation in hope to talk about the gospel and see if they know what the gospel is and if they believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I also want to clarify that as a group, we are first and foremost forming relationships with the students and getting to know them and not just throwing our belief in their face and trying to convert them. We want them to come to know the Lord through their own time and understanding but we also know for that to happen someone has to tell them about Christianity and the hope and the life Jesus provides us all. Salvadorian students are very open to talking about their faith and God and do not see the conversation offensive at all because talking about spiritual things is fairly common in El Salvador. Like I was saying, Amy, Rafa and I went sharing and the two first people we talked to were two girls named Lucia and Celina. The girls were so honest and open with us right from the start and were telling us about how much they love the Lord and how they treasure their relationship with Him. It was great to meet them because they desired a community of believers to talk about their faith and share their faith but they didn't know about Vida Estudiantil! So we were very happy to tell them that there was community right there on campus to join! Amy and I met up with them both again on Wednesday morning to just talk and hang out which was so encouraging. We further talked about their relationship with God and if it was difficult not being able to have the support that a community of believers can offer. If you could pray for their desire to go to the Vida Estudiantil meetings that would be great!
Tuesday, like I mentioned was a sports day on the campus and so we got there around 8:30am to participate in the games and stayed till around 2:30pm. That day Vida Estudiantil threw a fiesta for students to come and see what the group was all about. Our group did a little drama (but with no words) to demonstrate the role Jesus plays in our life. Some of you know what the Lifehouse "Everything" drama is...that is what we did! I definitely did NOT play a part...being in front of a huge group of students is not my strong suit ;) The group that performed did wonderfully and it was very affective (they only had a night to practice!). If you want to see what this drama is..you can look it up on Youtube. The rest of the fiesta had worship songs, testimonies, games, and time to just hang out, talk, and eat snacks! The Vida Estudiantil students were very happy with the outcome and all in all it was a success!
Wednesday looked very similar to Monday. After having a very good conversation with Lucia and Celina, Amy went out to share again and met Karen, Natalia, and Katia. Only Natalia spoke some english but were able to understand Karen and Katia pretty well through the small amount of Spanish we know and Natalia was pretty helpful in translating. A lot of the students are swamped with studying during the school hours (I think it is midterms week too) so they like to make appointments for future times. Amy and I hit it off pretty well with these girls and made plans to have dinner with them next week at a restaraunt called Buffalos which is famous for their buffalo wings at Plaza Futuro (which is right next to our hotel). They love Buffalos!
Today, we met up with old students that we made dates with to hang out and also met new students as well at Evangelica. After a day of getting to know students more at Evangelica, our team went to the second university we are doing ministry at--Matias University. Matias's classes don't start till Monday but we went there today to do a prayer walk. We just walked around campus and prayed specifically for different parts of the university and its students. We also found out today that our team is going to split up on the campuses for the rest of our time here. There will be 6 of us only going to Matias everyday and doing ministry there and 9 at Evangelica. Joe and Kristen did a lot of praying and thinking about what each university needs and the strengths that each of us can offer. I found out I will be working on Matias University!! I am thrilled with this decision because I feel like I am more suited for the type of ministry that will be done at Matias.
Like I mentioned before...there is so much that is happening here but it is very difficult to share it all in a post and I also don't want to overwhelm you!!
Fun things to look forward to that we just found out...At the beginning of August, our team will have a mid-project retreat along with the Vida Estudiantil students at Rafa's home which is on a farm!!! I am so excited because we will get to meet Rafa's family and also get to be in the country! He has all sorts of farm animals and it looks like we may get to milk a cow! We will definitely be roughen it for three days but it will be an adventure our whole team will be in together!! :) During that week we will also be going to an old folks home to spend some time with the elderly. We were told they desire people to just come and give the elderly some care and love since they receive enough money but not enough people give their time. So we are excited to do that as well!!
Hope you are all well and enjoying all that summer has to offer!
Love,
Meg
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