El Salvador Update 12/4/11

Joe Wittwer | December 04, 2011

Sunday, December 4, 2011

El Salvador Blog
Church and goodbyes

After breakfast at the beach resort, we drove an hour back to Armenia and arrived as church was starting. Worship was awesome—loud and passionate—as were the prayers! I love the church—you can be anywhere in the world and you are with family!
I gave an abbreviated version of the message I gave last Sunday at Life Center from Hebrews 11 on the faith of Abraham. I preached in English, and Jorge translated. When I told the one-liner, “Isaac wasn’t a teenager or it wouldn’t have been a sacrifice”, no one laughed. That joke turns on the double meaning of “sacrifice”—it didn’t translate. After, I learned that Jorge missed the joke, and when I explained it, he and the other translators started laughing—they hadn’t gotten the joke either! The difficulty of preaching in another language and culture…sigh. When I finished, Pastor Frank led them in a prayer time at the altar; many people came and asked God for help to take their next step in faith. I love this church! They love God and they love their community and they are working hard to bring the gospel to people and to help the poorest of the poor, and the most vulnerable children.
We got to see Marvin and Marcela again, and I was able to have a good conversation with their father, Jose, who was at work when we visited on Friday. His job and pay have improved, but it is still a struggle to provide for his family, something he wants desperately to do. He told me that when he can’t provide, something inside him dies. I told him as a father I understand that. He said that we are both Jose’s, so we are buddies! ☺
We had a delightful lunch with Pastor Frank and Paty and their son Francisco and the ES Compassion staff (Alexandra, Karla and Jorge), the US Compassion staff member, Justin, and our driver Edwin. We have enjoyed getting to know Justin—he is a hoot! Justin is our new stateside Compassion contact—I think we’re going to have lots of fun working with him! 
After lunch, we spent an enjoyable 90 minutes at a national museum—very interesting—and then said our goodbyes to Frank and Paty and Francisco. ☹ We lifted our sad spirits with a visit to Starbucks (one of 3 in ES) across from our hotel. Then we were off to dinner with the Compassion staff before retiring for the night. We get up at 4 AM tomorrow to begin the flight home—2 AM Spokane time. A long day ahead…
To see a few photos from today, go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pastorjoe/