December 2nd

Today we split up into two groups. One group got up at 4:30 to leave at 5 for outreaches that went all day, and the other group got up at 5:45 to leave at 6:30 for the church outreach planned for them. I personally was on the first group who got up at 4:30 to leave at 5. A good majority of that group didn’t even get in bed till about 12 or 1 that morning, and then got back up and went to the outreach. We first went to a place where there was a bunch of homeless people and fed them breakfast and just loved on them. We planned on doing a drama, but we were told that a lot of the time that people feed them, they have to sit and listen about how God loves them, so we wanted to not be like everyone else, we just wanted to love on them. It was heartbreaking to see all those kids, most of them between the ages of 13 and 20 with a few older than that. Travis and I did worship songs for background music the whole time while most everyone else hung out with the homeless people who were snuffing shoe glue from plastic containers. We made and served them eggs, bread and bananas. I and a few others gave away our sweatshirts to the homeless kids as well. After we left, we headed to a town right outside of Santa Ana, El Salvador, the third largest city in El Salvador, where we (with one translator: Tanto) had the group upstairs doing children’s ministry and Jared and Greg went downstairs and did the sermon. Jared did the majority of the teaching and it went really well. And the children’s ministry stuff went really well as well. The kids were so delighted to have us there, and they shouted out good morning to us several times when we first got there. They were adorable. When church was over and most of the children had been picked up, my group prayed over a young blind boy. It was crazy, because it was so powerful. The whole group wanted to see this little boy with a life ahead of him, to be healed. He wasn’t healed but the step of faith strengthened our group to prepare for what was to come. After we ate lunch, we were just resting on the bus and sleeping when Julie pretty much jumped out of the bus to go to the bathroom. When she got back, the rest of our group was informed that we needed to get Julie some specific medication for her. It was kind of controversial, because we had one more outreach planned for the day, and Greg forced us to think about what we should do. To make a long story short, we headed into Santa Ana following a white pickup truck with speakers to the pharmacy. On the way, the truck pulled over and told us that Julie needed to go with them because she’d be more comfortable, and they gave us the other woman who was in the truck. With the lack of clear communication, we got separated from the white truck. We finally were able to track them down and meet up somewhere but it was a bit of a high emotions time. For me personally, I just wanted Julie to come back to the bus and not leave again. When we finally were back together, everyone wouldn’t let Julie out of their sight. Someone was with her at all times, it was rather funny how protective we were, and it showed how scared we got at being separated like that. The last outreach was one of the hardest outreaches we’ve had. We were reaching out to a group of people who claimed to be Christians, but there was adultery going on in the group of people, and just hardened hearts. It broke a lot of people to see this particular group of people. We actually changed our drama a bit to make it more relevant to the group we were addressing. It was interesting. I was kind of put into a role that make me out to be an adulteress and it made me really think. I didn’t enjoy that role at all. Travis gave a brief teaching time, which he did wonderful for his first time really teaching from the bible that wasn’t a testimony. I was very happy for him, even though he had one of the hardest audiences to reach out to. It was a day where we all got stretched to the limits. It was good though, I know. J Everyone in my group said that it was a good day. I talked to Tiffany about what she did in her group and I wanted to share with you what she said. When they arrived at the church at about 7, they served breakfast to a bunch of the neighborhood children, showing and did one of our drama’s for them. They didn’t really get to stay and chat with the kids because they had to go do some children’s Sunday school classes. The group got split into three groups and did three different Sunday School classes, with about 70 kids altogether from the three S.S outreaches. After they finished S.S. They went to a government-run orphanage. It was very different from the Christian orphanage we went to earlier in the week. There were individual dorms and there were bars over the windows and doorways, almost like a prison. The children ranged from ages 8 to 18 and none of the children had clothing that fit them properly and most did not even have decent shoes. Tiffany told me that she and Michelle spent some time talking to this little boy who was about the age of 11. He had been in the orphanage since he was 3. He was very sick and had bumps all over his body, but they weren’t sure what it was. They asked him if he believed in God and he told them yes, but when they asked him if he believed in Jesus, he said no. They asked him why, but he didn’t really want to answer them. He said that he did believe in God but not Jesus. At the end of the time they spent with him they asked him if they could pray for him. He said no, but both Tiffany and Michelle, who were extremely touched with compassion for this little boy named Robert, are praying for him that he will be healed and that God would reveal Himself to Robert. Overall it was a humbling day. We all experienced the feeling of how blessed we were and compassion for the people we saw.