El Salvador

2012 El Salvador Trip

Warren and Linda Erickson are headed to El Salvador in February for a 6+-week adventure in the country they've come to love. We, as a congregation, were introduced to El Salvador and particularly the needs in Usulután province in the mid 1990's, just a few years following a long and tragic civil war that tore the country apart both physically and emotionally. Bob Cook, the hunger action enabler for the Presbytery at the time, visited and later remained in the country to work with a program to serve the needs in the area around Berlin, El Salvador. This congregation has had an ongoing connection to the area through yearly visits, medical delegations, and most recently, our partnership with the tiny village of Muñoces. Linda and Warren have volunteered to help begin a program to teach English in Muñoces to people of all ages.

The Ericksons will ride out to the village from Berlin each day in the back of the pickup truck with the teachers in the school. The English classes will be largely oral as many of the adults do not read or write Spanish, much less English. They will use a similar program to the one that several people in the church have been using to learn Spanish. Following three weeks of teaching in Muñoces, they will move on to San Salvador where they will participate in an international election observer program sponsored by CIS, a non-governmental organization based in San Salvador. They will learn about the election process in El Salvador and will be assigned to observe the election on March 11 somewhere in the country. Following the election, they will join a delegation from First Presbyterian that is visiting El Salvador March 16-23. They are funding their own volunteer efforts in the country but know that they take the love, support, and prayers of all of you.

"We will attempt to represent our congregation with love and good humor," said Linda. "We wish you could all come with us to see first-hand the great need and the grateful appreciation for the gifts of fertilizer, bean seed, scholarships, and other gifts sent by our congregation. Your caring support and friendship seems astounding to the subsistence farmers and their families that live very simply on the side of a volcano so far removed from life in the United States. We, and they, thank you for your love and prayers."

El Salvador Memoir 2011
By Tom Mott

Going to El Salvador on the annual Newton churches‘ medical mission always makes an adventure. Going there, walking and working with the people who have very little material comfort, always gives one mixed feelings of relief and nostalgia when the mission ends and we head home for what we consider our normal life. This year, however, the marvel of flying home at 600 mph six miles above earth could only compare with the joy of flagging over a truck with worker racks at dawn, somewhere on a highway in El Salvador. That truck was followed by a flatbed diesel truck that stopped for us two minutes later. Our team of thirty six health professionals, students, and skilled helpers needed help on the road, and fast.

Supposed to depart for the airport Saturday at 3:30 a.m., we found the door to the street from our hostel in Berlín barred by a shiny plank and locked with a big Yale padlock. The owners were not to be seen, probably still in bed. The lights went out during supper and stayed off. We had dental explorer headlights, and some headlights for camping. After trying all the keys behind the front desk, we found a Yale key hanging on a string in the dining room. That key unlocked our small crowd with loads of gear, so we got out to the street and the fresh night air without an emergency. We loaded the big yellow bus with luggage in back and the team in front, taking a supposed shortcut uphill to Lago Alegría, the sulfur lake on the hill east of town.

We slowly climbed in what seemed all the wrong directions for the airport, laboring in the quiet hour before dawn. The old bus needed us to hop off the day before, so it could depart the El Mozote massacre site. But this morning the motor stopped in its own cloud. With some of our water in the radiator it started again, but not for long. Less than halfway to the airport it overheated again, and stopped on the road for good. Now we needed a ride, but had no one to call in time for our flight.

The minutes ticked away, but we soon saw again the kindness of the Salvadoran people that we saw all week. A work crew truck pulled over for us, and then a flat bed diesel with a driver and five workmen and their well worn shiny shovels. With brief explanations, and agreement to pay them for going far out of their way, all hands set to running our bags and containers from the bus to the trucks. After wishing luck to our sturdy bus man, there with his seething bus far from home, we counted heads and grabbed a hand hold to head out once more, trucks in tandem as the sun rose.

So it was that we trucked into El Salvador International Airport, happy and hopeful at 7:04 a.m. One of us ran in the terminal, past lines of travelers who got there on time. 7:05 was the deadline, they said, for release of our seats on the plane. We made it with a minute to spare, and they sent us to the head of the line and processed us pronto. As we made our plane, we had one more reason to think kindly of the spirit of El Salvador, the small country with the big heart. We felt glad to help people all week, and we felt grateful they helped us every day, but most of all on Saturday.

We shared the week with kind and generous people, poor people who await their destinies full of trust in God, always giving thanks first to Him. They teach us a lesson in trust and gratitude. Men in trucks who stopped for us before sunrise, just in the nick of time, fulfilled our trust that we would do our jobs and then get home again.

To see the 2011 El Salvador medical delegation photos, go to:
http://elsalvadordelegation.smugmug.com/