El Salvador

Last week at this time, Mike was miles and miles away from his biological family here. He was still in the "Americas", but he had left the Northern continent.

We (our church) has partnered in a Church-to-Church relationship through Compassion International with a congregation in a suburb (slum?) of San Salvador, El Salvador. Last week's trip for Mike was the beginning of what promises to be an amazing relationship for both congregations - Hope's and Koinonia's.

An added treat for our family was that he was able to meet both our newly sponsored Herson, who is from the Child Development Center run by the Koinonia Congregation (Compassion International's Child Development Centers - schools - are always run through the local churches and staffed by locals) and our little Keily, who I've been a correspondent sponsor for since August (that means that her financial sponsor cannot or does not want to have a corresponding relationship with her - it could be that she's sponsored by a corporation or some organization that cannot really form the relationship aspect of sponsorship with her.....so that gets to be our treat!)! Keily does not attend Koinonia's Center (she attends one about 2.8 miles away), but Compassion made sure she and her Mom were transported to meet Mike and spend time getting to know him. Very, very cool! Through the mail, we cannot send "real gifts" to our sponsored children; everything we send has to be flat and fit in an 8X11 envelope. Books, clothes, etc. cannot be sent even if they can be flattened because it would just waste far too much of Compassion's money (and they are very, VERY guarded with making sure their finances go to finance the projects they are meant for!) paying customs' officials and then probably ending up having their couriers mugged/robbed anyway. It's seriously difficult for me to think of someone here attacking the mailman to steal some little girls' bracelets or a children's book. Anyway, because Mike was actually visiting these children, we were able to send gifts with him for them. The girls and I had so much fun picking out what to send each child!

This first picture has been turned black-and-white for the protection of your eyesight. Not only is my hubby able to run 1/2 marathons, successfully hunt large (sometimes omnivorous) animals, co-author published Bible studies....He also glows. Really, truly. See for yourself in the unedited version that I've included after this one.

Are you ready for it? Maybe you should get some sunglasses first. Ready? Okay, here we go!

In all seriousness, I love that picture of Mike with Herson. Herson lives with his Mom and his Grandma; there is no Daddy around. I can hardly stop looking at that little guy - he'll be eight this month - cuddled up to my girls' Daddy.

Herson, Mike found, is a small-group leader for his church. Yep. Mike said that anytime he hears someone say, "Oh, a small group leader? I could never do that", he's going to whip out a picture of little Herson and say, "Really? He can!". When Mike told me about Herson's leadership, as a seven-year-old, I was so proud of the little guy! The next thought that struck me, though, was incredible humility - that we are able to be his sponsors. I have a feeling we can and will learn just as much, if not more, from him than he from us.
Mike told me that he looooooved the bubbles. I'm also told they had a great time with the soccer ball we sent, though they did almost hit one of the chickens with it, which I'm sure would have thrilled his poor grandmother!!!

The gal on the right of the picture is their translator. I got to watch a video of her explaining why she loves her job with Compassion. She and a couple others gave impromptu monologues on it when Mike asked them to, and it's heartwarming to see them express their excitement and love for their work and for these children and families, especially as they are doing it in their second language.

I can ask where the bathroom is in Spanish. Ahem.


Herson and Cornelius. Mike told me that Herson is one of the more "well-off" children who attend the school. If you notice in the picture with the bubbles, his house has concrete walls - real walls. It also has a real floor. The doorways between the two rooms are made of sheets, but having real walls and a real floor is a big deal. His mom has a job sewing clothes for a company that contracts with The Gap; her daily quota of sewn garments boggled my mind. I'm still not sure Mike must not have misheard.....Suffice it to say, it's a lot, and I know some good seamstresses. I don't know anyone who could make that quota. But she has money each month that can go to the rent of their apartment-type house, and they have the couple of chickens.

Mike told me their house is roughly the size of our kitchen and living room. I can't give you exact dimensions on that, but our entire house is 1002 sq. ft., and most of that is bedroom space (they definitely squished our kitchen to get our bedroom space). I'm not sure how others feel about that, but it's been incredibly humbling to me to think that a nice apartment - the kind many of Herson's neighbors wish they could have - is the size of my tiny little kitchen and living room. I surely appreciated, as I put away a kitchen-full of groceries yesterday and washed up all the fruit and veggies, the running water I flipped on, the space I had in the basement for the extra groceries....Appreciate, rather than expect more and chafe over what I don't have....that's been the lesson for me over and over and over again in the past years and months I've been involved with Compassion.

*Note: I am not saying that Herson's family is truly well-off, that he doesn't need to be in the Child Development Center he attends, or that he does not live in poverty. Compassion does not allow children in their centers whose families are well-off enough to not need those centers. What I am saying is that it amazes me how little one can have in a developing country and be considered "better off" than others in that same area. Herson lives in poverty, lives a difficult life, goes without many, MANY things we feel are our "rights", and yet, because he has an apartment with cement walls and a floor, he is better off than the kids down the street whose walls are held up with sticks. It amazes me.

As I mentioned, Mike was also able to meet Keily and her mom. I'm told it took quite some time to get to the point of this picture. Poor little Keily (pronounced Kay-lee....we'd been saying it wrong!) was so nervous about meeting Mike that she burst into tears at first.

He kept telling her and her mom through the interpreter that he knew all about little girls who get nervous because he had two of them back at home. I knew he'd be good with her because of how good he is with his own two little sometimes-nervous girls. This man who hunts those large animals can also play dolls like nobody's business.

Keily's mom with the bag of gifts we sent. I love this picture of her because she looks so proud of her little girl and so hopeful. Her smile, in my opinion, is as bright as that sunshine.

I love this picture of Keily because she has warmed up to Mike by this point and has sort of an "I'm thinking about this" look on her face similar to one Sunny often gets. Mike said she did remind him an awful lot of Sunny.

She's about Sunny's size, too, though she's over a year older. You can see that she is slightly bigger, thank goodness, than the doll we chose to send her.

And this picture, too, just melts my heart. She had to have been sweltering in that fancy little dress, but I know she was wearing it because it is her best outfit for such an important day as meeting her sponsor (at this age, she would only know of Mike and I as her "sponsors"....as she gets older Compassion will explain our relationship). I just think she looks so huggable and lovable, and I'm so honored that we get to be her correspondent sponsors! She has five older siblings, from what I understand, and it's likely that none of them were sponsored children. She, a four-year-old, holds the hope for this family to be lifted out of poverty. To have any part in that is just an amazing gift for us.