This week in El Salvador!

Hello family and friends!

This last week has been a long, but very good week here in El Salvador. Many members of the team, including myself have been getting sick from either colds, flus, or food poisoning,  but we are pushing through! We know that it is Satan's way of trying to put us down, but we are not going to let sickness get in the way of the Lord's work.  All week we have been sharing the gospel, building even stronger relationships with the El Salvadorian people, and seeing God work in countless ways!

Our team now is split between two campuses, Matias and Evangelica. Evangelica, where I am placed is the newest ministry for Vida Estudiantil and so there are not very many students that are a part of Vida Estudiantil who can lead the movement on this new campus. Our American team thus is larger on this campus, so that we have more manpower to share the word of Christ and tell students about how they can get involved in Vida Estudiantil, enabling them to have the opportunity of a community of believers that are encouraging one another in their faiths.  The language barrier has been hard since there are not very many El Salvadorian students who are available to go out sharing with us, but God has really been blessing our Spanish so that we are able to communicate.  It has been amazing learning how to share the gospel in Spanish and learning how to trust that God is working in every conversation.  It has been such a humbling experience instigating conversations with students who we have never met, stumbling through our Spanglish, and presenting the gospel knowing that the whole time, it is not our words that are being spoken, not our story being told, but God's words and God's story. 

On Tuesday, Evangelica had its first biblestudy and over 20 students showed up.  We were able to make future appointments or hang out dates with these students to further encourage them and disciple them in their faiths.  On Wednesday, a group was invited to a History of Medicine class by a professor who allowed them to share the gospel to the entire class and then gave us the opportunity to come back in a week to lead a biblestudy in the class! How cool is that!! In America, students would never be allowed to lead a bible study in class, yet here it is possible!! On Wednesday me and two other guys got to share out testimonies to all the coaches of the sports teams in a presentation for Athletes in Action.

This upcoming week is actually a holliday for all El Salvadorians.  Almost the entire country takes the week off to spend time with family and so students won't be on the campuses. However, Vida Estudiantil is having their retreat for all of their most devoted members at a farm here in El Salvador and we have been invited to join them. We will be roughing it in tents and are going to help out at the farm, milking cows, feeding chickens, and any chores the family needs to get done. One day we will also be spending at an old folks home gifting our time to just talk and keep the senior citizens company.  Our overall mission of the retreat though is to build up the El Salvadorian leaders of Vida Estudiantil through encouragement, discipleship, worship, and vision casting. It will be a great time to really invest in the students and get to know the El Salvadorian culture on a rural level. We have been told that El Salvadorian students will not sleep at all on retreats so wish us luck! It is going to be a crazy three days! haha

This weekend we are also going to have an opportunity to drive up to the top of a volcano to see the entire city from a bird's eye view. Saturdays are our adventure days and our time to really explore the country. Last Saturday we got to go to one of the beaches and see the famous waves of El Salvador. The water was so warm and we got to hang out in hammocks! It was awesome! On Sunday, we are also most likely going to get the chance to visit an orphanage and hold babies! All of the girls are especially excited for that!

Overall God has really been teaching me about surrendering control on a daily basis for the big things and the small things. Being on a cross-cultural missions trip is crazy and you always have to expect the unexpected. You never know when you are going to wake up in the middle of the night throwing up, or if you are going to get caught in the rain, or if a conversation with a student really changes their life, but what you can always be sure of is that God is always working and He brings all things together for His good. It has been such a blessing being here in El Salvador and I am having an absolute blast! It is crazy to think that we aren't even halfway done! GOD IS SO GOOD!!!