Work Projects

A couple weeks ago, we were fortunate to be able to realize a couple of work projects at Misión San Estéban Mártir. The week of July 7, with a generous donation from the Youth of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Prince Frederick, MD (and some help from Don Roberto) our youth group repaired some of the walls of the casa comunal.



The week of July 14, a group of 10 members of San Peter's Episcopal Church in Phoenixville, PA came to El Salvador to establish a relationship with the church here, and specifically with the Misión. They worked for three days, repairing doors and painting the building, which looks great (we'll post pictures of the finished building as soon as our computer is working again).


At the end of the work, we held a Eucharist with the visitors and the community. Everyone had a chance to talk about their experience during the week, or express their gratitude (with Andy doing his best to translate - it's hard work!). The people of the community, and especially Jacobo and Maritsa and their family (who live at the casa comunal) were very grateful. And the group had a memorable trip, hopefully the first of many!

Thanks again to St. Paul's Prince Frederick and St. Peter's Phoenixville for all their support.

Sewing Class

Thanks to the generous donations of several friends and supporters, our newest activity in Sitio de Los Nejapa is a sewing class that we've been offering for about 2 months. Every Thursday Don Roberto (who was also in charge of painting the church, helps Andy lead music, serves as president of the Bishop's committee, and from time to time works as a mason and carpenter) teaches a group of 6-10 women sewing.

A church in San Salvador had been offering the classes several years ago, and when we did our survey, many women asked that they be offered again. Andy was sort of hesitant at first - he felt like a sewing class was sort of trivial, and wanted something exciting, like a literacy class or organic agriculture. But, while those things are sorely needed in the community, there's something to be said for listening to the wisdom of the people themselves. They told us that a sewing class would help the families to be more independent and save a little money; it would give women something to do; and from our perspective it was an opportunity to bring people together, including people who don't normally participate in our activities, and to strengthen both the church's presence in the community and the relationship between Iglesia San Miguel and Misión San Estéban Mártir. Some day, hopefully, the sewing classes can lead to other opportunities like literacy and organic agriculture. For now, though, the students (including Andy) are enjoying the opportunity to learn a useful new skill in good company.


Thank you again to all of you who contributed to this project - the machines are really nice, and the students are excited to have the opportunity to work with them!

Consecration and Dedication Service

Last week, June 15, the Bishop came to Quezaltepeque to celebrate the consecration of Iglesia San Miguel Arcangel (which was built about 3 years ago, but hadn't been consecrated) and the dedication of the Colegio (which was finally finished in January).


It was a great celebration - over 100 people came from all over the diocese, including 20 people from Sitio de los Nejapa (in one pickup truck) and a representative from the Mayor's office.













It was wonderful to be able to see and to celebrate the growth and the changes at San Miguel Arcangel with so many people!

Día de la Cruz

On May 2, Colegio San Miguel Arcangel celebrated Día de la Cruz, the Day of the Cross. The celebration combines pre-Columbian traditions with Christian symbols. We had a pageant (a part of the tradition - not our idea!). Four of our girls did a traditional dance (slightly simplified for our kindergarteners) and brought their offerings of fruit to a cross of ijote, and one of them was chosen reina (queen).


(We've been doing a lot in the last couple months - but one thing we haven't been doing is updating the blog...sorry. We'll try to catch you up in a few separate posts...)

Our Little Artists

Each Sunday, Andy draws a picture of a Bible story for the niños and niñas to color, in the style (more or less) of Salvadoran folk art. Here is some of their better work:

The Exodus
Psalm 23: "The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want."
John 14.6: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life."

Sitio de los Nejapa - Update

La Reverenda talking after a Sunday service at the Casa Comunal with Maritsa, Jacobo, and Chamba.

Andy: The work continues in Sitio de los Nejapa. Currently, we're working on evaluating the community, learning about the needs and problems community members experience. Yesterday we took a group of Quezaltecos (i.e. people from Quezaltepeque) from San Miguel Arcangel out to go from house to house with a questionnaire, accompanied by some of our people from Sitio. We covered 20 houses, representing 88 people. We'll probably head out again, to try to get some more, but what we have is a good start. Some things we learned:

- Only a limited number can read (almost exclusively young people; most men over 30, and nearly all women that age, can read very little or not at all. This is mainly because the war prevented the older generation from attending school.).

- Every family depends on agriculture to some degree; the cost of seeds and chemical fertilizers are a major concern, especially since planting season is coming in May.

- In addition to these costs, other important concerns are lack of access to water (there is an ongoing project in the community; we're trying to figure out how we can help with this); a lousy road; delinquency and crime; and stoves that produce too much smoke and use too much firewood.

- Other concerns are illiteracy and lack of access to medical care, and lack of food. The situation at the school, which was not specifically mentioned on the survey (we're trying to give the director a wide berth) nonetheless received several comments as well.

Our goal over the next few months will be to see how we can help in these areas, or, as in the case of the water, support activities already in progress. Unfortunately, we're kind of on our own in this; there are no NGOs already working in the area. So if anyone has ideas, or especially if anyone knows of groups that might be interested in working on these issues, we'd love to hear about them.

Semana Santa (in Pictures)

We had a busy Semana Santa (Holy Week) at San Miguel. Now that we're back after a few days' vacation in Nicaragua, we thought we'd let the pictures of our week speak (mostly) for themselves.

Monday and Tuesday we hosted the diocesan youth retreat at San Miguel. We talked about the role of youth in the mission of the church, played lots of games, and slept on the floor.

On Maundy Thursday, we had a Eucharist and footwashing service. The tradition here is that the priest washes everyone's feet, but about halfway through, Tomasa asked if she could help Leigh...

...and at the end Rosita wanted to wash Leigh's feet. It was a moving moment in a very moving service.

After the Stations of the Cross on Friday, we walked around town looking at alfombras, big pictures created in the streets on Good Friday, traditionally out of colored salt or sawdust, but now more often painted.


On Saturday, we had an all-night vigilia. We started with the Easter Vigil Service (we lit a fire and a Paschal Candle that Leigh made)...


...watched movies, played games, and sang songs (though you can see that at 1 am our singing was a little lacking in energy...).

During the night, our computer crashed, taking Leigh's translated sermon and our songs with it, and the power went out. Without any lights, most of us lost the battle to stay awake.

At 5 am, after about an hour of sleep on the floor, we had our Easter service at San Miguel Arcangel, followed by another service in Sitio de Los Nejapa. Then we went home and slept.