Hello Everyone,
Here’s some info.
Missionaries: There are 5 girls (including me) here. But Nicole (from PUC) & I are the youngest. The others are 20+. Everyone’s pretty chill and we all get along pretty well. I think each of us came to El Salvador with big hearts ready to love and serve.
Place: There are seven houses here that house the kids. Basically the place has it’s own office, bakery, school, clinic, and church. Corn, sugar cane, and tomatoes are a few things that are grown here. It’s pretty self-efficient here. The houses are all next to each other forming a circle, with a huge field in the center where the boys usually play soccer in. There are palm trees :)
Food: Actually really good. Mainly a lot of cheese, corn, rice, and beans made in every way you can think of. Beans hmm…[complete the sentence] beans, beans, beans the more you eat the more you _______.
Weather: Not hot, but humid. It’s still the wet season so it rains on & off. When it rains it thunders…and I mean THUNDERS.
Bugs: Killed my first cockroach.
Shower: Cold. I’m a thirty-minute-hot-shower kind of person. My first shower lasted five minutes. But I’m getting used to it pretty quickly.
Sleep: The roosters like to crow at night. They’ll crow at 2 in the morning! I named them one’s called “Last” and the other “Supper.”
Job: I work in the bodega. I meet a lot of different people in this job. The bodega is pretty much the warehouse that stores the food and essentials that keep the houses running. Work ranges from packing food for the houses, weighing & packaging food, cleaning, inventory, etc. Everyone calls my boss “Mami Brenda.” She’s really sweet, and has a laugh that’s contagious.
Kids: I live in Casa #4 which consists of 23 kids ranging from elementary to high school. There’s an equal amount of elementary age kids (mostly boys) and high school age kids (mostly girls). Each casa has a “Mami” & “Papi” who are in charge of the kids, and a “Tia” who cooks and prepares the meals. At first it’s hard to even picture these kids are orphans because the “parents” treat them so well. They are as normal as kids come: they fight, laugh, eat, fart, and read just like any kid in America. I truly hope that by the end of the year I come to know and love each and everyone of them very much.
Please pray for: the missionaries here. The biggest problem most of us are encountering now is the language barrier. It’s really hard to communicate and let the kids know our thoughts, and it’s hard for us to understand theirs. But we do serve a God that breaks through language, race, class, gender, situations…do we not?
“Preach the gospel at all times, if necessary use words.”
- Saint Francis of Assisi
Since I don’t know the language very well, my actions…any actions for that matter speaks VOLUMES. I’ve never loved anyone by actions alone. So this year should be very interesting! Thank you for all the prayers & love. Miss you all.
Mucho love,
Bernice
