El Salvador May 2019 Day 4

Today was a full day and, as with most days here in El Salvador, I had a good mix of emotions.

After morning breakfast, we took a bus ride back to the church and project that welcomed us so well yesterday, Project 516: “For a better life”. Today’s mission was VBS for the kids, which began with lots of singing (and dancing) which got the heart pumping for most of us.After that, we had 70+ kids come through four stations: story time (Daniel & the Lion’s Den), crafts, songs, and recreation. As always, the kids were awesome and it seemed like the mission was a success, based on the smiles on the kid’s faces.

After that, we left for a coffee plantation which would serve as a venue for the remainder of the day’s festivities. We were soon joined by our guests, the staff from Project 44 “King David” which was the first project where we had worship services on Sunday. Our second mission of the day was hosting a staff retreat for their team which was already working together even though the Compassion Project would not officially start until the end of May.

Our time with the team was awesome as we sought to provide fun, learning and opportunities to help their team be more prepared for the ministry that they would be doing together. The staff retreat included:

·A conversational meal
·Team-building games
·A talk about working as a team, focusing on humility, passion and working well with others.
·Prayer Time

As a special surprise, arrangements were made for the whole group to experience something new together … in this case, a zipline experience. Though it was just one zipline, it was something that only one member of their team had experienced before and just like the kids from earlier in the day, smiles were prevalent. Even the main pastor of the project got in on the fun.

As we gathered for our final group time, we shared our appreciation for our time together and gave them some gifts from their sister church family at Woodmen Valley Chapel. As we held hands and got ready for a final prayer, I looked into the eyes of the Pastor of the church and project. It was obvious that our time together had touched him deeply. We pray that God will continue to bless him and his team as they get ready to kick off their Compassion project with the kids later this month.

As we were leaving, we watched their team of 11 climbing into the back of a truck for their hour-long trip back to their community. Their sacrifice to spend time with us displayed the passion, humility and teamwork that they are already bringing to the project. We look forward to seeing how God will be able to use that foundation to create an awesome “dream team” for the King David Project.

- David Coons