A Journey to Ahuachapan
We said goodbye to the Hotel Marisco in the morning. (OK, the name's pretty close, and I couldn't resist. Look it up if you don't speak Spanish.)
The first stop was the Lutheran Church, where we arrived maybe half an hour early. We were quickly greeted by the pastor and the bishop's wife, and they worked out with Jack how he would be participating in the service.
The rest of the group congregated -- yeah, that's a pretty good thing to do in a church, I guess -- where our Habitat for Humanity leader Kathy would translate for them. Incidentally, Kathy is wonderful and deserves a blog post to herself.
I figured that I probably didn't need the translation help, so I decided to walk across the aisle and talk to one of the parishioners. Luis had been coming to this church for a long time and attended every Sunday. I talked with him as best I could, but between the traffic from the street -- they never did close the doors -- and Luis' manner of speech, I took a tip from my friend Russell Bohannon's bag of tricks and simply did a lot of nodding.
The service was in some ways what you might expect. Hymns, in Spanish, of course. Bible readings. I followed along, but I still have no idea which psalm they were reading. Jack read a passage from Luke in English. A sermon.
And did I mention that there was a sermon?
I guess it has ended by now. But while the pastor of this church shares many wonderful traits with Jack, brevity is not among them. I understood most of it, probably because he covered everything. And I mean everything.
Unlike at Arapaho, this church serves communion every Sunday. With wafers. And wine.
Ever wonder what happens to communion wine that isn't used? Jack didn't have to; he was well aware. I didn't see this personally (undoubtedly my low for the day), but Jack apparently was trying to hand off the chalice of red wine he was holding to someone, anyone. No luck. So, and I understand that this happened with a rather pained expression on his face, he did his pastoral duty and drank it.
It was not a small chalice.
We greeted the parishioners, much like we greet each other after Children's time at AUMC, and after the service, we were all presented wooden crosses, which were placed around our necks by the children of the congregation. In theory, at least; Mark Ellis either got a very small cross or has a very big head.
This was by no means a fancy service. The building was in obvious disrepair. There were neither hymnals nor bibles in the pews, and I understand that there weren't many books in the pastor's office.
Song lyrics were projected on a screen in the corner and we pretty much had to figure out the tunes. That they sang The Lord's Prayer to the tune of The Sound Of Silence was a bit of a surprise.
Luis told me that a typical service would have maybe 30 people, and, not counting our group, that's about how many were there. Still, even with all that, there was absolutely no question that this was a house of faith, and of God. And I wish them all the blessings in the world.
On the way out of San Salvador, we ate at Pollo Campero, a Central American fast food chicken chain. Yes, it's the same Pollo Campero you can find in Dallas, but they're far easier to find here in El Salvador. We continued through two archaeological sites, where Jack chased birds (yep, really!) and Bob Schneider and I played Fill In The Blanks whenever one of the guides came up with a word that Kathy didn't know how to translate.
By the time we got to Santa Ana, there were some very threatening clouds visible in the distance, and not long after we had passed through town, we found out how threatening. Think cats, dogs, various farm animals, maybe an ark in the distance, and you'll get the idea. Mass hysteria. And a lot of wind; I saw some felled tree branches.
The locals were clearly used to it; they took shelter, of course, unless they had somewhere to be. In the worst of the rain, we passed a lone pedestrian in a yellow raincoat walking alongside the road, likely thankful that we didn't drench him when we passed through a nearby puddle. Perhaps two or three minutes later, and I think I was the only one who saw this, we passed two more pedestrians in yellow raincoats.
One of them had a white cane.
It would be difficult enough for a blind person to walk along this busy highway under the best of circumstances. Heck, I wouldn't want to do it, period, and I can see (although my optometrist might choose to disagree). I can only speculate as to exactly what was happening, but perhaps I saw a prime example of loving one's neighbor as onesself?
Yeah, that sounds good. I'll stick to that.
We're at the inn now, after a dinner that consisted mainly of rubber chicken and a lot of laughs.
The adventure continues tomorrow.
-Stewart Huckaby
We said goodbye to the Hotel Marisco in the morning. (OK, the name's pretty close, and I couldn't resist. Look it up if you don't speak Spanish.)
The first stop was the Lutheran Church, where we arrived maybe half an hour early. We were quickly greeted by the pastor and the bishop's wife, and they worked out with Jack how he would be participating in the service.
The rest of the group congregated -- yeah, that's a pretty good thing to do in a church, I guess -- where our Habitat for Humanity leader Kathy would translate for them. Incidentally, Kathy is wonderful and deserves a blog post to herself.
I figured that I probably didn't need the translation help, so I decided to walk across the aisle and talk to one of the parishioners. Luis had been coming to this church for a long time and attended every Sunday. I talked with him as best I could, but between the traffic from the street -- they never did close the doors -- and Luis' manner of speech, I took a tip from my friend Russell Bohannon's bag of tricks and simply did a lot of nodding.
The service was in some ways what you might expect. Hymns, in Spanish, of course. Bible readings. I followed along, but I still have no idea which psalm they were reading. Jack read a passage from Luke in English. A sermon.
And did I mention that there was a sermon?
I guess it has ended by now. But while the pastor of this church shares many wonderful traits with Jack, brevity is not among them. I understood most of it, probably because he covered everything. And I mean everything.
Unlike at Arapaho, this church serves communion every Sunday. With wafers. And wine.
Ever wonder what happens to communion wine that isn't used? Jack didn't have to; he was well aware. I didn't see this personally (undoubtedly my low for the day), but Jack apparently was trying to hand off the chalice of red wine he was holding to someone, anyone. No luck. So, and I understand that this happened with a rather pained expression on his face, he did his pastoral duty and drank it.
It was not a small chalice.
We greeted the parishioners, much like we greet each other after Children's time at AUMC, and after the service, we were all presented wooden crosses, which were placed around our necks by the children of the congregation. In theory, at least; Mark Ellis either got a very small cross or has a very big head.
This was by no means a fancy service. The building was in obvious disrepair. There were neither hymnals nor bibles in the pews, and I understand that there weren't many books in the pastor's office.
Song lyrics were projected on a screen in the corner and we pretty much had to figure out the tunes. That they sang The Lord's Prayer to the tune of The Sound Of Silence was a bit of a surprise.
Luis told me that a typical service would have maybe 30 people, and, not counting our group, that's about how many were there. Still, even with all that, there was absolutely no question that this was a house of faith, and of God. And I wish them all the blessings in the world.
On the way out of San Salvador, we ate at Pollo Campero, a Central American fast food chicken chain. Yes, it's the same Pollo Campero you can find in Dallas, but they're far easier to find here in El Salvador. We continued through two archaeological sites, where Jack chased birds (yep, really!) and Bob Schneider and I played Fill In The Blanks whenever one of the guides came up with a word that Kathy didn't know how to translate.
By the time we got to Santa Ana, there were some very threatening clouds visible in the distance, and not long after we had passed through town, we found out how threatening. Think cats, dogs, various farm animals, maybe an ark in the distance, and you'll get the idea. Mass hysteria. And a lot of wind; I saw some felled tree branches.
The locals were clearly used to it; they took shelter, of course, unless they had somewhere to be. In the worst of the rain, we passed a lone pedestrian in a yellow raincoat walking alongside the road, likely thankful that we didn't drench him when we passed through a nearby puddle. Perhaps two or three minutes later, and I think I was the only one who saw this, we passed two more pedestrians in yellow raincoats.
One of them had a white cane.
It would be difficult enough for a blind person to walk along this busy highway under the best of circumstances. Heck, I wouldn't want to do it, period, and I can see (although my optometrist might choose to disagree). I can only speculate as to exactly what was happening, but perhaps I saw a prime example of loving one's neighbor as onesself?
Yeah, that sounds good. I'll stick to that.
We're at the inn now, after a dinner that consisted mainly of rubber chicken and a lot of laughs.
The adventure continues tomorrow.
-Stewart Huckaby
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