Day Four: Be a Prophet

Today was Sunday and we found ourselves starting the day in Church. This was the first time we've been able to worship in the new Resurrection Church. As you can see from the pictures below, we moved from a Salvadoran worship, to another sponsorship party with the other half of our sponsored students. Melvi, a third year university student started that event with a prayer of thanks, again thanking his sponsors and the sponsors of all of our scholarship students for their generous support. When the party was over we headed over to the old temporary Resu and listened to the story of the Subversive Cross as told to us by world famous artist and friend, Christian Chavaria. We then visited his studio to see and buy some of his popular artwork. More reflections and details will follow below. -- Mark

Thank you all for waiting for our blog post for today. Hopefully we aren’t a day late and a dollar short. We started our morning off with some breakfast, which was an oatmeal type of dish. We then loaded up into the van and headed off to Resurrection Church, where worship service is held. When we got there, church was fairly empty. Bishop Gomez greeted us and the topic that was burning in our minds was, who was going to preach today????? Bishop Gomez stated that he was going to be preaching to us, in all of our heads we said halleluiah knowing the service will be long but not super long. Bishop Gomez started the service off by talking about how there was a lack of people because of the world cup, which is okay, but he would have preferred that people come to church first and then watch soccer. The gospel reading for the day was Mark 6: 14-29, John the Baptist. Pause here, if you haven’t read this reading or need to read it again please do. After I had heard the story, I was beyond confused. I couldn’t figure out how Jesus fit into this story at all. Bishop Gomez got up and started to explain how we are all human and we make mistakes but we need to be a prophet and follow the word even if we stray from Jesus. But we will find a way back.

After church we met with Bishop Gomez for lunch and discussed the water privatization. Right now there is a big discussion of this topic. The Bishop will be marching in August about this topic. I can’t remember all of the details about the water privatization but it is a big issue currently down here in El Salvador. --- continued below...

We then started our favorite part of the day, the Sponsorship Party Day 2! We began with a beautiful ceremony presented by Pastor Gloria. We heard from Pastor Gloria, Pastor Emily, Bishop Gomez, Jill Cornel and Pastor Kristie. We then started the amazing craziness. We took the students photos, handed out backpacks, gave letters from all of the sponsors. Those who weren’t handing out anything, were hanging out with the kids, talking and catching up with old friends and playing games. Over the years, I have become friends with several of the students in the sponsorship program and it’s amazing to see them grow up in front of my eyes. I love seeing them year after year and it is always so hard saying goodbye, especially not knowing when I will have the opportunity to come back. --- continued below...

Once the party wrapped up, Christian brought us over and explained to us the subversive cross. This cross was made by the people of El Salvador during the civil war. The cross is written with the sins of the country. It is a living cross to remind us what sins are still be committed by the country. --- continued below...

We then went up to Christian’s studio for a little shopping and to hear his story too. After that we came home back to Los Pinos and had a relaxing evening!

--Katie