SALCOATITAN, El Salvador

God is great!

Because of His timing we met Gayle and Caitlyn at Vernon Alliance the night before we left and now we are staying with a wonderful family in El Salvador!

Feb. 2
Carlos, Marisa, and their sons Luis and Kevin have welcomed us into their home and what a home it is!!  They own a bakery and are in the process of building a hostel next to their house.

Carlos picked us up from Carla's school and brought us to his home in Salcoatitan.  His community has a population of approx. 3000.

The home of Carlos Cienfuegos & family

Feb. 3

Today was amazing.  We got to hike into a volcano (dormant for thousands of years) now full of lush vegetation including coffee plantation, avacado, mango and more.  We hiked into the centre of the volcano which is now a green lagoon (Laguna Verde).  Landon and Luis were in the right place at the right time and took turns driving a dune buggy in and around the volcano.  Carlos showed us how if you open a coffee bean the juice surrounding the 2 beans inside is quite sweet and refreshing to suck on.  We hiked for a total of 6 hours, Tianna did great even though parts of the hike were very steep!  She made up a story along the way and when she was finished telling it in english we had her say it again in french.

His parents were picking coffee beans while he sat patiently.

Coffee Beans

Nope not a forest fire, 
just steam escaping from one of the 5 volcano's nearby

Carlos and Luis (our awesome guides/friends)

Another variety of Coffee Beans

After thousands of years a lagoon is now inside the crater

Landon & Luis get to drive a dune buggy!

Feb. 4

Tianna & Dad went with Carlos to see his friends bakery.  Tianna's report from the date with her dad:
"we went to the Cafe Bonsai and watched them making different pasteries and in the back yard the owner had a hobby of sculpting Bonsai bushes/trees into various art forms and he had a collection of a bunch of rocks, some millions of years old and a bone of a wooly mammoth.  after that we went to an art gallery where I took some pictures but wasn't supposed to....ooops!"

Dad & Daughter date

In the late afternoon we drove to some incredible falls in Juayva not far from Carlos's house.  The kids and JC swam in, around and under the falls, the water was quite cool...refreshing for them but too cold for me!

Feb. 5

We had a lazy start to the day.....kids had fun having games of pool with Luis and taking turns playing on the electric piano.  Carlos & Marisa's eldest son Juan came for breakfast with his wife Natalieand their 2 kids Ashley and Ian.  Landon made pancakes for everyone!  

The food we've enjoyed so far is, pupusa's  (3 times!), platanos (look like fried banana's), marquesote which is sweet bread, homemade chocolate, cafe con leche (coffee with milk), banana bread made by Luis, tortilla, xilacayote(pronounced chilacayote) & tastes like christmas pudding and of course the now famous Salvadorian Quesadilla that has been in the Cienfuegos family for 4 generations.  It's nothing like the mexican quesadilla as this one is like a sweet bread made with cheese and tastes wonderful!!      

Ataco which is a quaint  small town just north of Salcoatitan.  We walked around looked through shops and the Catholic Church was beautifully designed with so much detail in the murals and the statue's.

Back home and after lunch of hen soup, chicken and rice we all piled back into 2 vehicles to drive to the beach called Loscobanos just outside of Sonsonate.  At the beach we met even more of Carlos's extended family, Marisa's sister and kids.The kids are especially enjoying the rides in the back of the pick up truck!  It's the norm here and we are trying to go with the flow and do as the locals do!!!  The beach was fun until the sand flies started biting after sunset.  We made a brief stop at Juan & Natalies to shower before heading home.....no wait.....we had to stop for a feast of Pupusa's on the way home!!

Our new friends....now family

Feb. 6

WHEELS FOR THE WORLD

google Joni & friends to learn more about this invaluable missions project.

Carlos drove us back to San Salvador where we all met up with Becky and Roy Ott from Vernon.  They are working with a team from the US which supplies, and professionally fits wheelchairs for those in need.  They work with the local therapists to train them how to properly fit a chair since a chair not fitted can do more harm than good.  Once a year they come to El Salvador and the people come by the hundreds with babes in their arms.  Becky introduced us to a few of the families waiting all day for their turn at getting a chair for their child in need.  It was heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time.  It REALLY puts all our life's challenges into perspective.  The kids and I handed out mini-balls which we tied to string since most of the kids did not have use of their hands either.  We put temp. tattoos and buttons on the mom's and some kids and tried to keep one little girl cooler by fanning her while she lay helplessly in her mother's arms.

Receiving a proper fitting for his new chair
 at The Instituto Salvadoreno de Rehabilitacion de Invalidos (y integracion)

Carlos treated us all to some delicious hand-made ice cream sold just outside of the gates by a local vendor.  After saying goodbye to Becky and Roy we drove another hour or so to Playa San Diego, back to our hostel El Roble.  

In the late afternoon we headed to the beach where God gave us the most amazing sunset I think I've ever seen!  We had been playing in the warm waves while the sun was getting lower and lower...nothing could be better than this moment!  Thanks God!

the moon patiently waiting for the sun to go down

another self portrait....works everytime!

Landon loves the waves!

The Colvin Crew....loving every minute of it!!

Farewell El Salvador....we'll be back!

Final thoughts on El Salvador:

The people in El Salvador are so friendly, we felt completely safe here and would recommend this place to everyone!  I think as long as you stay out of the big cities like San Salvador you will be fine.  Other than a bit of garbage in places it is clean and after staying here for one week I only saw 3 people smoking and 2 of them were tourists!  The food was good and inexpensive, and we drank mostly bottled water.  The beaches were clean, hardly any people, soft sand and no rocks to worry about where we challenged the waves.  We only saw a few mosquitoes and there were mosquito nets over the beds.  Wish we would have planned to stay here longer and we will definitely be coming back.

MEETING CARLA!

We meet at last!

our two families unite

Brothers and sisters

Erika, Gloria, Daniel, Carla

The Soccer teams

Carla & Landon

Carla's school mates

both our families

Sisters!!

Feb. 2

A mad rush in the morning to get ourselves ready to travel to Sonsonate in order to meet Carla, our sponsored child.

Got off a bit late due to some miscommunication regarding transportation and then the drive from San Diego to San Salvador took another 1.5 hours.  We finally arrived at the Compassion office and met Ruth who would be our translator for the day.  She was also the founder of Compassion in El Salvador 20 years ago, which began in her house!  Another hour to Sonsonate but it was all well worth the wait since meeting Carla was truly magical.  We strolled through a walk way lined with all her classmates waving flags, then Carla walked towards us with a rose for each of us.  We hugged and then walked together into their outdoor meeting place where they prayed, sang songs and welcomed us as Carla’s sponsor.  Our family was invited to come up and we each introduced ourselves and spoke a little about what being a sponsor meant to us. We met Carla’s mom Erika, her sister Gloria and brother Daniel.  Afterwards, we all took the van to Pizza Hut for lunch and the kids had fun playing on the big jungle gym inside the restaurant.  Then we drove to Carla’s house and met her dad Mario.  Their house had 3 rooms in total but was about the size of our living room, made of cement blocks.  The bedroom slept their whole family of 5.  They had some really nice hand-made gifts for us and a sign that welcomed us to their home.  We gave them our suitcase full of clothes, toys etc. for Carla and her brother Daniel.  Tianna and Landon took their bikes and biked through the little lane in front of their house.

Lastly, we drove back to the school where all the kids were still waiting for us to play soccer.  Two teams were formed and we played for almost an hour.  Both Tianna and I scored, yeah!!

It was really difficult to say good-bye but we felt so incredible afterwards.  It was one of those days when you feel like everything is right, we have blessed her and how blessed are we to have had the opportunity to meet her and her lovely family.

EL SALVADOR

SAYING FAREWELL AT THE KELOWNA AIRPORT!!!

WE MADE IT!!
I don't have a lot of time to write about our experiences so far as we are being charged by the minute for our internet use so I'll be brief for now!
Even getting into my Blog was a challenge since all the instructions are in Spanish and I had to go by memory for which link to click on to log in?!?
One word to describe where we are staying.......LOVELY....Tianna asked if we could stay here the whole trip.  It's called El Roble Hostal (you can google it) and we have a beautiful 2 bedroom, mostly open air house with our own pool for $50/night including breakfast.  Amazing!  We arrived at 7:00 am this morning and so far have swam in the pool, napped on the hammocks between the palm trees (they are everywhere on the property) and enjoyed our complimentary welcome drink which I have no idea the time I drank it, oh well.  JC and the kids are off exploring the beach which is only a 15 min. walk from here.  I will post pictures and more stories about the journey here later.  Landon is just happy there is no more snow to shovel, I'm happy to be out of my house (organizing, packing, & cleaning) and JC.....well he's just happy!   so all is well, no need to worry!!  bye for now!

Tianna's First Post

I can't wait until our trip, it's so far away but while we're planning it it feels so near.
I'm excited for my birthday in Corsica, it's going to be so much fun.
We've been planning this trip since I was little and this year is the only year I've been really serious about it.
That's it for now......bye!

About Us & our Itinery

We are a family of four who will begin an adventure of a lifetime by travelling around the world in 2012.  Our focus is to see God’s creation, connect with family heritage, positively impact the world, experience different cultures and share the spirit of Christ with others.

Itinery:

El Salvador (Carla)         Jan.30-Feb.7    (Compassion Ministries)
Costa Rica                      Feb. 7-Mar.12
Peru, Lima                      Mar.12-Mar.31 
Brazil, Rio de Janeiro     Mar.31-            (WWOOFing)
Brazil, Sao Paulo                         Apr.27
Cape Town, S.Africa      Apr.27-May 6
Zimbabwe  (Peter)          May 6-May 17  (Zim Project, JFA)
Vic Falls                         May 17-May 27 (safari)
Malawi  (Oziyasi)           May 28-Jun.2  (World Vision)
Uganda                           Jun.2 -Jun.28

yet to be planned but here is our guess
Egypt

Israel  
Turkey  
Greece 

EUROPE                       Sep.1-Nov.30

Italy    (Colvin/Concil Family)  

France     (Fabien)

Spain, Barcelona

France, Paris

England, London

Scotland, Edinburgh  (McKnight's)

Ireland, Belfast    (Murdock's)

Denmark      (Frederick)

Sweden, Stockholm   (Lena's Dad)

Czech Republic
Germany    (Zupp Family)

Austria

Switzerland

Nepal                                  
Thailand                            
Mexico   (Todd & Linda)  Jan. 5- Jan. 15

Thoughts on Missions

As I sit here in the comforts of my living room with the sun shining through the window and light snow falling I can't help but think about how different our lives will be in one year from now.  Everyone we share the news with, about our trip, comments on how amazing it will be and how much our kids will benefit from the experiences.  I have to agree but what will make it amazing for me?  In my heart I know that in order for me to feel it was worth the effort to make this a reality will be how much of a difference we, or more specifically I will make.  To do missions is great in theory, but what do I have to offer?  I am doing a lot of soul searching at the moment and praying for God's guidance to reveal to me His plan for this trip.  To quote from a book I am currently reading and may want to refer back to again (on our trip) here are some things worth remembering:


"The average North American enjoys a standard of living that has been unimaginable for most of human history.  Meanwhile, 40 percent of the earth's inhabitants eke out an existence on less than two dollars per day.  No single sector can alleviate poverty on its own.  Like all human beings, poor people have a range of physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs.  Hence, appropriate interventions for poor people include such diverse sectors as economic development, health, education, agriculture, spiritual formation, etc.   While we all have a responsibility to help the poor, there is enormous diversity in the ways that each person is to fulfill this biblical mandate.  Remember, the goal is for everyone involved to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever, not just to increase people's incomes.  All of us have been heavily influenced by the modern worldview, which believes that human reason and effort are able to understand and control the material world without a need for understanding or relying upon God.  As a result, we are very prone to putting our trust in ourselves and in technology to improve our lives, forgetting that it is God who is the Creator and Sustainer of us and of the laws that make the technology work."

What I am seeing is that all the money in the world will not solve a persons, community, village, or countries problems.  Relying solely on ourselves will never work and we will never be satisfied.  You just have to take a look at all the people in the world who are extremely wealthy yet still not happy.  A person's worth or happiness is not based on their income, it is measured by the number of satisfying relationships in their life beginning with a relationship with our Creator.

"A helpful first step in thinking about working with the poor in any context is to discern whether the situation calls for relief, rehabilitation, or development.  In fact, the failure to distinguish among these situations is one of the most common reasons that poverty-alleviation efforts often do harm.  "Relief" can be defined as the urgent and temporary provision of emergency aid to reduce immediate suffering from a natural or man-made crisis.  "Rehabilitation" begins as soon as the 'bleeding' stops; it seeks to restore people and their communities to the positive elements of their pre crisis conditions.  "Development" is a process of ongoing change that moves all the people involved-both the "helpers" and the "helped" - closer to being in right relationship with God, self, others, and the rest of creation.  Development is not done to people or for people but with people.  One of the biggest mistakes that North Americans make-by far-is in applying relief in situations in which rehabilitation or development is the appropriate intervention."

Keeping the above in mind I will strive to build relationships with those I meet and apply the principle's I've learned so that my efforts do make a difference and their lives as well as my own will benefit.

Whew...... all for now!

Our purpose

2011 has arrived.....the one year countdown is now on!

Since JC's trip to Guatemala in November we've decided to partner with FH (food for the hungry) and will attend a boot camp later this month.  We want to learn as much as we can about missions work so that we will have a better opportunity to be more effective in the area's we visit.  It's difficult to know the best way for our family to serve.  What is God's purpose for us?  What does He want us to accomplish?  If we keep these questions in mind while planning our trip then surely where we are meant to go and what we do when we get there will be answered.  There are so many ways in which one can serve but you have to look at your own abilities and talents.  We would be kidding ourselves if we thought we could help build something knowing what we know about building...aka nothing!  However, building relationships with people suits our family perfectly and add using sports as the tool is even better.  To borrow a quote from the YWAM website we need to... live more like Jesus and identify your unique gifts and purpose to use in missions.   "Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations" Matthew 28:19.