Living Water Trip to El Salvador - May 31st - June 7th, 2008

El Salvador – Day 1 – May 31st

Today was definitely a travel day. A long one at that. Went to bed at 2am, woke up at 6am, got to airport, and have been traveling until 8pm mountain time. Though long, there have definitely been some cool aspects to today. Being my birthday, Kayla and some others have made it a point to wish me a happy birthday whenever possible. Terminals, planes, restaurants, you name it. It’s been nice to be remembered on such an important year in my life! As soon as Kayla announced it on the plane to Houston, everyone on the plane was quick to send me well wishes. It was nice. Then we topped off the night with the Spanish version of happy birthday at the El Salvador airport.

We had an amazing view from the plane. The sun melted into the horizon, vibrant reds and oranges stretched like caramel across the south, while purple and black ominous dusk thunderheads tumbled and rolled into the creeping darkness of night. Lightning blurrily flashed in the shadows of the night sky, creeping from the east. The sun finally dropped and faded into the black storm clouds. Amazing! [I guess I was feeling poetic?]

I broke my no-Quiznos rule and tried to enjoy a taco salad when the team stopped for dinner on the way to our hotel. I placed my order in Spanish, complimenting my taco salad with a delicious lemon-lime Gatorade. Gatorade in Spanglish is Cat – rade. Not as delicious of a thought… but then again, neither is the thought of a sport drink made out of gators. I wonder if they even serve taco salads at Quiznos in the states.

As if Quiznos wasn’t enough of a reminder of the home that I had left about 2,000 miles and 12 hours ago, Good Charlotte was in San Salvador putting on a concert that night, which I found entertaining. As much as I thought it would be cool to go and see if Benji and Joel would be singing “Cosas Pequenas,” our Living Water staff suggested we make our way back for the night.

[I don’t think I always had “flow” in mind when writing in this trip journal. This next line is a great example of the, at times, disorganized writing habits I fell into, as this was just a bullet tacked onto the end of what I had hoped would be a simple, chronological account of my 1st day]:

We met up with Shelley in Houston [airport], and Katie and Stuart (Living Water International El Salv residents) at the San Salvador Airport. [Shelley was our Living Water trip leader flying in from Colorado. Katie and Stuart were also part of the Living Water team, but they were resident LWI staff in El Salvador, and were the ones who picked us up from the airport in San Salvador.]


El Salvador – Day 2 – June 1st

Today we woke up and headed to breakfast before church. We went to one of the restaurants down in the less gangy part of town, near the Quiznos/Pizza Hut/Good Charlotte concerts/etc… Great breakfast. I mean, sure, I’m still waiting for the super authentic Salvadoran food, but my banana pancakes and fresh squeezed OJ were delish.

From there we went to church, in a part of town where if you didn’t have a wall, gate, and barbed wire on your house, you were apparently psycho.

[The service was really interesting. It was mostly foreign families, including many Americans. It was a fairly typical catch all, protestant Bible church, but still had some eclectic elements, including the awesome Salvadoran blues acoustic guitarist. I remember feeling the presence of God in a very different way. It’s always amazing getting a chance to worship with different people in a different culture in a different land.]

[Presumably, time passes.]

It’s early evening here at the Oasis [that’s the name of the place we stayed]. I’ve switched pens because between the humidity and the rain, I’m afraid my words will bleed everywhere, given the current pen I’m using. The humidity, amongst the tropical torrents, is so significant I have to write with a napkin under my hand to keep the moisture on my hands from wrinkling the page I’m trying to write on.

The place we are staying is beautiful. You walk in the main door to a large main room with 20-foot ceilings. The bedrooms are scattered along the edges. The kitchen is to the left, lining half of the south side of the house. A bar with stools sits low and matches the length of the kitchen. The backyard is long and ends at a stone ledge that drops 10 feet to the crashing Pacific waves. At high tide, the water crashes right against the wall holding up the backyard. You can see the ocean from the dining room table in the atrium. Small hot tub-sized in-ground pools, creative stone paths between patios, and a hammock-friendly gazebos speckle the green lawn that leads to the beach. The house is beautiful and will provide a great atmosphere in which to unwind after a long day.

I haven’t yet spoke much of the people that make up our team. Our team is great, and made up of very similar, yet, at the same time, very different people. We are all similar in that we are all blessed beyond belief with health and daily conveniences and essentials like water; the personalities, however, are very different.

Here’s the breakdown: Shelley is our trip leader. She has been on 8 Living Water trips – 3 in El Salvador. She’s a chemical engineer from Denver who’s soft-spoken, yet bold, and clearly passionate about the work here. She has a friendly face and should prove to be a constant comforting encouragement to our team through her leadership and knowledge of the language and area.

Katie is a Florida girl who came on a LWI trip a while ago and fell in love. She now lives in San Salvador and teaches hygiene on all the area trips. She has one of those familiar faces that both Kayla and I swear we know from somewhere else, but so far, no dice in figuring that out. She’s upbeat, positive, and genuine, and has to be very strict with herself in journal writing in order to be motivated to do it. Sort of like someone else I know? Her personality seems well fit for her work in teaching the kids and parents about hygiene.

Stuart (pronounced Estuarto, en español) is the other LWI staffer with us. He drives the van, helps at the work sites with the drilling, and does an all-around great job as the guy staff member on the trip. He is a Salvadoran native who knows the area and the language well, which definitely helps, and has been with LWI for 3 years.

Dolores is the resident chef and so far the food has rocked. As far as the rest go, myself, Kate, Kayla, and Louisa are the post-college folk, while Preston, Maggie, Mark and Jen are the undergrads en tote. We are all definitely different, but are all adjusting well to each other’s moods, personalities, and senses of humor. I anticipate a great deal of fun, awareness, and service to be had, found, and offered by this group.

I suppose I should wrap this up. I had a delicious Coke today. Salvadoran Coke is made with actual sugar cane and not fructose. Yum! We are about to settle down for some dinner, as the lightning dances over the Pacific, out the backyard doors of the atrium. More later. Peace. Martin.


El Salvador – Day 3 – June 2nd – Monday

Morning – woke up to sounds of tropical thunderstorms. It’s still raining here, and basically has been since we arrived. It is going to make for a very wet workday. Luckily Preston’s rubber boot find at the Ranger Surplus store will be put to good use.

Going into today, I’ve been thinking a lot about this trip, and even back to writing my support letters. I’ve been trying to experience this trip in an anything but clichéd way. It’s nearly impossible, being an American with every need nearly fulfilled all the time. I’m trying not to roll up and be like aww look at these poor people, and simply use it as a contrast to be appreciative of my wealth. That would be a tragedy.

Although I think Shane Claiborne can be over the top at times, I like his mentality towards Jesus… the concept that Jesus didn’t just help the poor…He literally was poor. He often didn’t have a home to stay in. You know, the whole whatever you do for the least of these you do for me thing. I don’t open the Bible to simply look at the poverty Jesus surrounded himself with and use it as pity point to understand and be more grateful of where I’m at in life. I read the Bible cause I believe its true and because I need to try to mesh my life with the life of Jesus. Shane makes a point that believers are quick and willing to believe that people need to be born again, based on the words of Jesus we read about Nicodemus, but chapters later, the same man says to feed and care for the poor. How come we never address that with the same earnestness?

Yesterday in church, one of the long-time families was being sent back to the states because the father was in the state dept. They were talking about how they wanted to move to Great Falls or McLean, so their kids could go to Langley and Cooper. It was hard not to jump to conclusions, I’ll admit. I apologize if I have judged them. At the same rate, it just filled me with questions. Why did he feel the need to share this with us? [He almost seemed as if he was location-dropping, which I'm pretty sure is the reason this stuck with me all day until I journaled] There’s nothing inherently wrong with Great Falls, but the fact that it was the first thing that I heard him say, my first impression, made me have a zillion questions. What did he have to prove to me? Anything?

Well, this man aside, maybe there was a reason this resonated with me. Was it because I could relate most to those tendencies to run to wealth and comfort after being surrounded by a clear view of how much of the world lives? Was I scared that regardless of the real story of this state department man, perhaps I was in danger of needing Great Falls? Needing a status? Needing a reminder that I don’t have to live in poverty? Needing an excuse to justify my selfish desire to stay comfortable and safe from the realities and dangers of this world?

I don’t know to what extent the Lord was working in my heart as I heard this situation. Maybe I’m being too hard on myself. I like to think I have compassion for others and a passion to help and stay aware of global dilemmas, but I think I could use a kick start in “doing.” Being aware is only a cute forethought to the battle. Giving money is nearing “half-the-battle,” but doing is definitely a huge half in helping God’s people and gaining a more global perspective.

Well, there I go again with the clichés. Although, I hate them, they might be all I can handle right now, as I soak in the needs of my surroundings. It’s amazing how much [the concept of] service is like the language I don’t fully understand. There are 2 languages I’m building upon here: Spanish and service. I think, just like Spanish, once you submerge yourself and learn more of the culture and language by being there and learning from the people, only then can you move on from the clichés and idioms of 1st semester service.

God be with me, put me to use this week, give me wisdom and perspective to take home, keep at home, and bring back, along with friends, next time you give me an opportunity to get to know this world, and your people, and your hurting people, another time. Amen.

Monday (PM)

Well, today was wet! I felt like we were at a water park all day. Rain while drilling, water from drill system, rain in back of truck, water sloshing in barrels, water in puddles and streams all around us when the truck was stuck, my rinse off in the hose from all the mud, the pool dip, my shower, all the times I’ve had to wash my hands, and even just drinking water. I can’t escape h20. Amazing. I feel very saturated, which is ironic, because we’re here to bring water. But most of this water from today was definitely not clean.

I’m very tired, but the bottom line is today was wet and hard at times, but adventuresome and rewarding. The language barrier put me out of my comfort zone. I know enough Spanish to express basic needs and ideas, but as soon as I ask, I regret it, because their response is not Spanish 1 or it’s quick and slurred together.

[Found in the margin of today’s entry] John 14:12-15 “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit ‘If you love me, you will obey what I command.’”

It’s been frustrating being unable to communicate ideas, requests, answers, and jokes. But, it keeps me humble. The town seems grateful we are here. Many are exited to watch and some even to help out. It’s a great community experience. I hope to write more on the village itself tomorrow. For now, I should sleep. 8 hours is not enough sleep for this work.

On a side and final note, the weather here is my favorite! It has thunderstormed on and off almost non-stop since we arrived. Day, evening, night, morning, it knows no boundaries here. I love waking up to thunder, and that is something that barely ever happens in Virginia. Just predictable afternoon pop ups. Throw in the fact that they’re all beach storms and I am truly spoiled. Thank God for great, refreshing, cooling thundershowers. It beats being in the heat and sun all day! Til next time. Martin.


Tuesday – June 3rd – Day 4

I’m tired, so here are the bullets.

- Amazingly productive day. Drilling went well. Went another 55ft or so. Was very rewarding to get dirty, trade off shifts like a team should, and bond through the act of service.
- Had so much fun messing around today too. Preston pushed Shelley into the [huge and disgusting] mud [pit]. She tried to get him back in ways he always seemed to anticipate or ruin by finding ways that it wouldn’t affect or bother him. We also played with the fake crocodile and tried to scare the kids with it.
- Rewarding time playing with the kids at the school. Preston, Jen, Louisa and I taught with Katie and the kids seemed to love it. Also, really seemed like they learned something too.
- Great time getting to know Abel and Stan better. They are great guys and a pleasure to know/work with.
- Love riding in the back of the tarp-covered, flatbed truck. No day seems complete without it.
- Visited a lime farm on our quest to find a water source for the barrels of water we had to fill up. The whole place smelled so vibrantly limy!
- Language barrier still frustrating, but had a few opportunities to speak in my broken Spanish.
- Expect to hit water tomorrow and start building the well infrastructure. Exciting!
- God is good, and has given me a blessed week to abandon all my Northern Virginia cares and be taken care of for a week, in exchange for simple service in His name, that I am so glad to do. Amen. Martin.


Wednesday – June 4th – Day 5

Well, this is more of a recap, as I write this in retrospect on Thursday. Yesterday was so jam packed, it was crazy. We put the pipe in for the well and it turned out to not have as much water as we thought. So we abandoned the hole and were stuck with a decision. Go home and leave no water or work later and punch a new hole using a rockier method that moves 4x as fast. We decided to do it.

We set all the equipment up on the other side of the schoolyard. This method uses hydraulic air pumping that basically shoots crap straight up out of the hole. Yep, rocks, dirt, water, mud. It was very dirty. This process continued up to 30ft or so. And then we hit a gravel layer, prohibiting easy drilling.

Hope remained as we continued to drill out the gravel that just seemed to keep sliding into our hole, just a few layers down in the earth. I just sat there, next to the drainage ditches I was in charge of creating and maintaining, praying over our well. It’s interesting praying over a well. You’d think water would be a no-brainer for God to allow a village with dirty water to have. But for whatever reason, we couldn’t break the 2nd layer and we had to abandon the 2nd hole.

Night closed in, darkness settled, 3rd day of 4 on site, and we had not hit any good water. We decided to go home, eat, then come back and try to develop the 1st well.

The 1st one, unlike this 2nd one, did have water, just not much. Not an amount that is typically recommended to move ahead with developing a pumping system for. We came back, stayed late, did the thang. Now we will sleep, though not fully thinking this was going to work. We’ll see. Martin.


Thursday – June 5th – Day 6

We woke up and ate breakfast. I’ve been trying to pinpoint what’s been making me feel sorta sick to my stomach, mainly yesterday. It’s either the hot sauce or the OJ. I think it’s the OJ, or the milk actually. Either way, I avoided the milk and hot sauce for breakfast.

We went to the site and continued to develop the well. Shelley and Stuart decided we’d give hole 2 another shot too. I prayed over it as Stanley diligently and humbly soaked himself to try and punch through that impossible 5ft layer of gravel. I helped him clear water again, fill the hole with soap [to try to coat the walls of the hole and stop up the gravel], grab tools; I basically had a great time working with him today. He’s got a great heart. He’s in English classes and he’s one of the first Salvadorans I feel comfortable exchanging languages with.

Well, 3 hours passed and hole 2 was proven a dud. We broke for lunch, intending to use our last afternoon at work to develop hole 1 and hang with kids. Lunch was good. Katie created an inconsistent batch of ham and cheese sandwiches. Some didn’t have ham. She is funny. After lunch, we attempted to develop well 1, but no dice.

Tomorrow I will write more on prayer, my prayers and thoughts on why God didn’t answer with the answer I prayed for.

So yeah, we packed it up and moved out, with no well, sadly. But at least we had a great afternoon playing with the kids, hanging with each other, and obeying God’s command to love and serve, even if it seems in the moment it was all for naught. I’m really starting to enjoy this place. Dinner was fab. Dolores is a great chef. I got muchos bug bitos for the first time really this week, this evening. ¡Nadando en las piscinas en una noche caliente con muchos mosques fue una idea malo! Adios por la noche.

-Martin


Friday – June 6th – Day 7

Today was the last day in Acajutla. Tears of sadness! We got up and hoped to walk out to the statue of Jesus in the ocean [Just to clarify, I’m referring to a statue that was built on the rocks in the ocean. At high tide the water covers the rocks you need to cross to get out there]. At low tide you can actually walk on the rocks to get there. Alas, the whole trip the tide was never out when we were around the Oasis and available to venture out there. Maybe next time.

We visited the school for the last time. Afterwards, we said goodbye to Stanley and passed the crocodile on to him.

[haha, and then randomly I think I wrote this on the plane ride home]
I think I realized I wanted to be a voice-over artist the day I convinced myself on a flight back to DC that I wanted to be a pilot, just so I could use the intercom on a regular basis. I wanted to be a friendly voice on a stormy day and an unrequired birthday song away from making a kid’s day. Luckily, before I potentially crash some poor jet into the ground, I realize there are other ways to get a job where I can use my voice.

Saturday – June 7th – Day 8 - My Trip Testimony (submitted to LWI)

There I sat, next to the well, waiting for water to gurgle from the top. At first, it was frustrating – you know, not hitting water on a well drilling trip, but it wasn’t for long. I immediately felt a peace where I was ready for God to work, however He wanted.

At first it was a no-brainer; I thought, well, thirsty people need water, we’re drilling a well in God’s name, it’s a match made in heaven. But when the water didn’t come, I started entertaining other possibilities. What was God trying to do? How was he going to work? Why would this work be at the expense of a community thirsty for fresh water?

Lately, I’ve become very aware that God works in His own perfect way, mainly through the things I’ve been trying to figure out in my own life. It’s impossible to understand the meaning of a painting by only looking at a small section. It’s not until you are able to step back and see all the sections connected together that it all starts to make sense as a work of art. God works in the same way, and I have realized that the sooner I let it go, obey, and trust that He’s got it, the more I will enjoy and eventually understand the life He has called me to.

With the well, I was able to consider that God’s intentions were for something completely different, perhaps even unrelated to water. Maybe God knew that me not seeing the final product would make me crave a 2nd, 3rd, maybe even a 4th trip and continue to impact Salvadoran lives for years to come. Maybe it was an investment of sorts, for Him. Maybe not; and I may not understand why. But I’m glad I answered his call to come when He asked. I’m glad I sat there praying for a geologically illogical miracle, even though we knew the well was dry.

If absolutely nothing else, I hung out with God for a week in a way that I never have before, and formed relationships with kids and teachers at the school and in the community, in such a powerful setting. Although the community might not have gotten a well in the exact spot we’d hoped, I believe the community still felt a hope that we proudly proclaim through Christ.

The well will come soon.