A New Year

It’s been quite a while since I’ve written … I debated making a New Year’s resolution to be better about that this year – but …

I could think back about the many cool, interesting, frustrating, maddening, joyful (etc.) things that have happened in the last few months – but I think I will begin with the present.  Time permitting (and motivation doing its job) I could little by little think back and perhaps spot-light some of last year’s highlights.

So I’ll start the new year with this week.

I got back from Iowa and into Berlín on the 6^th and as normal, I hit the ground running.  I spent about 5 hours that afternoon chatting with Blanca and Cecilia about all that had been going on while I was gone: some things important, some not.  We spent good time catching up on all the news here in El Salvador and in Iowa.

We also had a big Pastoral Team meeting the very next day to ‘plan the year.’  We don’t literally plot out the whole year on a calendar.  We discuss what our focus might be.  We evaluate the good and bad from the prior year and from that we decide what we could change to make things better.  Everyone shares their thoughts and ideas and I was able to give some input from our Compañeros volunteer group.  With all that – we think we know where we’re going. 

In a nutshell: we want to help the church/community partnerships evolve and grow.    Those that have been in partnership for years will hopefully have more communication – listening as well as opining and suggesting ideas from all sides. 

We also want to focus more on self-development within the communities.  It is beautiful to give a gift (a new church, a community house, a new fence for this or that, etc.) – but we would like to take advantage of all the different trainings and workshops that are being provided by NGO’s like InterVida, ProComes and ProVida.  We want to encourage groups to form, become organized and begin to think about how they can put into practice what they have learned.  And if they can organize themselves – to then present a solicitude to their partner church to perhaps support them with some start-up materials – which is the biggest hurdle.  The idea is – if they can start up – they can produce goods to sell and become self-sustaining in time.  Mini-cooperatives.

Now to be very clear – the gift of fertilizer that many Iowa churches provide to the farmers in their communities is still vitally important!!  Yes it is a ‘gift’ – but it is also an investment for a family’s well-being.  The rural families are all subsistence farmers – and if they do not produce sufficient crop, whole families suffer.    Ideally a farmer will harvest enough for his family to consume all year with some left over to sell for the things they cannot grow.  Fertilizer use on this badly depleted and mountainous land can provide from one third to potentially double the crop.  Obviously – climate is a huge un-controllable contributor to how much a field will yield.  But the farmers do see a large difference in crop out-put when they have fertilizer – even when – or maybe even especially – when the climate does not cooperate.  Families for the most part cannot afford the $50-$75 bags of fertilizer.  Many take out loans and go into debt.  So even if a church can help each farmer with one sack per family - it is a great help.  And the farmers are doing their part to respect the gift by working diligently in their farms.

The last couple of days I’ve also been working on organizing all our solicitudes for high school scholarships. Most of the communities who have an Iowa church partner provide scholarship help to the youth in their community.  It might be only 2 students – it could be 9.  And then we, as a Pastoral House, support many students who come from communities without a partnership.  We are able to do this thanks to some very generous donors in Iowa!!  This year we have a total of 54 high school students who are receiving scholarship help.  Of those 54 students – 25 of them are not from a community with a partner church.  The scholarship does not cover ALL their expenses, but provides relief to the struggling families to enable their teens to continue going to school. 

We have our big meeting with the students and their parents tomorrow morning.  We explain the roles and responsibilities of all of us.  Obviously the students need to put efforts in their studies and bring us their grade reports each period and I ask for a ‘thank you’ letter at least once during the year.  Parents need to encourage and expect their students to attend to their studies.  We provide the funds and encouragement.  We also have a typewriter here and many research materials they can use … our students are invited to take advantage of the few things we have to help them in their work.  And the cool thing is … many do!!  I love it when I come downstairs and see the teens typing away … or huddled over an encyclopedia (thank you Mike for buying us a Spanish set of encyclopedias!!).  And the students sometimes come and ask for help with their English homework. 

It’s been a busy few days!

Scholarship Joy!

I told you that I’d be busy Thursday and Friday with scholarship students coming for their first payouts. Well … I wasn’t kidding!! Thursday especially was a non stop, run from here to there, meet with one bunch in the chapel, the next bunch in the front room and individually talk with all of them …


And there are 74 students that we are supporting from a variety of funds. 3 communities have a partner relationship with an Iowa church. There are 27 students from El Recreo, 11 from San Francisco, and 10 from El Tablón that are being supported by their partner church. A brand new partnership is starting out with 2 scholarships for Las Delicias. We are assured by the community that there will be more students next year for this community! Start saving your quarters! ;o)

In addition to those, we have 24 students from a variety of communities that are being supported by a variety of donors. We have a man in Osceola who supports this effort all year long and sometimes visiting delegations leave a little for the ‘general education’ fund. When I first got here 2 years ago, the Pastoral House had 7 high school students we were supporting. Now we have 24. VERY cool indeed!

So as each high school student received their $50 payout (first of two or three payouts of $50 each depending upon the donating entity) we also spent a few moments talking and trying to motivate them to study hard, think about their studies and not their ‘novios’ (boyfriend/girlfriend). Each student signed a receipt as well as a parent, me and another member of the Pastoral Team. We try to be very transparent about the funds that go out. We keep a record of everything.

In addition, we verify with the school director to make sure they are truly enrolled. We expect the students to bring us a copy of their grade reports each trimester and we ask them to write a letter of thanks to be put in the education folder so I can share them with their kind benefactors. It’s a good process.

So those are the high school students!! They begin school this coming Monday the 24th.

Now to even more joy:

Remember our leap of faith last year for the two post high school “Technical School” scholarship recipients? Well – I have an update on them, too. And for THIS fund – we are in major need of support again this year. But thanks to the many people last year who gave a little (and in some cases a lot) to the “Tito and Ale Fund” we were able to meet their expenses during 2010.

Here we are in 2011 and our faith is still strong that these two will end up with enough funds to cover their tuition and transportation needs!!

They also begin school THIS Monday. And each of them has already received their first tuition and transportation payouts and they are ready to go!! And anxious to be back at their studies again after a long Christmas (their summer) break.

Like last year – if you want to support this effort, you can send a check to the Presbytery of Des Moines office (2400 86th Street, Suite 20 in Urbandale 50322) and indicate “Tito and Ale Fund” somewhere on the check or in your message to Betty D. the office manager.

I’ve seen the end of the year grade reports for both Tito (who is studying “English for Teacher”) and Alejandro (who is studying Auto Mechanics) and they are incredibly good.

The scale is from 1 to 10 rather than alphabetical grades with 10 being the best. BOTH boys ended the year with most of their grades 9.2 and higher. Most folks have a hard time just getting to 8.5. These young men are devoting lots of effort to their studies as well as helping their families in the corn and bean fields or other small work (in Tito’s case, he worked his Christmas vacation in construction) to help support their moms and siblings.

And in the meantime, Alejandro also studied for and obtained his driver’s license! You would be surprised how few people here in El Salvador actually can drive. Not many. Since I taught him to drive last year, Alejandro has also helped the Pastoral Team on many occasions with delegations – driving in the communities as we all walked door to door so I could be free to do the translating! How cool is that? (The truck had to follow us door to door with the heavy packets the families were getting in these communities).

Good timing … Tito just stopped by to return a book he had borrowed from me (in English of course) and to bring me a copy of his registration receipt.

I love it when folks are responsible!!

Thank you all for your support – whether in thoughts and prayers or actual financial assistance to the support we hope to provide …

Odds and Ends

Casa Pastoral now has a certificate of appreciation from the PNC. (The police!) We supported a two week long youth summer school program. Today was the ‘graduation.’

Think it’ll help if I carry that with me and get stopped by the police??

Prob’ly not.

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We had a meeting with 22 high school students who will be getting a Pastoral House scholarship next year. Last year we had 7. We explained the expectations of them bringing their trimester grade reports and writing a letter of gratitude to our donors … and the expectation that they will help other students or members of their community as a form of ‘pay-back’ – and we told them we have some books and a typewriter here they can use to do their work (no one has typewriters but all receive typing homework). And that if they need help in math Mauricio can help (another scholarship student willing to tutor) and I can help on occasion with English.

Smiles all around.

I took all their pictures for our file folder that has their application, grade reports and soon to be signed receipts. The first payout is in January – about a week before the school year begins.

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Beans, beans and more beans. It is the staple here. That and corn (mostly for tortilla, pupusa and tamale making). Yesterday I spent a couple hours extracting the red beans from their pods. The donations from the people in Alejandría created lots of work! My fingers feel raw. Cecilia and I spent lots of quality time together doing this yesterday. We left the big bucket on the table overnight and this afternoon we had to take all the little sprouts off. Just over night the bulk of them sprouted.

They are now all bagged and in the fridge.

We do have another clump of beans still on the vine drying on the roof of the Pastoral House though.
  Up on the Pastoral House roof!


Drying beans on the sidewalks -

This man asked me why I don't come to the Alcoholic's Anonymous meetings any more.
Hmmmm.  I had to tell him I was someone's translator ... and that I was not an alcoholic. 
He seemed sad by this news.

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There was a big article in the paper the other day about more exhumations of ‘clandestine’ and hidden and illegal graves. Some of them mass graves. These are bodies from the civil war. They found over 300 in one area (28 different gravesites) – about 60% of them women. They are doing this exhumation work slowly – and with experts. They said it takes two days to completely exhume a body. They want to be careful to try to preserve any micro-evidence. I am impressed that they are taking such care. And pleased. Maybe some justice will come for a few.

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Big soccer game on here … Barcelona vs Madrid. It’s like New York and New York: VERY fanatic fans. We have some of the kids of the Team and a couple of their friends here watching. 5 young men are enjoying the game! Kinda fun to be able to ‘host’ something just for fun on occasion.

Whoops … cable/internet just went out!! So now NO one gets to watch the game. I wonder if ‘the whole world’ was watching the game and the cable company got over-loaded?? Bummer.

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Internet came back on – 3 hours later!! So someone will have to let us know who won the game.
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Oh last thing … the 3 chickens that we received from the people of Alejandría … we ate two for Thanksgiving – I actually stuffed one the way my momma used to stuff! (If you want that story you’ll have to ask for it personally because some of that story might not be appropriate for a public blog! Haha – but I did write a story of the day – complete with photos!)

And the one remaining chicken that is still tethered to the tree outside my office door (and whose job did it become to feed and water and untangle each day?? You guessed it. Me).

Well – that one remaining chicken is actually a ROOSTER. He’s young – that is my excuse for not recognizing the fact that he is not a hen. And he is just learning how to crow. And he practices at 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. … and then I think he goes to sleep at 6 a.m. when we all get up for the day.

It’s only about a half crow though. Pretty wimpy. But he’ll learn. When he gets really annoying at all those wee hours of the morning – I’ll suggest soup.


I'm sorry ... but can YOU tell the difference??



He is lonely without his companions though ...



April 26th 2010 – Our Technical School Students

Remember that Leap of Faith we took as a Pastoral Team in January? Deciding to send Alejandro to a 2 year Mechanic school and Tito to a 2 year English Education school?

I figure it is time for an update.

And it is good news. I like a happy ending – and even though we are far from the end of their journeys, we are doing ok so far. And the young men are doing VERY well in their studies and when I see them I can see an almost physical change in their demeanors. And Tito’s English is improving – his vocabulary and pronunciation was always pretty good – but now he is less hesitant. And Alejandro has been doing practical work – hands on work in addition to class time and he is really enjoying it. It appears to come easy for him.

Alejandro’s grades are 8’s and 9’s. That is equivalent to B’s and A’s.

I don’t have Tito’s semester grades yet but he brought me a folder full of his work including his midterm exam which he earned an A+. We can’t ask for much more than that.

But of course, we do ask for more!! I need to tell you that the times we have needed some help here at La Casa Pastoral, both young men have not hesitated to lend a hand. Even helping to load fertilizer into a truck one day, and all the things we needed to schlep to a community for a celebration on another day.

They are both very grateful to be able to further their educations. I will ask them to write a message. Tito’s in English of course!!
:o)

So where do we stand financially?

We’re building the fund little by little thanks to many very generous people! And I want to thank them publicly here (just first names to not be intrusive to their personal lives):

So THANK YOU to Mike, Tom, Andy, Scott, Carl and Brenda, again Mike (as a birthday present to me, how cool is that!!), Sandy, Marcia and then Nick (who gives monthly!).

We have paid out so far – between January and the end of April:
For Tito: $352 – which includes registration, monthly tuition and transportation.
For Ale $421 – which includes registration, monthly tuition and transportation.

It is a little less for Tito because his family said they could pay the tuition every other month and the transportation cost to San Miguel is less than to Usulután.

So how much more do we need?
In all we need about $1,658 more to complete the year.

How much do we have in the Tito/Ale fund right now?
We have $1,102

So for this year, we are only short $556.
We’re not doing too badly with our leap of faith. We should never have doubted! We think God has been using you all as his angels.

Now … we have to keep praying for funds for the rest of the year and then pray anew for NEXT year!!

Tito (red shirt) and Ale loading the truck for a community celebration.

Tito and Ale loading fertilizer to help us out!

Alejandro in his work jacket.