Los Trozos Boutique Hotel Los Naranjos

Friday - our last day of work at Villa Esperanza. It was a fairly light work day. As the week has gone on, our "work" has became more and more satisfying as we've been able to see the progress on each of the homes we're building. We won't be able to see any of the homes completed but we have made tremendous progress. We know we're doing God's work and we feel good because of it.

Prior to leaving the build site today, we ...

What a fantastic group meeting we had last night...Rusty asked us what we had learned about El Salvador and how it was impacting our perceptions now. Our motto has become "What happens in El Salvador stays in El Salvador," so I'm not telling names. Here's a sample of the stuff we heard from each other last night: The El Salvador people have kept their lives so simple and they seem very happy. Why is it, with all our STUFF that we aren't keeping ourselves ...

Today we learned what it's really about.....

We started the day with Tim leading us in a lecture (that's what the Salvadorans call devotions). Tim read us the story from Hebrews of the "Flawed Heroes" and reminded us that just as God used ordinary and sometimes reluctant people to do His work years ago, he is using US to do His work now.

Our "work" today was not only about building homes, it was about ...

It's hard telling what the temperature was today, but most of us decided it was definitely hotter than yesterday. No clouds and not much breeze, and the sun was very intense. Devotion this morning was the story of the three servants who were each given responsibility over a portion of their master's money in his absence. You probably remember that the two with the most given them doubled their master's money ...

Day two on the build - we work so well together! We're learning how to become efficient. We sift sand as a team, we dig holes as a team and we damp dirt as a team. LOTS of dirt....

Since we're working so well together, we want to make sure you know our entire team. There's lots of us....30+! We've posted everyone's picture on the blog so you can get to know us. There's a few "old jugs" and a few "cracked pots" in ...

... and adults lining the sides of the narrow two-lane road being shared with commercial trucks and the ubiquitous busses. Turning south-east at the coast we drove down toward La Libertad. The drive is very reminiscent of Highway 101 south of San Francisco, but not quite as spectacular. Still, very nice and enjoyable. We stopped at a couple of lookouts, but no places for food appealed to us. Turning inland at La Libertad we drove up CA-4 to San Salvador. The road is ...

... bacteria, amoebas.... who knows.... mine hung around longer than normal and spread to an infection in the bladder. Lovely. Antibiotics for 10 days. San Salvador, the capital, is a slice of north America... shopping malls and fast food joints galore, absolutely not at all my thing but great when you are on the road to stock up on products and get a good cappucino.....

... s jinymi sporty. Myslite si, ze je to pomerne jednoduche a nakonec zjistite, ze to zadna sranda neni. Nicmene odpoledne uz to bylo lepsi. :) Nadherny byl pocit, kdyz me vlna nesla dlouhou dobu smerem ke brehu. Nicmene nektere useky byly uz pomerne nebezpecne a dva surfery tam museli zachranovat. Urcite si rad jeste nekdy zasurfuju. :)

... J The children around all wanted to touch him and kiss his little hands. At first he was willing to be passed around amongst the kids, but soon he started getting tired of it - especially when he noticed that the children loved to play the "pull Liam´s soother out of his mouth and watch him fuss for it" game. So after about 1 hour of visiting, he started making strange. I kept him pretty close after that. After we arrived, the kids from the community started ...

... de Antropologia David Guzman) which had exhibits on Mayan art, history and religion. Later on that night, we met up with a Salvadoran guy that I had met last time I was in El Salvador. He and his girlfriend picked us up and took us up to a really cute restaurant that overlooked the whole city. One again we got pupusas but these were the best ones I've ever had. They were made with rice flour instead of corn and like usual I ate way too many of them!