Ida y Vuelta (To Go and Return)

Just today, I said goodbye to a close friend Laura (another volunteer with FUNDAHMER) who is visiting her family and friends in the United States for a couple weeks. Her “despida” (good-bye) brought back a little nostalgia about my recent trip to visit many of you guys (my family and friends) in the States back in August. Then I realized that I hadn’t posted on my blog since I returned back here to El Salvador to update you about my great trip to the United States and my return here. For almost 4 weeks, I was able to spend a lot of time with those closest to me, see a lot of people, and do a lot of fun things. The time at home started out with an amazing week at the beach where my family has been going for 20+ years (a lot of sun and seafood and play on the beach with my little cousins). My mom had taken off work to “surprise” me at the airport at the beach and my dad and brother (and the newest member of the family, my brother’s dog Zoie) came to join us after a couple days. For the rest of my time at home, I spent significant time chilling out at my parents’ house catching up with them and doing some special things like cook-outs, fishing, biking, eating some good food (and ice cream), going around town with mom and dad, and trying to “squeeze” time with my brother out of him with his extra-tough work schedule. It was also great to be able to “branch out” and visit some others of you—Sarah and Joseph during a really fun camping trip (14 miles!), Chandler and Liz in Winston Salem, my “folks” at Wake Forest, Kaileigh and Lauren for a little art, and Steph at home. I spoke several times at Fletcher church, but I always felt like I wanted to say more to all there who have supported me throughout my year here in El Salvador. My time at home wrapped up with a super enjoyable weekend trip with my mom, dad, brother, aunt Bet, Uncle Dave, and cousins Carolyn, Keary, and Natalie to Dollywood in Tennessee. Seeing my parents on the water rides was a favorite moment. But even apart from what we did and where we went, it was just really nice to see everyone with whom my communication is usually limited to a phone call or email. My parents and others were really appreciative of me coming for a visit, but I am equally appreciative of all they did to make my time at home enjoyable, relaxing, and meaningful. Love you guys!!

I’ve been back here in El Salvador for about 2 weeks now—its always super hard to leave all those I love at home, but I am ready to get back to all that is going on here. I am at the mid-point of my 2 years here in El Salvador, and in these past weeks, my return to work has also turned out to be somewhat of a turning point in my work with youth here. The day after my return, all of us involved in youth work here had an important meeting that was inspired by an evaluation I wrote about the formation workshops and lessons that I have been designing and taking to the youth in the communities during this past year. A difficulty that I observed over the past year is that I was responsible for the formation of youth in too may communities—21 to be exact—for me to be able to plan and lead workshops and lessons sufficiently responsive to the needs and interests of the individual communities and youth. Just not enough hours in the day, nor days in the month. My “team” of youth workers listened to my, understood, and agreed that we should “reorganize” a bit. As a result, I will now concentrate on the youth in 8 communities, allowing me to spend more time in each one and more time working to plan an appropriate process for the youth in each one. My other 2 co-coordinators will be working in the remaining communities, allowing them also to have the opportunities to design and bring to the communities a specialized formation process. All involved will benefit; the 3 of us coordinators will have more time for getting to know the reality, needs, and interests of the youth in the communities we are responsible for to better able us to make our lessons relevant and of better quality. The youth will also benefit from being able to share more time with one of us and to have their specialized needs and interests met.

I am, over and over again, whether it be during a fun outing or in an important meeting like we had last week to make these coordinating changes, so grateful to work with the people I do in FUNDAHMER. There is a spirit of collaboration and a priority on what is best for the communities. I’ve done it all since I’ve been back, spent some time with Juan, Reina, and the family in Yancolo, attended a youth coordinators meeting and helped lead a workshop for these coordinators (a happy time seeing these kids for the first time in over a month), and spent some time in the office working on developing a formation process for each of my 8 communities. I have 2 new opportunities to do some learning myself. Last week, I began a school about Popular Education, which is the liberating method of facilitating I use in the work I do here. For an entire weekend once a month for the rest of the year, I and others who work in communities and other types of non-profit organizations and social ministries will learn techniques, processes, and educative material to improve the work we do. On Friday, I began auditing a theology class at the UCA (University of Central America). Wait until you hear its title: “Vivir en marginalidad: Lectura socio-historica de la obra lucana” (“Living in marginalization: socio-historical reading of Luke”)…..so incredibly related to my interests and call to ministry to work with marginalized people in the spirit of the example set by Christ. Not only will I be learning from the direct instruction available in both of these opportunities, but also I will share these classes with people who have years of experience in diverse communities, organizations, and ministries attempting to put into action the values of love, justice, and dignity. I expect to learn from my small group and more informal interactions with my fellow “students”. Moreover, importantly, both opportunities provide a context in which to reflect about what I am seeing, experiencing, and learning from my work in the Ecclesial base communities.