Walking With El Salvador

This is the fourth in a series of stories which describe our experiences in El Salvador during Holy Week... Our beloved friends in El Salvador give us gifts.  All the time. Salvadorans are genuinely generous people.  When we ask delegation members about their experiences, this is consistently the first statement we hear.   We - our family and our church - have experienced radical hospitality from the very first visits we made eighteen years ago.  We have slept in beds while our hosts have slept on the floor.  We have eaten whatever food families can share; sometimes receiving the gift of a family's last chicken.  Precious quarters have purchased cold soda for us on hot afternoons.  Our kids received well-loved and precious toys.  We have been presented with treasured baby photos, cups from the cupboard, homemade cards full of glitter, preserved food and hand-embroidered cloths. After so many years of visits and now time living in El Salvador, we are called  casi-salvadoreños 

This is the fourth in a series of stories about Holy Week in El Salvador... In El Salvador, Easter Sunday celebrations are not nearly as large nor lavish as the processions of Good Friday or Palm Sunday.  In part, this is because Easter falls on the last day of the Holy Week vacations.  Families traditionally spend Easter Sunday at home or visiting with extended family.  Because the public buses do not run from Good Friday through Easter, it also difficult for people without cars to get from one place to another. As I checked my Facebook news feed and sent Easter greetings to family and friends from afar, I ran across a cartoon that made me chuckle and feel sad at the same time.  I remembered reading a post from a pastor friend earlier in the week, "If there were no women prophets, there would be no church." Cartoon by David Hayward + nakedpastor.com  As we made our way into the community and came up the hill, we noticed big pieces of cardboard attached to the fenc