Walking With El Salvador

I found four raggedy pieces of paper, ripped out of a small notebook.  Black ink on pale green paper.  At the top of the first page, in big letters it says:  Go Big or Go Home. I kept reading: 100% All In They gave us everything.  We have much to share. Super Hospitality. Dancing in Public. People are Resources. You look at the world in a different way. If we speak in a stereotype, we represent that we are now the experts. As delegations, we gather together on the porch in the after-dinner dark to reflect on our days.  I often scribble down notes and thoughts in a journal or on scraps of paper.  Cleaning during a pandemic provided a re-encounter with an evening of reflection in El Salvador.  Let's keep reading: What if we greeted everybody at our church the same way that we were welcomed here? What would our church look like? Though I walk through the valley, I know you are with me. How can there be so much love after so much violence?

"Give us this day our daily bread." For me, and for many or most who are reading this story, the struggle for daily bread has not been a literal experience in our lives.  Maybe we have not had sufficient resources to purchase food for two weeks at a time.  Maybe we have not had sufficient resources to purchase what we want.  Maybe we have clipped coupons and purchased only sale items.  Maybe we have been helped out for a time by our family, our community or our government.  Maybe, with the current situation, now is the time when we are rationing our food, scaling back a bit, or relying on some help.  Most of us who are reading this story, I am guessing, have not literally had to work all day to figure out how to literally put the bread or the tortillas on the table for our family at the end of the day. Poverty and hunger are real in every country, every community, every church in the world, but in the context of this story, I am thinking about the struggle for daily br