Walking With El Salvador

The pandemic brought lots of changes to the way we could do ministry together, locally and globally. In 2020, we put on the Mission of Healing North Family Wellness Fair just before COVID locked down the world. In 2021, we did a year-long, remote, community education event.  In 2022, we jumped into a new era of community health education in El Salvador and created a training event called "Formación de Formadores" (we used "Teach the Teachers" in English).  2022 Teach the Teachers Event Curriculum Development As I mentioned in the previous installment of the Teach the Teachers story, the Salvadoran Lutheran Church Health Ministries Coordinator, Pastor Conchi, suggested we develop curriculum for the Mission of Healing North Teach the Teachers workshop with a focus on each of 4 human body systems:  Digestive, Circulatory, Respiratory and Reproductive. We started by planning the general information charla for each system. We created big colorful posters and simple ...

This is a story about the end of an era. We are reminiscent. We are thankful. We are relieved. We are proud. In February 2022, we celebrated 22 years of Missions of Healing in the northern region of the Salvadoran Lutheran Church. This was the last Mission of Healing North centered around the participation of a companion synod delegation. The preparations for the event took more than 6 months and the delegation was in El Salvador for 2 weeks. We are done. And we are not done. In a better-than-hoped-for way, the community health education plan begun during those 2 weeks is being implemented across the region by local teams. This is a "mission accomplished" success story with a happy trajectory. Photo of the 2022 Mission of Healing North delegation. (Photo credit:  Salvadoran Mission of Healing team) Photo of the 2000 Mission of Healing delegation. (2 team members not pictured) The idea for a new kind of Mission of Healing for 2022 evolved out of what we learned by attempting t...

On the last day of January 2022, a small group of travelers sat near an open window in Resurrection Lutheran Church, surrounded by a sprinkling of Salvadoran Lutheran Church pastors and synod staff.  The Salvadorans were back together after a weeklong closure of the church offices due to an outbreak of COVID-19 among office personnel. The travelers were joining their Salvadoran friends after a 2-year hiatus from travel. Feelings of love and joy in being together warmed the air.  Smiles were made with eyes, above the masks. Fist bumps and waves felt like hugs, sort of. Photo credit: Bob Adams On the first day of February, the travelers and the Salvadorans would begin a two-week Mission of Healing health education event, but on this last day of January, there was time for preparation, reflection and centering.   The Salvadoran pastors take turns leading the Monday devotional, and Pastor Francisco Aguilar was the preacher for this day.  He was about 3 minutes into ...

It's been a stressful year. Everywhere. The impact of the pandemic on our circle of friends in El Salvador is particularly heavy this week:  several deaths from COVID, including a young youth group leader.; two suicides - young people struggling with depression. Even the most hopeful among us are feeling pretty down right now. We all just try to help where we can. We do what we are able to do.  We keep on keeping on. The church teams that are using the Mission of Healing materials this year tell us that the discussions are good. We often hear from the adults that they really love coloring because it helps them to destress.  As the year has progressed, we have actually tried to design the adult information pages so the illustrations can be colored during the presentation and discussion.  We decided to make the final workshop for the year a continuation of the focus on stress, with a bit of yoga and reflexology and some tips for managing stressful moments.  The Sa...

On September 15, 2021, El Salvador celebrated the 200th anniversary of Central America's independence from Spain. The day brought fireworks in the early morning and small celebrations in town squares. Due to the continued spread of COVID-19, parades and pomp and pageantry were scaled back. School children did not march through the streets carrying flags or twirling batons to the accompaniment of marching bands.  In defiance of pandemic protocols, large groups of protestors did march in defense of water protection, defense of women's rights and in opposition to Bitcoin (recently made an official currency in El Salvador), but that is another story. Celebration on September 15, 2021 in Tonacatepeque Photo credit:  Radio Comunitaria Tonaca This story about a fiesta with little ones began on September 1st, when the teacher and the parents of the church preschool in Los Héroes got together and decided to plan a small bicentennial celebration.  They wanted to honor the annual t...

Quick review:  the pandemic forced us to cancel the annual Mission of Healing family wellness fairs, which we usually hold each February in coordination with the Salvadoran Lutheran Church.  We came up with a plan to produce a year-long series of educational videos with accompanying print materials for small groups to use in local churches or families to use at home.  In late 2020, we never imagined that the pandemic would last well into 2021, nor that it would continue to critically impact so much of what we think of as "normal life" so many months after vaccines were developed and available.  In July, along with the curriculum for studying the respiratory system, we included more resources about COVID-19 and how to diminish its transmission. We will do this again in October. So, what is the COVID-19 situation in El Salvador?  The government continues to vaccinate people at a good rate (about 77,000 per day) and the percentage of the total population which has ...