Walking With El Salvador

  This is one of the messages I received this morning: February 14th St. Valentine's Day To all my friends and family Have a very beautiful day of Friendship I love you a lot! ¡Feliz día de Amor! ¡Feliz día de Amistad! Happy Day of Love and Friendship!  I believe I have mentioned before just how wonderful Salvadorans are at sending memes and gifs of encouragement via social media on just any old day of the week, but during February, the messaging goes to a whole new level.  For Salvadorans, the entire month of February is a time for the color red, hearts, flowers, and surprise gifts. Take a look in any Salvadoran kitchen, and you will likely find some coffee mugs which were filled with some treats or a little stuffed bear and wrapped in clear cellophane with pink hearts on it and tied up with a big pink bow.  This is a pretty great and practical tradition.   Here's a pic of some of my mugs.  That little one is from my first February visit in El Salvador in ...

Keep writing and sharing photos—so all of us who can’t be there can still feel the warmth and love from El Salvador. This message just arrived from a friend.  The friend usually travels to El Salvador with a delegation to visit sister churches at least once during the year, but the pandemic has made it unsafe for that type of travel to take place.   It's a little different for me because I live part time in El Salvador.  I am managing my time here in the same way that I have been managing time at my home in the US:  by staying at home.  ¡Quédate en casa!   At least in El Salvador I can hang out with the windows wide open instead of hunkering down inside while there's a wind chill of -30°F outside.  My goal, despite staying home, is to keep writing and sharing photos.  I have already written about the most interesting thing which takes place outside my window, which is the migration of flocks of green parrots at sunrise and sunset each da...

As the rainy season typically comes to a close in El Salvador by November, the seasonal change has upon occasion caused horrific storms and tragedies across Central America, including in El Salvador.  As we freshly mourn the loss of life and homes caused by the landslide in Nejapa, we are watching a category 4 hurricane ETA bear down on the coast of Nicaragua.  El Salvador's Ministry of the Environment has issued a red alert warning of flooding and landslides.  Prayers are needed for wise preparations, smooth evacuations, and safety during the storm.  If you have not yet read about the landslide which occurred in Nejapa, you may wish to read the story I wrote a few days ago:  Landslide in Nejapa .  The story includes a little bit about Fe y Esperanza Lutheran Church, which is located in Nejapa. As I mentioned in the first story, the Salvadoran Lutheran church orchestrated a rapid response with emergency items for families impacted by the landslide.  Ye...

     Look up there.  Do you see where it is brown?  That used to be forest.  Coffee trees and forest.  As the farms below were taken for [sugar] cane, the farmers needed to plant their corn further up the mountain.  As the water is depleted in the valley, the whole zone is drier.  Trees die.  Trees are cut down.  The forest disappears.  If we don't take care of the aquifers, if we don't take care of the forests, there will be disasters.   Pastor Santiago Rodriguez Photo of the mudslide in Nejapa (Diario el Mundo) Photo of inspectors looking through homes after the mudslide.  (La Prensa Grafica) At 11:30 PM on Thursday, October 30th, families living near a wadi named Terraplén in the municipality of Nejapa were awakened by a thundering sound and shaking like an earthquake.  A landslide of rock, mud and vegetation was pushed down the gully by a great force of water - the result of torrential rains over the San Salv...

The little group of women who sew Days for Girls washable menstruation kits in our Salvadoran community started the year strong.  They relocated from a women's center outside of the community to the community's Lutheran Church.  This was possible because they had compiled sufficient resources, through their own sales efforts and donations, to purchase a proper table for cutting fabric.  They set up a hygienic storage room in which they can safely keep their completed kits, supplies and equipment.  The new location makes it easier for several of the women to work while their little ones are in the church's preschool.  They can also more easily work from home part of the time.  The women diversified their product line to include baby shower kits with nursing pads made from scraps left over after cutting out the Days for Girls kit pieces. Newborn Baby Kits Prior to the enforcement of strict quarantine rules across El Salvador due to the corona virus pandemic, ...