Walking With El Salvador

Grief.  Anger.  Frustration. These are not the words we would choose to have enter our sister church relationships, yet there they are, in the midst of our US sister church meetings and conversations. Grief, anger and frustration.  You might expect a writing about violence.  Invasions.  Gun shots.  Blood flowing across tile floors and dirt paths.  Promising lives of girls and boys and now even old men senselessly lost.  Certainly grief, anger, and frustration are rightly expressed in the current context of violence in El Salvador. But gang violence is not the subject of today's writing.  Today I write about a beloved pastor who died.  She died.  We don't even like to say it out loud:  she died.  As a bunch of brothers and sisters from a bunch of sister churches who knew and love this pastor and her family, we do not want to accept the reality that she died. She was a mother with three children.  She died. She...

Wearing Romero T-Shirts and selling bracelets During the May 23rd beatification ceremony, we captured a few photos which illustrate the creative entrepreneurship of Salvadoran fans of Monseñor Oscar Romero. The stylish Romero cloth bag - very popular with the clergy crowd Romero balloon, especially fun to float over a nearby Romero statue I am guessing Romero himself would wonder about these  St. Romero of the Americas Nuns looking good in Romero caps A variety of Romero head gear Posters large and small Romero Umbrellas! New definition of "holy water"?

I wasn't asleep.  Maybe it was the medications, I don't know.  But early in the morning I had a vision. I was lying here in my bed.  There were two angels standing just behind me, over my head.  I knew they were my guardian angels.  They were so close.  I could feel their wings just touching my shoulders.  I couldn't feel their hands, but somehow their hands were below me.  I was lifted up, like I was floating, with a white blanket, floating up out of my bed. Pastor Norma knew that God was with her.  She shared this vision with us, knowing she would be healed, expecting to be raised up out of her bed, grateful for the comfort of God's angels. We believed she would rise up.  We believed she would walk.  We believed she would mother her children,  accompany her husband, shepherd her congregation, and laugh with her friends.  We prayed for a miracle, and we expected one. We do not doubt that today, as Norma's body is co...

We reached the outskirts of Suchitoto and turned up the road to Cinquera.  Cinquera was our destination:  a tiny town which suffered great loss and destruction at the start of the war and which was resettled by surviving families ten years later. "Have you ever been to Cinquera?" I asked The Grandfather.  Beautiful views of Lake Suchitlán passed by outside of our vehicle's window.  Maybe some of our delegation members took photos.  I listened to The Grandfather. "Oh...yes," he paused, "I came up here in 1991 or '92 accompanying a group of [Salvadoran] families coming from Honduras who were re-populating their lands after seven years of exile.  They traveled from the refuge in Honduras to San Salvador, and then came to the shore of Lake Suchitlán.  We lived in this forest for 10 days because we had to transport the people to their community by boat.  We only had small wooden boats, and it took 10 days to move the people.  The most difficul...

"My grandmother was a very beautiful woman.  No one could understand why she was with my grandfather.  Hehehehehe," he chuckled.  Well, these are the mysteries of love. We were driving along the road between Aguilares and Suchitoto.  The Grandfather sat beside me as we bumped along the way.  The Grandfather's face shines as he spins his tales, remembering moments of his life as they come to mind, often repeating phrases and smiling broadly when I understand.  He talks with his hands, and sometimes gives my shoulder or arm a little whack when he wants to be sure I agree with him on the significant points of his stories. "Grandmother was Honduran.  A tall woman with blond hair.  She traveled to the festivals in Chalatenango and there she met a short man with very dark skin.  It was unusual, a tall, beautiful woman with a short, dark man.  He was my grandfather.  They built a life together and settled over there in Suchitoto. ...

Students worked feverishly during the final days in preparation for the march.  The wooden frame had been transformed into a paper mache military plane.  Tanks and other replica military vehicles were surrounded by students dressed in military gear.  The purpose:  giving honor to the university students who were killed in a massacre on July 30, 1975. The students at the University of El Salvador in San Salvador retell the story which they have heard from survivors of the horrific event.  Forty years ago, university students marched to protest repressive military actions which had taken place at the national university in Santa Ana.  As the student march reached 25th Street, the military arrived with tanks and other vehicles.  Tear gas was fired into the student group, and shots were fired.  The tanks rolled over the wounded, pushing the student marchers onto an overpass where they were surrounded by military vehicles on both sides.  Student...

Traffic was at a standstill.  Workers could not get to their jobs.  Students could not get to their schools.  The buses were not running.   We had a car.  We didn't really know why the traffic was so heavy because the buses along our street were actually operating.  When we got to Casa Concordia my husband dropped me off and continued on to his meetings for the day.  Pretty soon I heard the news that the buses running north of San Salvador and into the city were not running due to a strike.  Then someone heard about a couple of buses being burned and 7 or 8 drivers being killed.  Everyone was talking about the gangs.     The story of the gang order for buses to stop transporting people in certain areas and of deadly consequences for drivers who were not complying with the gang order describes the terrible circumstances  which set the stage for another story which took place on Monday.  On a day when most people coul...