Life in El Salvador

WHEN DEATH WORKS BACKWARDS

Holidays, Life in El Salvador, Lighthouse Resource Center, Thinking About God -

“When a willing victim who has committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.”        -C.S Lewis in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe We are about to begin Holy Week in El Salvador. The week is observed around the country in various ways, but this year I hope to have some quiet moments to reflect on what it means to go from death to life, and to see death itself overcome. The quote is from a children’s book beloved by many. The hero of the story is Aslan and he is ultimately resurrected. The words above come from his mouth as he shares the greatest secret of all…when a perfect sacrifice dies for a […]

Working to Stop the Bleeding

Fundraising, Life in El Salvador, Natural Disasters -

As an organization our focus is primarily on development, utilizing a faith-based model with a focus on relationships, discipleship, and long-term commitment to our community. In January we were all excited about another year of working to help our clients continue to develop and grow. But then the whole world started bleeding. In El Salvador, we pivoted to staunch the flow. Our first move was to open an emergency shelter to provide a space for the homeless community to “shelter in place” when El Salvador went into martial law lockdown. We simultaneously pivoted to move the New Dawn Residential Program to a virtual model and suspended all of our regular programs. The order came to close emergency shelters and we pivoted once again to provide assisted housing and family reunification […]

When Success Means Faithfulness

Life in El Salvador, Natural Disasters, Thinking About God, Transitions -

  “God has not called me to be successful, He has called me to be faithful.”  – Mother Teresa How do you measure success in a pandemic? How can you even tell if you are carrying out your mission? Completing your work well? Completing your work at all? Somedays over the last five months have felt like a free fall. Then a stop. Adjust course. Fall again. Repeat. Changing circumstances, new normals, and complete upheaval have been standard operating procedure. First the shelter, then emergency relief, now finally…finally a reopening plan is in the works for us at Mission To El Salvador. But we still don’t know what things will look like in a month. All of our plans and projections for 2020 have been stripped away. The missions we […]

Human Touch

Life in El Salvador, Lighthouse Resource Center, Natural Disasters -

Thank you to Alexia, one of our coordinators at the Lighthouse Resource Center, for blogging today about her own thoughts and struggles working with our clients during the COVID-19 pandemic. She provides great insight into unique challenges faced by Salvadorans during this time.  COVID-19 has been devastating to the world on so many levels that it’s impossible to focus on just one, but clearly one of the main ones is the way in which we relate to people. The famous “social distancing” has minimized physical contact. The use of masks, face shields, disposable gowns, and gloves have clearly marked how much people prefer (or should) distance themselves from others. The World Health Organization has created a campaign with short, but very significant phrases in order to make the world of […]

When It Rains, It Pours

Life in El Salvador, Lighthouse Resource Center, Natural Disasters, Prayer -

El Salvador is still reeling from a tragedy on top of a tragedy. Last week in the middle of the ongoing health, economic, and democratic crisis brought on by COVID-19, Tropical Storm Amanda slammed into El Salvador’s coast and then leveled a direct hit on San Salvador causing major destruction. The storm arrived on Sunday night, and by the end of the week rain from another storm, Tropical Storm Cristobal, was also lashing the country. The rising waters left 27 dead from floods and landslides and thousands more homeless. Large chunks of highways collapsed, major roads were underwater, and just mud remains where houses once stood. The destruction was swift and complete in many communities. Many who didn’t lose everything still suffered damage from the winds and heavy rains. The […]

Waving the White Flag

Crossing Cultures, Free the Girls, History of El Salvador, Life in El Salvador, Lighthouse Resource Center, Missions, Natural Disasters, Prayer, Urban Ministry -

We may all be weathering the same storm, but we are certainly not all in the same boat. I’m not sure where I first heard this sentiment over the past few months but it surely rings true in El Salvador. The unique challenge of this COVID-19 crisis is that it is a crisis unlike anything that we ever expected to face in El Salvador. I suspect that many working cross-culturally might find themselves thinking the same thing. We were tentatively prepared for an intense tropical storm, an earthquake, civil unrest, an uptick in violence, and other possible scenarios. But to experience something so devastating while the rest of the world also was thrown into chaos seemed unfathomable. Yet, here we are living through these extraordinary days. The COVID-19 pandemic has […]

Faithful

A New Dawn, Justice, Life in El Salvador, Lighthouse Resource Center, Missions, Thinking About God -

Faithful. I can’t really think of another word to describe how I felt after reviewing and evaluating how things went around here in 2019. We just published our 2019 Annual Report so feel free to take a look. In the meantime, here are a few highlights: Last year we inaugurated the Lighthouse Resource Center. Since opening our doors, 350 clients have walked through those open doors, and 11.14% of them have entered into our “level system” where they have the opportunity to invest more of themselves and receive more of an investment from us. We’ve learned the issues facing these clients are complex, but we are reaching them. For our first year, we are pretty excited to see that members of our community are making decisions for change, finding healing, […]

Ten Years On…

Crossing Cultures, Life in El Salvador, Missions, Transitions -

This past November marked ten years since we, the Snyder family, stepped off a plane and into our new lives in El Salvador. See that picture? It was taken of our family shortly after we arrived in El Salvador. A decade on and here we are. Life doesn’t look like we thought it would…but it rarely does anywhere, does it? I think everyone who chooses to live their life on a mission does so with the grand idea that they will change the world somehow, or have some impact that echoes in a profound way. The truth is that it really doesn’t work like that at all. Instead, if we choose to live our lives on mission then the world we step out into is the very thing that changes […]

Planting

Justice, Life in El Salvador, Urban Ministry -

“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”  Warren Buffet is quoted as saying those words, and no doubt his intent was to make a point about business investments. But really, those words can speak to any investment. One thing I have learned over the years is that urban ministry is much more about investing than anything else…more about planting than harvesting. It’s about walking the streets to find that one available piece of fertile dirt, perhaps hidden behind a graffiti covered wall or some barbed wire. It’s about digging deep in my pocket for that seed, then casting it, maybe not even believing myself that it will take root. The planting is hot and exhausting, it’s relentless and it feels like it will […]

For Freedom – Por la Libertad

Holidays, Justice, Life in El Salvador -

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery.”      Galatians 5:1 What does freedom mean to you? Think about that…what does it mean to truly be free? For political prisoners, it means freedom of expression. If you owe a debt, freedom is having economic means. If you are locked in, opening the door is the way to freedom. For so many in El Salvador, freedom means being able to flourish, to grow, to breathe and live without fear or stress or worry. Unfortunately, the situations that face our clients pose great barriers to that kind of freedom. Their lives are complicated as things like entrenched poverty, hopeless violence, and the lack of […]

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