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Fiestas Agostinas

I’m sitting in my house listening to fireworks echoing off the volcanoes all around the city. This week there have been many fireworks, and parades, and carnivals…but not a lot of traffic! The reason for all of this unusual activity is that this week is the Las Fiestas Agostinas (The August Feasts).  This is the week where Salvadorans celebrate their patron saint who is El Salvador del Mundo (the Savior of the World).  More specifically they honor the Transfigured Christ Jesus as their patron saint. There is a statue called “Salvador del Mundo” not too far from our house. It looks like this (photo credit: emagister):

Monumento al Salvador del Mundo

In honor of their patron saint, El Salvador (which literally means “The Savior” by the way) spends the week on vacation from work. Many people party all week, head to the beaches, or spend time with their family. The parades I mentioned earlier are all part of the celebration. We did see one parade from afar, and one day I got detoured by a parade of beauty queens getting ready to start.

Despite all the celebrating, vacationing, and parades the sad irony remains that although many Salvadorans celebrate this day of The Savior, and know the name of Jesus, many of them are not living daily in relationship with Him. They don’t know what it means to have Him transform their lives, and transform their society. Our prayer is that through the ministries and relationships we are developing we will be able to lead people into a real, living, growing relationship with Christ.

Here are some pictures of our family at the fair, “Consumas” as it is called taking in some local culture. The kids had a blast!

Family photo in front of a fountain on the fairgrounds.

It was kind of wet and rainy on the evening that we went, but still fun.

The kids loved the rides. The best part was that as long as no one was in line, they let them just keep riding as long as they wanted.

Tori loved the carousel.

I had to post this picture because it’s so funny. Since it was raining, there weren’t many people there so they got to ride this one for a long time. Tori started imitating Jon driving in traffic and Ian decided he was going to jump up and down (no safety belts here), so we had to ask the operator to stop the ride, but we were cracking up.

The kids were excited to get real cow milk ice cream at the fair! Here, ice cream isn’t usually made with real milk so this was a “real treat!”

Jon is the ever-adventurous one in our family when it comes to strange and unusual foods so he got elected to taste test the “Elote Loco.” It’s an ear of corn boiled, then covered with mayo, butter, ketchup, hot sauce, some mysterious “salsa negra”, mustard, and cheese. He said it wasn’t too bad. Ian tried it and spit it out. Tori and I couldn’t bring ourselves to try it but one of our Salvadoran friends with us said it was pretty gross so we figured it was okay if we skipped this experience!

There was an indoor section with a kiddie play area set up. This was one of the rides there. The kids loved it and didn’t even seem to notice it was made completely out of cement and being hand cranked by the guy in the middle. How’d you like that job?

The kids loved the inflatables set up!

One Response to Fiestas Agostinas

  1. The kids look like they’re having so much fun! How great that you got to do all this! I think I’m with you on the decision not to try the ear of corn. We miss you so much!

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