The Bean Scrubber

On Wednesday afternoon, I marched over to the Castillo´s abode with Jolie, Jordan, and Jill. Another afternoon would be spent with underwearless children in a house that was becoming more and more my own. Every day after lunch, we go to visit Dina, Oscar, Marisol, and their grandma, if she wasn´t in La Herradura buying tasty iguanas for dinner. Usually, after sweeping the floor which never seems to stay clean for more than a few hours, I sit with Jill or Jolie as they help the girls with their homework. However, today would be different.

¿Puedo ayudar? has gotten me into a lot of strange situations at the Castillo´s house, including washing four-day-old dishes with rice and beans encrusted onto the sides of the bowls. Today I found Marisol in the kitchen, she was finishing washing the forks when I asked to help. I noticed she or her grandma had begun a new system of washing dishes in the sink instead of using the green mildew basin outside of the house. Senora Castillo was in a cleaning mood, and it was then that I noticed that the house overall was a lot tidier than the previous day - less flies too and maybe a tiny bit less smelly.

Marisol began her next project of wringing out rags of ripped up clothing and wiping down the white cinderblock walls of the kitchen. The walls needed more than just a wiping down. They were splattered with beans, and aside from the beans, the walls were grimy and spotted with roach and gecko poop. I grabbed a pink bristle sponge and began a project that would last the next two hours. I dismissed Marisol so she could do her homework with Jill and laughed to myself in disbelief, thinking that this was definitely the grossest house I could ever imagine. I thought if there was anyone who should volunteer to do a job this disgusting, it might as well be me. I have to thank my mom for training me so well as a kid. When I was no older than ten, she taught me so well how to clean toilets, tubs, bathroom, and how to wash and rinse dishes. Scrubbing down these filthy walls would surely be no problem for me . . . I was wrong.

The beans were caked on and it took intense scrubbing many times to get all the splatter stains off the wall. I thought I would be done after the bean splatters, but something or someone told me to finish cleaning the rest of the cinder blocks. I moving down the wall until I was nearly on my knees scrubbing the dirtiest part of the lower wall, squatting down in the corner with piles of black droppings, dried tortilla pieces, and a huge dead bug. I cringed to be so close to filthiness. But with every move closer to the grime, the cleaner the walls became and the more okay I was with becoming dirty and sweaty. I was so determined to get those dang walls white again. The slightly-insane grandma crackled her high-pitched, witch-like laugh and ask if I was hot. I told her I was fine. As I continued working, she cocked her head. Out of the corner of my eye, I knew she was looking at me curiously, probably wondering who the heck this Asian kid was washing her dishes, wiping down her stove, and now rearranging everything in order to get to scrubbing her walls. The heat and humidity seemed intensified in those two hours, but there was this queer satisfaction in knowing that I was doing something that not even one of the family members had been willing to do. The walls were finally clean after more than a few half hours of labor. Clean enough that I could see that they really were white afterall.

God was teaching me a lot that afternoon. While I´ve been really frustrated with my inability to communicate well in Spanish and thus haven´t been unable to help the children with their homework, I´m learning that love is a language in itself. Even though I may not be helping Dina learn her phonics, maybe washing her dishes more thoroughly will prevent her from getting any more infectious sores and balding spots on her head. Maybe I can´t help Oscar with his speech impediment or Marisol with her reading, but I can scrub their window and mop their floors. God is showing me how capable I am when I think myself least capable of doing anything useful. In the process of cleaning those walls, I realized that I´m becoming more and more okay when he asks me to do the grunge work, work that´s humbling and maybe a first humiliating. That afternoon, God showed me that real servanthood is taking the rag and getting on my knees. Serving like this, I am most disturbed and most uncomfortable, but in this I have the opportunity to find the most joy. Even if I came all the way to El Salvador just to scrub beans off a wall, I would be glad to have done so.

Kisses for the Chee-nah

Dear Family and Friends,

It´s been 26 days since our team´s arrived in El Salvador and 13 days till we´ll be back in the United States. Your constant prayers have encouraged and strengthened us when we´ve been discouraged and doubtful. We are truly grateful for each of your prayers. They are powerful as we´ve seen God´s love so clearly every day we´ve been here.

One of my prayers during this trip was that God would open my eyes to the community of La Herradura. That I would see the children with threadbare shirts as my brothers and sisters. That differences in culture and language wouldn´t hinder or stunt my ministry. That I wouldn´t shy away from loving those who have a different language from mine. And that I wouldn´t give in to complacency but always strive to seek and see opportunities to really get to know this community. This past week God answered this pray in ways I never would have expected.
This past week many of us were ¨frazzled¨ (using Jolie´s colloquialism). We had hit the halfway mark of three weeks, and we had two options: 1) Press on or 2) Flake out. The weekend was packed and difficult, especially for us who had a hard time adjusting from the slow, bucket-shower culture of La Herradura to the modernized lifestyle of shopping malls, McDonalds, and free and fast internet access in San Salvador. Sparks were beginning to fly due to team conflicts that had remained unsolved over the weekend. And after a party on Sunday night with the family and all their relatives to celebrate the first-year anniversary of Mami´s grandmother´s death, we were all emotionally and physically exhausted.

I woke up on Monday feeling unmotivated to begin another week at CIDECO. I was thoroughly frustrated with how slow our project was moving along (imagine a group paper over five week with group meeting five days a week . . . with one laptop and no internet). Our team had completed two weeks of interviewing a total of forty-five households and CIDECO´s construction manager, school director, and other staff members. And we spent this last week editing our report, gathering more information, and interpreting our data from our interviews. I spent the afternoon with Jolie, Jill, Anna and Jordan at the Castillos, helping Dina, Oscar, and Marisol with their homework, helping Senora Castillo with the piles and piles of dirty dishes, and sweeping the floor. After spending that hour and a half at their home which always smelled pungently of urine and is frequented by swarms of flies, I felt queasy and my heart felt that silent sick feeling to be leaving the three orphans alone in the sad, dirty house.

Riding our bikes back to the house, a two mile distance, was a good breather. At the house I met up with Mariah, who was also feeling frustrated with the team. We decided to go to the bay and journal, so the two of headed out. On our ten-minute walk, a young Salvi boy and his little sister walked along side us, asking us all short of questions. He held a metal bucket full of small squashes and his sister held a smaller bucket of green peppers. His shirt was dirty and pants a few inches too short. Her two front teeth were missing and her hair was clipped up into a twisted bun. Mariah and I were in no mood to entertain kids peddling vegetables that afternoon, we just wanted to mope. But God had other plans.

At the bay we sat as far away from the street as possible on the chairs nearest to the water. The children had disappeared, and we talked a little more until we saw the same two peddling kids come up to us. The young boy placed his silver bucket on the table and began chatting with us again. His name was Jose Alfredo, and his sister was Deysi Liset. While Mariah talked Alfredo, I sat down on the wall with Deysi. We dangled our feet over the edge close to the water. We sat there for a while saying nothing as we´re both kind of shy. Her skinny legs reminded me of the name I used to be called when I was girl. ¨Toothpick Legs.¨ I learned that she didn´t have a mom, she didn´t know her age, she had younger sister, and lived in Los Angeles, a poor town an hour´s walking distance from La Herradura. When I ran out of questions to ask her (not like I had many to ask with my limited Spanish speaking ability), I dug in my pocket and gave her the four dimes that was the change of the bottle of water I bought earlier that day. She smiled a small smile, and I wondered how many peppers she had sold that day. I asked Mariah if we wanted to treat them to ice cream and after asking them, I took Deysi´s hand in mine and walked back down the street to La Neveria. Once at the ice cream store, we told them they could choose whatever they wanted. Alfredo picked the Tornado Shake, Deysi choose a huge milkshake, and Mariah and I bought ice cream cones for ourselves. We sat down with them and had them write down their full names and let them draw in our journals. Alfredo wrote us both nice notes and drew us hearts with wings, and Deysi struggled to print her name.
After a beautiful afternoon, the sun was soon to set, and Alfredo said they would have to start walking home. We walked with them through the street, which was still busy with vendors peddling pupusas, donuts, and vegetables. Mariah was racking her brain with ways we could help them get home without the hour walk when she realized the red mototaxis zooming back and forth in the street. We called down one of the drivers and had the kids hop in to the little, three-wheeled mobile that we were warned never to take. It would cost $1.50 to get to Los Angeles. We dug in our pockets and scraped together a dollar, which was all we had in change. The driver waved off the fifty cents, we said goodbye to the children, squeezing their hands, and they rode off in the mototaxi. Mariah and I walked home amazed. While we thought a gloomy afternoon would be spent writing in our journals, but God wanted us to make two delightful friends.
The following day, Alfredo found us on the soccer field where a few of us were watching Andrew, Jolie, Jill, Jordan, and Luisiny play futbol. Amanda fetched our Curious George coloring book for him, and we spend the afternoon on the field coloring monkeys and watching four really white kids play with gnarly soccer players.

The following day, Alfredo came to visit us at our house and gave me a picture he drew and Mariah a small plastic rose. With plans to go and visit him at his house, we hopped onto our bikes with Ale and Angi (and with Alfredo riding on the bar of Angi´s bike), we headed to Los Angeles. Riding through the dirt roads, we entered a poor community with shack-like houses. He introduced us to his aunt and a few other women who were making tortillas outdoors and his cousin and little sister. His cousin Lise was the dirtiest little girl I had every seen. Her clothes were filthy, her hands were peeling, her teeth were yellow and brown, and her hair matted. She dug her nose pulling out large boogers and had a terrible cough. Alfredo took his younger sister in his arms and led the little band of ¨gringas¨ and children to a grassy area behind the school near his home. There were children already there, and soon after we sat down on the grass and pulled out the coloring book and children´s books, we were surrounded by more than twenty children. They flocked around us like the strange spectacle we were. Unlike the children at CIDECO, their clothes were full of holes and were dirty and ragged. They asked us our names and pointed out their homes, one of which looked like a white box, maybe three times the size of a port-a-potty. They laughed at me, calling me ¨China,¨which in Spanish with a taunting tone sounds more like Cheeee-nnnnaaahh. We read to them the books and passed around crayons. After the wild boys started doing acrobatics, Mariah joined them on the field. Swinging the little kids around by their arms. I remember looking up from coloring with another girl, Sara, and seeing Mariah and twelve other children spinning around and around with their hands outstretched like little pinwheels. The rest of the kids and I joined them later on for a tickle war, during which the children would alternate in tackling and tickling Mariah and me. Being unfortunately nearly as short as most of bigger kid and not wanting to get suffocated or smuggled by them, it turned into a game of tag. And even though I can run faster than they can, I still somehow ended up getting their sweat all over me when we played Gato y Raton. We played in the field until Ale and Angi called us over to go home. We said goodbye to the children, they kissed us goodbye, and we walked Deysi and Alfredo home. We raced on our bikes on our way home, hoping this wouldn´t be our last visit.

I admit, I never really liked children. They can smell and need a lot of attention. The children I have met within the past few days, however, are so overwhelming in their love that it´s difficult to not love them, no matter how dirty they may be. And perhaps, it´s because they are so dirty that at the end of the day, I kiss them on their heads to show them how beautiful each of them are to me.

Grace and peace,

Trin

First Week in El Salvador

Hello from El Salvador!

It´s already been a week since our team stepped of the plane into the sticky humidity of this beautiful country. There is so much to tell you about this place, the Salvis, our host family, and the many things we´ve done within this past week and only eight minutes left on this internet ´cafe´computer.

I don´t even know where to start! But I want to tell you that your prayers have been working! God has been incredibly good to us, and we daily experience his love and grace. The biggest, constant blessing has been our host family, the Cordovas. There is Mami, Papi, Ale, Anji, Petro, Hugo, Rico, and their dear friend, Luis. We´ve had a different meal everyday and spend our free times lounging in the five hammocks on their porch. A was really nervous upon arrive here because I hadn´t practice my Spanish since high school. The family and many children that at the three different schools we´ve visited have been so pacient. I´m surprised how even though I only know one and half verb tenses and a limited vocabulary, I can carry on a pretty decent conversation. It´s still frustrating want to ask those we are working with and the family so many questions, but not being able to say much because of the language barrier. Thankfully, I´m in such good company. Not only are our Salvi friends helpful and understanding but my team has done such a good translating whatever I can´t pick up on.

After a week of experience the city, which including visiting the the City Hall, going on 12 and 20 mile bike rides, hanging out with the family, visiting schools on islands, having a weekend retreat at a beach condo, and eating at Corti (a relative of the families pupusaria), today was our first day of working at Cideco. I´m so glad we had the first week to integrate and get to know the family and feel very much at home.

I´m running out of time . . . so I´ll briefly explain what Jolie, Jill, and I will be working on at Cideco. Before today we knew hardly anything about what we were going to do aside from helping a family start a recycyling business. Today we visited the family, the Castillos. A eighty year old grandmother (who we think is slightly insane) and her five grandchildren, ages 6 to 16. They live in the community of Cideco, have no income, and rely solely on the money Cideco provides them every two weeks ($80). They have no concept or motivation to earn income, so our project is no small task. We basically have been given a the responsibility to create strategic plan to help this family become self-sustaining. We have limited resources and are working fomr the ground up. After many hours of brainstorming, visiting the family, and talking to the administrators, the three of us came up with a plan to have a recylcing drive at the school over two week where we´ll get students to start thinking about recylcing, an entirely new concept to them. The proceed will go the family as a one time financial. Thinking long term we´re gong to be spending time with the family, educating them in a friendly manner on the importance of saving and teaching the children how they can collect recyclable items around their community to earn money. There are a lot of complications involved including competition from two other large families who are already collection cans. We´re all a little frustrated with the woman we´re working with because she doesn´t really look at the community hollistically. Pray for us as we meet with the director of the school tomorrow and talk to them about the event we want to implement at the school. We need a lot of encouragement and prayer for cooperation, wisdom, and overall a servant´s heart that is understanding and sensitive to the needs of this family and community.

Andrew and Mariah probably received the biggest shock today when they told that they would not be working in the clinics. They were needed in the school helping with swimming lessons and assisting and teaching the English teachers. They were disappointed but we´re hopefuly going to work out a system where they can rotate with Amanda and Jordan, who job shadowed doctors today.

Updated Prayer Requests:

1) Continual protection: Often we will bike from our house to Cideco, a two mile distance. However, we have to take the bus sporatically also because we need to be careful of gangs in thearea. Rene (who I have yet to tell you about) said that this city is fairly safe, and we have walked out in the area at night. But there are the occasional crime insidents and we are foreignors.

2) Opened eyes: I feel a though this first week has been great to experience and enjoy the beauty and culture of El Salvador. I have already learned so much, but it´s a lot to absorb. I hope our team can continue to take it all in while seeking and finding how we can best help these people. Last night, during our team´s nightly prayer time, we sang in Spanish a song on Jolie´s computer. ¨Open the eyes of my heart Lord.¨

3) Currently a few members of our host family are sick. Mami has an strange, unknown disease that no one can really figure out, including the doctors. If you could pray with us for healing and healthfulness.

4) The Team: Team dynamics have been great! I feel as though just within this past week we have so many inside jokes that we´ll remember for a whlie after our trip. Our prayer is that we continue to seek ways of encouraging each other and remaining faithful in seeking God daily. Each member has been so diligent in spending time with God every morning and night. It´s so good to see my brothers and sisters practicing God´s presence often.

5) Overall wisdom and patience when it comes to working with Cideco.

There´s much else I can share about, but the numerous testimonies and stories of those I have met with will have to wait until another day. Thanks again for your prayers!

Grace and peace,

Trin

Last U.S. Post

This will be my last post in CA and probably the last post for some while until I'm able to get internet access in El Salvador. I will be riding out to LAX with Jolie tomorrow morning and will be flying to El Salvador at 2:50am on Monday morning. The flight will be around six hours. 

Unfortunately, this note will have to be very short because I really need to get sleep after an exhausting day of playing in the orchestra for Westmont's graduation ceremony and spending the rest of the day packing and moving things to storage. 

For those here at Westmont, I wasn't able to say good-bye to many of you tonight, and I regret that many of those visits were so short. Please know that I will miss you and you will be in my prayers. To my beloved family - Mom, Dad, Rhema, Chara, Nike, and Pascha - thank you for your support and encouragement. I love each of you dearly.

I've been a little concerned tonight about getting the last of my things to storage tomorrow morning, signing out, saying goodbye to my roommates, etc. It's going to be rushed and rough. If you could pray that everything goes smoothly I'd really appreciate it. 

I have been so encouraged by those who have mentioned to me that they've been and will be praying for me. God has gotten me through these past few days by holding me in His hands and letting me take things as they come. Right when I think that I'm doing this all solo, I've been reminded that I am never alone in the work that has been set out before me. 

When I praise our God, I thank Him for you. Wish us the best!

Peace,

Trin

Here In Between

Tonight my team leaders, Amanda and Mariah, will be headed to LAX from Santa Barbara to fly out to El Salvador at 2:50am tomorrow morning. My dear friend, Susanna, and I were able to pray over Mariah just a few minutes ago. We were reminded that God is already there in El Salvador. He has gone before us, and we trust that he will be near and present with the two as they go ahead of the team.

My last week here in Santa Barbara has been a time of reflection and anticipation. It's that strange period of "in-betweenness." I've just ended my second year at college, and while attempting to gather my thoughts about this past semseter, I feel as though I'm moving closer and closer to beginning another definite chapter. Last night while packing, I wished time could be paused if only for a few hours. Then I would have a moment to sit and think about what this past year has been and what summer may be. It's difficult to end the year, tie of loose ends, make sure friendships aren't left haggard, and contact people from home when there's much to think about.

Perhaps tonight I'll have time to sit down with God and read through the two journals I've filled over the past year. Right now, I am at peace about traveling. I'm one who doesn't know how to worry healthfully, if there is such a thing. So I've left worrying about the unknown details in God's hands.

If there is anything I am absolutely sure about in this moment, it is these two things. 1) I have a rich heritage of those who fear His name (Psalm 61.5), and 2) I have a rich inheritance for I am determined to work with all my heart, as working for the Lord and not for men (Colossians 3.23-24).

Thank you for your prayers.

“Devote yourselves to prayer being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4.2-6

Peace,
Trin