Ron and I recently had the
opportunity to accompany a delegation from St Paul's Newburyport MA to El
Salvador. St Paul's, like Epiphany supported our daughter Erika in her year
long medical mission through the Young Adult Service Corp (YASC) program of the
national Episcopal church. Erika was one of our two guides and interpreters for
the time we were there. Erika's mission, our delegation and Diocese of Eastern
MA initiatives such as the Youth Leadership Academy (YLA) delegations were
designed and supported in El Salvador by the remarkable Cristosal Foundation.
Just a little about this organization. They are closely associated with the
Episcopal Diocese of El Salvador and have a deep understanding of the strengths
and weaknesses of El Salvador and its people. Their purpose is to work with
groups from the US to help them understand El Salvador with the goal of 'accompanying'
the under-served of El Salvador to help them-selves. Cristosal does this
sometimes by providing legal council that helps displaced people file the right
forms to gain rights to their lands or as is the case in El Pital, by
supporting micro business opportunities.
Much of our time was spent interacting with
Erika's village, El Pital and the parish of San Francisco de Asis of the
Episcopal Diocese of El Salvador. You may know if you have seen any of Erika's
blogs (3crowns.org) that she has been working with El Pital all year. When we
first arrived in El Pital Erika introduced me to Dona Lucie, and I was greeted
by a smile and infolded in an enormous hug. At once all anxiety we still
harbored about Erika's safety in El Salvador vanished. This was her El
Salvadoran home. Erika has worked on many things in El Pital and while there
our delegation was much involved with an organization she works with for young
women supported by Cristosal called JUL. JUL is especially important to these
young women as they struggle with the reality of a gang centered, male
dominated culture. JUL was in the process of opening a coffee shop library the
women hoped to eventually make into a business but also give children a
library. St. Paul’s had acquired 8 refurbished laptop computers that each of
our 8 person group carried down with the intent of using them to teach computer
basics to the parish and leave them for use in the cafe, again as a source of
income. We had time for getting to know the parishioners of San Francisco and
the young women of JUL. They gave a most organized presentation of their
stories and hopes for the future. We had a wonderful full day with each of us
getting to do one on one teaching of computer basics to two or more villagers.
We also got a glimpse into the
health initiatives Erika has been doing. As Erika is a Nurse Practitioner, much
of her focus has been on the health of the people. Although she spent the first
half of her mission learning the health system in El Salvador from doctors and
nurses in both a hospital and health clinic in San Salvador, early on she
traveled often to El Pital for the day or weekend staying overnight first with
San Francisco’s rector, Reverend Irma and eventually at Dona Lucy’s, her El
Salvador family. She found an interest among the people in alternative health
such as practicing Yoga and started a Yoga program. Importantly, she mentored
interested women from the classes to become the instructors and our group was
treated to a Yoga class lead by one of these women.
Because of its’ extreme poverty and
lack of health care El Pital was one of the villages with an ECOS clinic, part
of a program in its’ first year of the government of El Salvador attempting to
reach such areas. The clinic’s doctor gave us a power point presentation (on
one of our donated computers) to explain the strengths and hopes of the program
and we visited the clinic to see its hopes and challenges i.e. a refrigerator
for holding vaccines but no electricity to run it. In addition to the clinic
part of the week the ECOS teams go out to remote villages for basic health care
and vaccination and cervical cancer screening programs. Erika has taken part in
both programs. Through the close relationship she has developed with El Pital
and the San Francisco parish Erika has been instrumental in getting village
acceptance of and participation in the clinics.
With the help of a intern Erika
developed and got the OK to run programs for sex education and alcohol and drug
use prevention in the El Pital school. We got to tour the school during class
time and as we passed through it was fun to see how she jokingly scolded the
kids to get working and they, with half smiles, responded. I so wished my
Spanish was better. We were especially impressed with the talented and dedicated
teachers of the school who work long hours for little pay with often very
challenging students.
Through the remarkable programs of
Cristosal we had an ‘excellent adventure’ where a day didn’t go by where we
didn’t gain powerful new insight into El Salvador, her people and their
problems and strengths. We got to know El Salvadorans, finding them in so many
ways more like ourselves than different. Best of all we gained a real
understanding of a world Erika has become a part of, something 1000 words or
pictures could never have given us. We feel grateful and blessed.
