Trip to El Salvador

Trip to El Salvador

Monday morning, May 7^th, the taxi was at our door at 5:15, and he took me to a spot out of town where I could grab a bus to San Pedro. This was not my favorite system as I was carrying my computer, but the safer buses (those who don’t stop along the road to pick up passengers) were all leaving too late.  At about 8:00 am, Celso (a pastor) and Nahum (his “Timothy”) picked me up at the San Pedro terminal, and we were off to El Salvador. Celso’s wife Elizabeth travelled part way with us. A little past Copan (the Mayan ruins of Copan are a great place to visit if you ever get a chance) we turned off toward Cucuyagua gold mines, where Elizabeth would stay with a friend, to help her with her new business for the week. The mountains between Copan and San Salvador are beautiful, the road is extremely curvy, and Nahum, our Honduran driver was, well, … terrifying!   J

Cucuyagua Mines

The mines of Cucuyagua are being developed by a Canadian company. It seems most of the population of Cucuyagua is against what the mining company is doing, because of how it is affecting their environment. It used to be a cool, wooded mountain village. It is now as hot as in San Pedro Sula, because of deforestation. People in these Honduran towns are often too afraid to publicly protest, because of reprisals. They feel that members of the government are being paid by the polluters to back them up.

After lunching in Cucuyagua, we drove on to Ocotepeque, a border town with El Salvador, where we had to check in with both the Honduran side, for leaving Honduras, and then the Salvadoran side, to go into that country. Plenty of red tape!

Arrival

A few hours later we drove in to San Salvador, and phoned from a garage. Miguel and Pedro came, and guided us to the seminary where we would be staying for the next few days.

I was delighted to find I was sharing a room with Steve Semple, of Bramalea Baptist church. (By the way, Steve’s snores are nice and gentle – a low bass, so they don’t wake you up!)  

Class time

That evening we planned our strategy for the week, as we would be leading a group of pastors through the BILD course on “The Character of a Leader”. Steve would take two sessions, and Celso, Nahum and myself would each take a session. I would translate for Steve. I was also able to sow some seeds regarding a coaching program I would like to eventually set up.

After an “eventful” night, and having borrowed some Imodium from Steve, we drove to the place where we would be having classes. There were eight participating pastors, and two others, who are still in the “First Principles” course, were there to observe. These last two, I think, were the ones who got the most out of the course!

It was great to discuss the issues with this group of pastors. Several of them shared how much they were getting out of this course. One young pastor, one of the “observers”, shared that he had taken a number of different theological courses, but with this, he had “found what I’ve been looking for”.

Tourists

At supper time we would go out doing the “tourist bit”. Tuesday evening we went to “La Puerta del Diablo” (Devil’s Gate), where we could normally have looked down from a very high mountain top, but the fog was rising, which limited our view. It was still striking, however, and quite cool as well. We climbed up a little mountain path that went through a tunnel in the rock, and I tried to take some pictures of the fog rising. Then we move on to another area where there was no fog, and I was able to look down and photograph lights of the city of San Salvador. We then found a “pupusería” to eat El Salvador’s world famous pupusas.  That is a kind of sealed wrap with beans, meat, cheese, or a mixture in it.  The other two evenings we visited the shopping centres of San Salvador. The largest shopping Centre of Central America is there. Quite a tourist attraction for Hondurans.

Homeward Bound

Friday morning we drove Steve to the airport, and at 11:00, left for Honduras.  We picked up Elizabeth in Cucuyagua, and then after narrowly missing a head-on collision with a large truck (by inches!) we told Nahum that it wasn’t that important that I make it to San Pedro in time to catch a bus!  Well, we got to San Pedro a little after 8:00 pm, and learned that the last bus left at 6:00 pm. So I stayed in a hotel overnight, and took a taxi to the bus station Saturday morning. After sitting in the bus for an hour without moving, we all had to get out and change buses! Then there were road blocks, detours, so I arrived home at 1:30, just in time to kiss Lise hello and good’ bye as she was walking off to church (a 20 minute walk) to help with the AWANA program. Within five minutes I heard her at the gate. I thought she had forgotten something, but no. A very angry Lise told me she had been robbed at gun point. She was forced to give up her purse, which contained no money and no credit cards or documents, fortunately, but which had her glasses which she had just had made for a bit over $300, and her Bible and some candies she was bringing to the children. Then the robber noticed a bump in her pocket, and reached for that. Lise quickly took out her phone and gave it to him, as she didn’t want him feeling around and finding her keys and a debit card (she had planned on taking out some money in town). So I accompanied her into town by another route, we stopped at the church to pick up Robert, our boy from the children’s home, and went to get her a new phone, and have the old one blocked. This time she got the cheapest phone she could find. We went back to the church, picked up Lester, who was in the AWANA program, and went home. (Almost every weekend, we have two of the children from the Home with us – we serve as grandparents).  So an eventful week ended with an eventful weekend.