Tuesday July 21

Good news! We have found the one spot in the hotel which seems to be a Wi-fi hot spot!

On Monday, since our visit to the Christian deaf school had to be cancelled due to suspected cases of swine flu, we took a bus tour or San Salvador then moved the Friday shopping time to today. We were able to both barter and meet some new friends in stalls in the market. It sure is helpful to have a translator to help one discuss pricing and buying! After lunch we proceeded to our afternoon ministry at the La Asilo Sara Retirement Home in San Salvador. There are about 270 people there, mostly elderly, who either have mental retardation, are in rehabilitation, and/or are aged. The director, Roberto, greeted us and gave us a tour of the facility. In a humorous moment (looking back), just after we arrived, we heard what sounded like gunshots, ducked, and were informed that another squirrel had met his demise in the electric fence, which often shuts down the power to the facility. It did not in this instance, thankfully.

Roberto has been director for 18 years and with limited resources has been stalwart in serving his residents. There are areas where up to 100 residents sleep which are covered by one nurse and one assistant at night. He seemed to know each resident and paused to give us their story as we walked meeting residents to give them cookies and just interact with some human touch and attention. Jeremy Tagoo and Jeremy Traf had their guitars at the ready and led the team in several singing opportunities to which we saw residents wheeling and coming over. The team has worked on some more music and we have expanded our repertoire to 3 Spanish songs—an act of service and love as none of us are “comfortably fluent.” We did them all and some residents were able to clap along. We had the chance to hear about several residents and almost all were very grateful to see us and appreciated our cookies, as well! They continually thanked us for coming; several have no family and very few visitors come to the Retirement Home, but each one is loved by Jesus and we tried to share that and be Jesus with skin on for them. Kathryn had a chance to play the piano for some of our new old friends. The team seems to have settled in a bit and was much more outgoing toward our new friends despite the language barrier. At the end we were able to surround Roberto and pray for him and the work at the Retirement Home. We returned to our hotel, had our team meeting, devo(tional) discussion, reflected on the day, and got our next day (Wednesday) brief.

We praise God for what He is doing in and out of the team and we thank you for your prayers.

"Prayer is the thin tendon which moves the mighty arm of God.” (Dr. Norman Geisler, I believe)

We are very thankful for our team and their stepping out today. Will post now but more to come on today, which was a great day!