Our last day in El Salvador was amazing!  In this community of Las Dalicias, in a region known as San Martin, with challenges more and deeper than we really see there is The Church and one small congregation called El Buen Samaritano, (The Good Samaritan) which has that very reputation in this area.  It has worked hard and continues to do so, fixing roads, digging latrines, releasing children from poverty in Jesus name, and working to bring fresh clean water into the homes of 10,000 people.  The pastor of this simple church has a huge heart but only a 2nd grade education, yet he is the leader of his denomination in El Salvador, he is leading this local church and he is leading a community effort to bring this water project to reality.  We are so blessed to be in partnership with Pastor Miguel and El Buen Samaritano.  There is much for us to learn from them as we serve along side them.

This last week 27 of us from The Crossing came into this community and congregation and were able to:
   1. Come along side of them and encourage, help and serve the leaders that work with the children at their            Child Development Center (CDC)
   2. Tend to the Dental needs of many of these children and some of their parents.
   3. Build into the moms and a few dads who dropped off their children for the CDC.
   4. Work with our partners on the water project.
   5. Facilitate a Leadership Training Program for 40 Salvadorian youth and 10 from our team.

The shear number of interactions, the stories we shared each night as we debriefed the day and the life change that took place in both Salvadorians and Americans, could all never be captured on this blog, but that makes them no less real.  I am so proud of the 5 teams that I got to travel with and how they showed up on this journey together.

As we closed out the last day, there was a soccer game, lots of just hanging out with our new friends, sponsored children and others in this community and then a celebration service.  We celebrated the teachers at the CDC, we celebrated that it was Jesus who brought us all together, we celebrated the students that completed the week long Leadership Training Program.  The exclamation point however was when all the students surprised us with a performance to a song called "Thank You For Giving To The Lord", and they came up to us grabbed our hands and proceeded to express how our time there has impacted their lives.  We were all humbled by this, but in my mind as I looked at these students and recalled some of the visions they have for LEADING in their community, schools, churches and homes, I started to imagine the potential that stood in front of me.  When God sees us I believe He sees even more potential.  I believe He wants to work in and through each and every one of us to show and share His love with others.  What we experienced, this week was both giving and receiving that love.  There is no doubt in my mind that the ripple effect of this journey will be felt for years to come as not only these young leaders but every single traveler continues to process and live out what God showed them and allowed them to experience this week.




Thanks to everyone who participated, prayed, gave, blogged and supported this mission trip!!!  May God bless you all as you were a key part of this journey!!

In His Strength,

Ian Stevenson
Pastor of GO Ministries

This is a post from Ralph and Sharon Hulett. We wanted to let everyone know what today was like for the Team here in El Salvador.  The people who don't have sponsored children went to the volcano and beach. The rest of us went to El Corralito, a park that had lots of fun activities for the children with their sponsors.

Sharon and I were anxious to meet both our sponsored kids.  We had already met Karen at Pastor Miguel's church on Sunday.  We had never met Fabricio.  When we saw him, he bonded with Ralph right away. Karen grabbed Sharon's hand, and we were off to literally go to a higher level with these two--on the trampoline!  All four of us were bouncing up and down like crazy people, laughing and yelling.  We tried to see who could last the longest without falling.  Ralph never fell, which was nothing short of a miracle!  Karen came up a close second place a number of times.  The bouncing threw Fabricio off balance and the poor little guy was rolling around in between us.  He loved all the attention. While we were doing this, a wild and crazy soccer game with lots of kids and their sponsors went on in the field nearby. Next we made our way to a tire swing, made to look like a horse, where Ralph pushed Fabricio.  After that the kids rode on real horses, which they really liked.  Our translator, Nelson, did a great job on communicating between us, the kids, and their parents.  We were able to talk about our lives back home, find out how the kids were doing and share information.

Both our children are eleven years old, yet they liked different activities.  Fabricio enjoyed hanging out with Ralph and interacting with him.  Karen turned out to be the daredevil and doing wild things by herself.  She took to the rock climbing wall like a champ, getting near the top before sliding back down.  Next came something Sharon and I passed on but not Karen--the zip line!  Karen got on her gloves and helmet and bravely went up the ladder, then flew all the way down to other end of the park.  Then she returned and we both just were amazed at this little girl's bravery and determination.  Even Pastor Miguel got in on the act and went on the zip line.  We returned to bounce on the trampoline some more and then we exchanged gifts. The kids got backpacks with lots of goodies inside, from a stuffed kangaroo for Karen to toy cars for Fabricio. We brought lots of pictures of us from our recent trip to New York, which the kids really enjoyed looking over.  We gave Fabricio's mom and Karen's grandma gifts; and they even gave us presents.  Group pictures with all the kids and their sponsors were taken, and we prayed for the kids and their families. There were lots of hugs and praises to the kids and their parents.

When it was time to leave, we were really choked up and let the kids know how grateful we were to have spent such a wonderful  day with them.  Karen was smiling the whole day, and Fabricio was so glad to finally meet us both.  It was a day that we will never forget--meeting these kids that we have spent years writing back and forth to.  It was beyond special--it was truly a gift.       

Hola from Evan of the Leadership Training Program!  This was our groups last day working in, and with, the community.  As such it was a day filled with many emotions.  We were at once excited to see the growth of relationships, yet sad to know that we would be leaving all of our new family.  Especially within the small groups at our leadership conference, a special bond had formed.  We had all been blessed by getting to work with students that were extremely receptive and eager to grow in both their leadership and Godliness.

In this last day, Pastor Sean spoke of encouraging the heart.  He spoke of how a leader must speak life, and build up their people in order to achieve their vision.  He spoke with great clarity and conviction, and his message was well received.  Often when placed in positions of leadership we tend to think the focus should be on us, the leader.  His words served as a great reminder that the purpose of a leader is to motivate others, and to find joy in their achievements.

All of this lead to a point on servant leadership, and choosing to model our leadership habits after Jesus.  It was with this in mind that Pastor Sean asked all us on the team to follow His lead and wash the feet of our Brothers and Sisters at the conference.  This was a big thing to ask.  Some of us were nervous, others were simply not feet people.  On the other hand, this was a big thing to ask of the Salvadorian students as well.  To allow someone to wash your feet while speaking words of affirmation to you can be just as humbling as being ask to wash the feet of another.

But it was with this seemingly awkward task that we were acting out the most important components of God-honoring leadership: No one is above another.  A leader must humble himself in two ways.  Firstly, taking the place of a servant and putting others above yourself.  Secondly, that a leader must embrace their own inherent weakness in allowing others to assist and motivate you.  With this in mind we began to wash one another's feet.

As we washed one another we spoke words of encouragement, both to them and their vision for their future (Personal side note- I love to compliment people.  Often I think people do not always know how to receive a compliment so having a free pass to compliment away made my day).  The room filled with prayers and ran high with all kinds of emotions and tears.  This act became proof positive to us all that simple words of genuine affirmation can have a huge impact.  It is something that can become a challenge in everyday life, to see the good in all people, and to not be too embarrassed to publicly recognize it.

This day was a true blessing to our whole team.  We heard similarly inspiring stories from the others as well. Our time here so far has been blessed.  All the people we have interacted with have had a true and endless joy that comes from their reliance on and love for God.  They have received us with open arms.  Speaking openly about their dreams and aspirations, and even the obstacles they face.  We will keep them in our thoughts and prayers.  Knowing that they have both the vision, and know the tools, to initiate and greatly positive change for their community.

One last thought to be kept in your prayers.  Two of our team members, Mike and Chris, unfortunately picked up injuries during our day.  Please pray for their quick recovery, and that the rest of our team may remain healthy for the rest of our trip.

Adios from San Salvador!

Evan Swerdfeger

Buenas Noches.. from San Salvador, El Salvador.. As the Lord strikes thunder around our hotel,  I have the opportunity to share how HE has shared HIS glory here in El Salvador today.  Initially, this trip was planned to GO globally to serve Him, however, I did not know the depth or the capacity He would ask me or us to serve.  Have you ever seen light reflecting off of a rain drop?  This is best way to describe the beauty of the El Salvadorian people.  Each one has such beauty that goes beyond themselves.  This alone is pushing our team to a new level of unity and passion for the people here.

Hola!  This is Sue Swerdfeger typing on behalf of the Compassion Team.  The 5 of us are working alongside the teachers, cooks and students here at the Compassion School Site.  The kids range in age from about 3-11 years.  Compassion International funds this school.

Boy has this trip made me realize the importance of child sponsorship! I know it probably says it on the brochure, but it really is true that sponsorship can totally change the life of a child.

The teachers here love them, teach them, laugh and sing with them and tell them about Jesus.  A wonderful, hardworking woman, named Consuelo, serves them a hot meal.  Many of the kids come with plastic containers so that they can take home their leftovers.  I'm thinking that it might be their only meal of the day.

Mindy, Scott and Carmen on our team each have a sponsored kid at this school.  They have had the chance to play with them and get to know them.  Their kids' parents have come up and embraced them and expressed their thanks. The feeling of love is so strong that it's pretty overwhelming.  Scott's little girl is pretty feisty and it's clear that she is just craving attention, lots and lots of it!

The kids also get medical and dental check ups through Compassion.  The last check up revealed that every single one of the over 200 students has worms.  Compassion gives them medicine to clear it up, but it is bound to come back due to the poor water quality that they have available to them.  They get so much rain here, but they lack a water system to collect and then get the water to their area.  (There may be a blog from the Water Project team later in the week).  Please pray for the Water Project to get the funding it needs to be completed.  It's just not right that people can't have clean water in a place that gets 6 feet of rain in a year.  In the dry season, water is collected from a dirty lake and the people have to pay about 1/3 of their income to get murky water to drink and cook with.  There shouldn't be anyone, anywhere that has to do that.

It is the first Missions trip for my entire team, but we were immediately embraced by the kids.  They have learned our names and we're working on learning theirs.  Today we got to sing and dance with the 3-5 year olds in Senora Mira's room.  It was so fun and I was really hoping to be able to show you a video of them singing a beautiful worship song, but it was too big to upload.  :(  We all got so teary watching them.  I am loving this experience.  I could go on and on, but my son, Evan, informed me that Blogs are supposed to be concise. Oops.

Anyway - if you've ever thought about Sponsoring a Child - I encourage you to do it.  If you've ever thought about going on a missions trip - I recommend it.  I'm here with my husband (Bruce) and kids, Evan (17) and Jenna (12).  We've all felt totally comfortable here and I have no doubt this experience will be life changing for all of us.





Imagine 50 students seeking God for vision, realizing that He DOES have something for them, He can equip them and enable them to accomplish it.  No matter what their circumstances, no matter what others have told them, if God has tapped them on the shoulder to do it, they will be able.  Today we saw that happen in a very vivid way.  It was powerful!  As I listened to students share about how they felt God was calling them to impact their peers in the community who have had to leave school due to a pregnancy,  as they spoke of reaching the many gang members in their community and building homes for those who have none, when what they have themselves is barely a home, I could not control the tears that rolled down my cheeks.  As I talked with the young men and women God brought to this Leadership Training Program, it was powerful.  Pastor Miguel shared with them his story how a simple man with a 2nd grade education, is now leading a church, a denomination, and driving the vision for clean running water for 10,000 people it helped them understand how God can use them.  As we were down at the well/pumping station for the water project showing them the immensity of this project, God put on my heart to share with them about how God had Joshua build an alter once they crossed the Jordan rived and entered into the promised land.  That even though they had many battles and struggles ahead, it was time to be remembered because they had chosen to cross the river and GO for it.  So, we built an alter right there.  Each student, that was ready to make this the defining day for them in terms of pursuing God's vision for them, placed a stone on the alter.  Every single student did it, each teacher and leader did it, I did it.  It was a huge moment for me. I was so caught up in it I forgot to get a picture, Sorry.  Clearly a highlight for me today.  When I think about the leadership potential in that room and how God can work it fires me up.  What an amazing day.  Here's the five groups of students working hard on their vision:

How do you multiply impact in a community on a missions trip?  You break into 5 teams, you invest in the people in the community who will carry on ministry long after you leave and you invest in young leaders with a vision.  We started all of those things today and will do so all week.  Let me have one of our young leaders share with you about his experience in the community today.

Buenas! This is Skylar Chaput typing now! Today the high school students, as well as myself, got the amazing opportunity to break off from the initial team to go start our first day at El Liceo de Cristiano, the school about a mile away from the community. Today was a great day to say the least, for multiple reasons, but primarily because we were joining alongside 30+ Salvadorian students, ages 13-18, embarking together in an extensive week-long Leadership Training Program led by various leaders from The Crossing, as well as El Salvador. Today, our usual interpreter and host from Enalce, Walter, gave a very insightful and encouraging message, touching base on how to lead by example and model the way for others. After the lesson, we broke off into small groups, girls with girls, boys with boys, the usual. I was lucky enough to get a group of 4 strapping young gentlemen, 3 are pictured below. One of which was named Elvis....sweet. The groups were very interesting, a good interesting, though, something that I have never experienced before. I have led high school small groups back home at The Crossing, but never one where an interpreter was necessary, not to mention the obvious language barrier and cultural differences in between us. At the beginning, it was obvious that the students were very shy, very standoff-ish, and dont get me wrong, I completely understand how they feel. I'm sure they all thought, "uh who is this gringo?!". With that in mind, I shared my personal testimony with them. I told them how my past life was, mistake after mistake, and how as soon as I allowed Christ into my heart, I was entirely transformed, freed, and made new and built up to where I am today. After, I began to ask more questions, unfortunately they were still a bit distant, which led me to let them know that a small group is intended to be a safe place, a place where deep things can be shared and not gossiped about, but grounded. A few seconds of silence followed, and from that silence I could see the ice cracking. Immediately after, Jonathan, the young man in the middle of the picture, said, "...I want to tell you my story." He completely opened up and shared his entire testimony with myself and the rest of the group. It was a defining moment for them, not only did he step out of his comfort zone, but he also led by example, modeled the way for the other students, which ignited a chain reaction among the other boys. One by one they shared deep, personal struggles, emotions, feelings, dreams, and visions for their future. So rad. From then, we had lunch, mingled, and headed down the hill in our groups to a small community called Bonanza, with excess food, packaged and ready to disperse among the families there. This was an awesome opportunity. I asked one of the boys who was the most in need in Bonanza that they knew of, and without hesitation, he named an old elderly woman, with no husband, kids, or family. I told him to lead the way for us, and he did just that. We met her, blessed her with the food, and the students and I prayed over her for about 10 minutes. She was thankful, it was great. I was blessed with the opportunity to see these students taking hold of leadership within their own community. Anyways, I have Sean and Ian over my shoulder right now literally laughing at me and giving me a hard time for "writing a book" on this blog so ill wrap it up. To say the least, it was a great day and an awesome start so something huge.

oh and Sean is wearing a really ugly floral dodgers hat and wont take it off so if you see him wearing it on campus when we get home please tell him to take it off, that is all

While 27 of us are in El Salvador we have a team of 4 in Uganda.  They are working with Mosaic Vision and touching the lives of children who have lost everyone and are completely on their own.  Due to Aids, Malaria and other realities is is not uncommon for a 10- 12 year old to be the head of a house, taking care of 2-3 younger siblings.  They are in an area called the Rift Valley. They visited 6 families of orphaned children, AIDS orphans who have lost mom and dad to AIDS and are either living alone or living with an elder grandparent. Mosaic Vision has just started to minister in this unreached area of the Rift valley 3 months ago. Currently they have 50 children that are in need of sponsors there. It is much different and un-reached in terms of any help. It also has a drastically increased AIDS rate – the first group of children they took up have an HIV rate about 60% higher than other areas of Uganda.  Here are the comments via text from Kelly and Brynn below.

Today the team exposed to "The Bride" in El Salvador.  Her name is El Buen Samaritano Inglesia, she is our church partner here.  She is small but mighty when it comes to the impact she makes in the community. This was an opportunity for our team to meet the people and see the setting of where they will be working all week.  This is a picture of the team in front of the Child Development Center that cares for 200 of the poorest children in this area.




This is Sean Kappauf typing now. I'm the funny looking guy on the back right (red collared shirt). I was given the great privilege to speak at El Buen Samaritano Inglesia. This was a first for me:

• a first time speaking to a mainly Spanish speaking (not understanding English) community
• a first time having a translator translate what I was saying
• a first time being around people who somehow love me even though they just met me, 
• a first time speaking and having an audiences full attention despite the: 
• constant rain fall over a tin roof, 
• kids running around screaming, 
• thunder every two minutes, 
• and not to mention an awkwardly warm heat that made us all sweaty. 

Well it's not quite 24 hours since we all met at the church to embark on this missions trip together.  Since then we have not only made the journey together, and got oriented somewhat to our host country, we have connected more with one another, which is such an important part of being a team.  A few cat naps have been taken on the plan and here or there through out the day, but as we had dinner together several team members could hardly stay awake.  We have had a great day together and are looking forward to time with Pastor Miguel and his family in the morning, seeing the community, learning about the water project and having church tomorrow.  Thanks for all of you who are praying for us, we are all very excited for what's next.

In His Strength,

It's Saturday morning, and we arrived safely in El Salvador.  The team is off to an amazing start!  I was blown away when I pulled into our church parking lot at 9:25 p.m,  expecting there to be one or two team members there.   They were all there with their family and friends,  There must have been 75 people or so, and the energy and excitement was through the roof.   After a brief welcome and orientations we had a sweet prayer time that Pastor Tim closed out for us.  This group was clearly ready!!!

Navigating 25 people through the airport is always interesting, making sure everyone gets through all the parts of the maze known as the airport.  Checking in the luggage, screening the luggage, then through security check and then finally onto the plane.  It's always interesting watching the various personalities, some are so hyped up they can hardly sit still never mind sleep on this red eye, others are so chill it's easy to sleep, while some others are a bit uncomfortable with their seating assignment or aren't used to traveling.  But everyone did great!!

Arriving early in El Salvador gives us time to check in and get a little rest before we have our orientation with Enlace our host partner.  Everyone will learn about this amazing organization and how they work with local churches who are making a serious impact in their communities.  They will understand that when we leave the work of the church will continue and all the realms we will be working in, children, youth, women, and the water project continue once we leave.  We will learn from our partners things that can help us make more of an impact back home.  We get to pour some jet fuel on what our partners are doing, and share in the impact being made here in El Salvador by them.   I can't wait to see this amazing team walk out their mission.

In His Strength,

Ian