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
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
