j.p. serrano

My wife spent a good deal of time on a video from our El Salvador trip.  It is 16min long, it will take a while to download.  I hope you enjoy, click the link below.

El Salvador

Jeremy

Despite the kids and I not feeling well, today turned out to be a great day. We went shopping, took photos, and ate at a very nice Italian restraunt. We are all packed and ready for the flight home. We are leaving here tomorrow at 5:00 am. Our plane should arrive tomorrow night. Stay tuned we will be adding more pictures and photos.

Here is a photo of the place we are staying in Guatamala. It is quiet, peaceful, and beautiful.

Here is a photo of Aristides and his two children. This is from the iphone so our messages will be short. I will follow up with a picture of the Centro Luterano.

Dear Friends,

I apologize for the lack of posts in the last few days.  Internet access is a little trickier here, and we’ve had a rough few days so far.  Our trip to Guatemala from El Salvador was anything but easy, we had a 7 hour van ride through the mountains.  Caedmon threw up at breakfast before we left, and she has been sick ever since.  Levi started throwing up yesterday morning, and he is still sick.  Jeremy has not been feeling 100%, and I am playing nurse to them all.

Despite all of that, though, I am enjoying Antigua immensely!  The weather here is perfect!  Nice and cool in the mornings and evenings, and about 75 to 80 degrees during the day.  And there is NO HUMIDITY!  The Lutheran Center where we are staying is also gorgeous.  It used to be a hospital, and it is in the style of old colonial housing.  It is clean and safe, and the bugs are not too big (except for the spider that was on Jeremy’s pillow this morning.)

Yesterday, a good friend of mine traveled by bus to see us.  His name is Aristides, and he lives here in Guatemala.  About 15 years ago, he came to live with my family in California while he had surgery on his heart.  It was a real joy of mine to travel to his country to see him.  We visited for about 5 hours, and I just loved every minute of it!

Tomorrow around 5 in the morning, we are leaving Antigua to travel by taxi to Guatemala City to the airport.  God willing, we will be in LAX by nightfall.  It has been a pleasure to make this adventure and take you all along with us.  We are anxious to see you and share our stories.  And thank you to all who prayed for our little Rae Sunday morning.  We would appreciate continued prayers for the children’s health restored and safe travel tomorrow.

See you soon!
Jessica

The Build Day:

Today was a GREAT build day, and also our last.  We spent the morning setting up the rebar in the trenches to guard against the frequent earthquakes here.  Then we mixed by shovel on the ground 4 wheelbarrels of gravel, 3 wheelbarrels of sand, and two bags of cement.  Then we added water and mixed vigorously by turning the pile of concrete over and over again.  It was like kneading a giant ball of rock dough.  We poured our mixture into three trenches on the perimeter of the house.  We left the family in a good situation to continue the work.  According to Habitat For Humanity, it takes about six weeks to finish a house.  So God willing, Maria will be under her own roof by September!

After lunch we drove over to the other work site to see how they finished up.  We stopped by Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church to see their new church building.  They had previously been worshipping under a large tree.  A benefactor from the US sponsored the building of their church, and they were in joy to be inside praising God. 

Then we had a par-tay, Salvadorian style!  The food was delicious and very corny.  We had corn tamales, corn on the cob, and corn tortillas in our pupusas.There was also a corn drink and cake (made out of corn! just kidding).  But as you can see, there was a lot of corn.  A person who worked on this site said he saw the women of the house gathering corn from their fields this morning and cooking all day for us.

We also broke open piñatas–all of us including Levi took our turn.  And in true Salvadorian fashion, we finished the celebration by breaking eggs filled with confetti over each other´s heads.

Caedmon´s contribution for this evening, ¨I love my Levi with lots of kisses.  (At the party) I saw chickens that couldn´t get out (in a chicken coop).  I liked the piñata ´cause I got candy and I love cake!¨

One final note . . . we will be traveling to Gautemala tomorrow morning to finish our stay in Latin America through Tuesday.  We will try to blog by way of Jeremy´s iPhone, but he has not had much luck with service down here so far.  If you don´t hear from us, don´t worry.  We will be sure to post when we return to the states.  But let´s hope for the best that we´ll be able to keep you updated, so keep checking.

This evening we were treated to an amazing story of a young man who grew up in El Salvador during the civil war.  His name is Christian, and he is 32 years old.  We could never retell his story with the passion he can, but here are some of the details that impacted us:

When Christian was 4 years old, the civil war started because the poor revolted against the government over poor working conditions and wages.  In an effort to squash the rebellion, the government sent the military to the rural areas to kill the peasants and crush moral.  They went to Christian´s village and the adults fled the village, hoping to draw the military away from the children.  The soldiers went through the village and killed all the children anyway.  Christian´s brother and sister were slaughtered.  He was thrown against the kitchen wall by the soldiers and was knocked unconscious.  Thinking Christian was dead, the soldiers left.  When he woke up, everyone in the village was dead.  He stayed with his dead family for two days and fought off animals that were trying to eat the bodies.  When his parents returned, they found him the sole survivor of the village.

He spent time in a refugee camp in Honduras, and when he returned to El Salvador, he was conscripted to join the guerrillas at the age of 12.  Through a chain of events outside of his control, he left the rebels at 13 and found the Lutheran Church who gave him a job and paid for his school.  He eventually had to flee to Sweden to a refugee camp there because of death threats against his life.  When he finally returned to his home country, Bishop Gomez found him a job as an artisan painting crosses and other objects.  He now travels to many countries, speaking to youth and churches about social injustices for all people.  He sells his art to make a living, and he helps raise money for the Church to fight poor conditions in El Salvador and other countries.  His one dream in life . . . to build a new church for the Bishop.  The cost: $150,000 which he has raised $9,000 towards.

And now back to our story . . . In answer to some of your questions, the food is just fine here.  It consists of a lot of beans and a lot of rice, but it´s definitely yummy.  One of their national foods here is pupusas.  It is basically a tortilla with cheese or beans cooked inside of it.  Jeremy took a picture of his dinner tonight so you can see it.  He also has some red sauce/salsa on top for added flavor, but it is not hot.  Spicy is not characteristic of Salvadorian food.  Levi is downing the rice and beans and rocks and dirt just like he does back home.  In fact, he quickly earned a reputation for being a Good Eater.  Caedmon is substaining herself on chicken, Frosted Flakes, and peanut butter sandwiches.  Nama´s promise of Horchata and a sweet roll when we return was met with great joy.

For the curious, we´ve included here a picture of how the children are keeping clean.  We bathe them once a day in this little tub, and then bathe them two or three times a day in bug spray.  So far, it´s working.  They´re clean and bite free.  Jeremy, however, has been taking bites for the team.  Though he puts on copious amounts of bug spray, he still looks as though he´s contracted the measles on his arms.

This last picture is of Caedmon showing off two exciting things from her day today.  I bought her a dress at the local market in Suchitoto, and we found M and Ms at the super yesterday.  Her comments this evening, ¨I want my blanket and you, Mama.  I want more M and Ms at the lunch party tomorrow.  And I want to watch Cinderella and Tarzan when I get home.¨

Finally, the report from our work site: not much happened.  We worked for a few hours in the afternoon compacting more sand mixed with dry concrete.  Jeremy stayed home to help the children rest.  Tomorrow we work a half day with concrete and rebar, and then have a celebration to end the week!

Thanks for all of your comments.  They´ve given us renewed energy!  Sleep well, our American friends!
Jess and Jer

Friends,

We are getting lonely talking to the computer screen at night.  We totally appreciate your comments because it feels like we´re talking to you in a very delayed conversation sort of way.  Feel free to leave a comment or two if you´re on the site.  We love it!

Thanks,
J and J again

Wednesday morning came far too early today, as we rolled (and groaned) to get out of bed.  The kids woke up before the alarm clock this morning, which always adds more pain to the punch.  Nevertheless, we were ready to go by the time the van arrived–although Jess snoozed a bit more on the ride over.

And let´s talk about the ride for just one moment.  Our driver is a master in the art of Salvadorian driving.  The yellow line in the middle of the road sometimes designates the division of lanes.  Most of the time it acts like the guide rail on the Disneyland Autopia ride.  Our driver can also amazingly manuever around chickens, dogs, people, parked  cars, and oncoming buses without ever using the brake or turn signal–in fact the van might not even have a turn signal.  Once we survive the gauntlet of the city and highway, we make a sharp right turn onto the good part of the road through the jungle.  This road has bricks and stones laid through it to help the tires grip the road better.  The angles are steep and today, most of us had our fingers crossed that we would not slide back down the hills we were trying to climb.  And the deterioration of road continues the deeper we go into the jungle and the closer we get to the build site.  Finally, the van parks, and we hoof the last 1/3 mile. 

Don´t let the picture deceive you . . . This road is hilly, muddy, and difficult to manage carrying two children and our supplies.  We only took the picture here because there was enough light to get a shot, and this flat part was a good opportunity to stop and breathe.

The rain from Tuesday had made the ¨road¨ and build site sopping wet and very muddy.  We arrived at our site to find the trenches we had dug the previous day with a thin layer of water in them.  We had to then dig a drain to let the water out of the trenches.  Today we did a lot of waiting, for supplies to arrive and for the mason to plan things just right.  But we did accomplish one thing: we filled the trenches with about 8 inches of white sand and then compacted it all so that a firm foundation would be set in place.

As we blog tonight, lightening is flashing and thunder crashing.  We hope that our build site is far enough away as to avoid the brundt of this storm.  But don´t let our words fool you–our spirits are still high and we are having the time of our lives!  This has been a marvelous trip thus far!

We really see God working in the lives of the people whom live here and those whom have come to build a simple house.  Hasta manana!

J and J

P.S. Caedmon´s comments are as follows:
¨I love Hope (her new friend here).  Oh, and I do ballerina, like spinning and like this (raising her leg).¨  This trip has turned her into a HUGE ballet fan for no explicable reason.  Be prepared for her to show off her moves when she returns.

Back at building today . . .

Our task was to dig 6 trenches about 4 feet deep by 1.5 feet wide by 24 feet long on our previously made level ground.  Everyone worked really hard, and the sun seemed to beat down on us stronger than ever.  Levi even lent a shovel, although he preferred to eat the dirt, rather than put in the pile like everyone else.  He let Alma (a wonderful adopted mother to both our kids) take him to the stream too.  Both kids enjoyed playing in the cool water to combat the heat and humidity.  Caedmon also helped dig today.  Although, we were pleased to see her opting to play with the local children too–something she has been shy towards so far.

Caedmon´s note to you all today is, ¨I digging!  And tell Papi I see a duck.¨

Here is a picture of our progress as of today.  Tomorrow we will fill the trenches with about 5 inches of sand and then compact it all with homemade cement buckets with attached sticks.

At the end of the day, the truck that has been carrying the sand to our worksite got stuck in the river we´ve been crossing by foot.  We unloaded the supplies and carried them up by foot, but as for the truck . . . three of the young boys will be spending the night in the truck so that nobody steals parts or the whole thing (apparently not an uncommon thing around here).

Back to work tomorrow!
The Serranos