It is noon on Sunday in El Salvador. The traffic starts to increase slightly as the shadows move to dwell perpendicular under their owners. There are people going in different directions in downtown San Marcos, many of them coming out of the Sunday service at “Tabernaculo Biblico Bautista (Baptist Biblical Tabernacle, or BBT) San Marcos,” a Baptist church that partners with us and now implements a child development center named “Light of Hope.”

The streets of San Marcos look old and dry, like in a little town in the western United States – old streets, old buildings and 95 degrees in the shade.

The last people remaining inside the church say goodbye and go back home. The ushers turn off the ceiling fans and close the windows. They walk down the stairs and gather with the rest of the staff at the other side of the parking lot.

Pastor Daniel welcomes the staff and leads a prayer for lunch. After the prayer, he stops and looks at the food served before him, and a question burns like a fire in his heart.

“What is on the tables of our children right now?”

Pastor Daniel and his staff gather some staples and take off to visit the families they have identified in most need. The heart of the pastor was burning for a reason that Sunday at noon; many of the families they visited had nothing to put on their tables. It was the Holy Spirit who led the staff to visit the children and provide for their needs.

The Birth of Church Outreach in San Marcos

We have a strategic plan for the next five years,” says Pastor Edwin, the church administrator. Right from the beginning the church has aimed at providing the community not only good news of salvation, but also a solution to the rest of their needs.

The church is located on the main street of San Marcos. San Marcos is located about 5 miles south of downtown San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. San Marcos is a place known as a “dormitory city” because most of the people leave town and travel to San Salvador for job opportunities, and come back late at night, just to sleep.

A good percentage of the people work in Maquilas, since near San Marcos is an industrial free zone with factories that offer products from jeans and textiles to food products.

San Marcos also has a violent environment – in part marked by the civil war during the 1980s, and now with the new threat of gangs.

The church started in 2000 as a small prayer group in a neighborhood named Florencia. The people who started to attend the prayer group have seen the church grow and now hold the leadership positions of the different ministries. The group grew and they saw the need to rent a space for 500 people.

The authorities in the International Baptist Mission saw the impact and the work of the church in San Marcos and decided to support further development.

“The idea was to have the full capacity to take the gospel permanently to the people.

“The vision of Pastor Daniel is that the church must work for the community. And it must be done not in words, but with acts,” says Pastor Edwin.

To perform this, the church has divided its ministries in two groups, internal and external. The internal ministries include the ushers and Bible school teachers, as well as mentors for the people who want to learn more from the Bible.

The external ministries, as Pastor Edwin describes them, are “battalions of evangelism.” There are different groups that visit hospitals, jails, and the poor communities in the area of San Marcos. The most successful ministry is called “Bread and Hot Chocolate (B& HC).”

Until 2002, B&HC went out on Wednesday nights and looked for people on the streets with drug or alcohol problems, gave them something to eat and preached the gospel, until the staff realized that many other ministries were doing the very same thing. B&HC was then redirected to the most vulnerable areas in San Marco, places and communities with a lot of economic and spiritual poverty.

Now, the B&HC ministry goes on Wednesday nights with bread, hot chocolate, food, clothes and the gospel to those communities, knocking door by door.

“Because there is no door, sometimes we just go inside the home. We visit the family, bring hot chocolate and bread, eat with them and share the gospel. We also take note of some needs they have and come back with some supplies the next week we visit. We also have a clinic with medical doctors from the congregation. Every now and then, the doctors join the B&HC team and visit the communities as well.

“Apart from that, we have ministries that visit jails, go to the bus terminal, and we also work with shelters that help people with addictions.”

Now the communities recognize the church and even ask them to visit more often.

In 2010 the ministry vision expanded. The church already had a strong program that reached the most vulnerable people in the surrounding communities. The staff decided that they needed strategic alliances if they wanted to expand further.

God showed His hand with the church, by providing institutions such as the Evangelical University to provide medical services. Sponsors through the child development center provide the resources the church needs to give the children additional health support, school supplies, Bibles and meals.

“We want to show the community that for our church, children are the number one priority,” says Associate Pastor Walter.

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Milagro was a 5-month-old baby girl. Her mother, Veronica, was fighting the darkness of a home without electricity with the cheapest alternative she had — a candle. Veronica was taking care of little Milagro just as any other mother anywhere in the world would.

For just a blink of an eye, Milagro was left unattended, and the worst scenario happened. The candle fell on Milagro’s cradle and the blankets caught fire.

Just like her name, it was a miracle that she survived at such a young age. Milagro lost her right arm, and part of her face and body had deep burns. It was a traumatic event for the baby and the mother.

Veronica comes from a very poor, but united family. Because of the very scarce resources she had, she was forced to move from one place to another, always looking for the cheapest alternative to rent a room. She says that it was God that led her to go to a new neighborhood named Plan del Pino, in Ciudad Delgado, a municipality of San Salvador city.

“Everything that happens, if you are a Christian, is to your benefit according to God’s plan.”

Because of her special needs, Milagro never went to school, nor had friends. Fear of rejection and pity for her girl led Veronica to raise her daughter in a bubble. She thought Milagro would never be normal. To Veronica, she was “special.”

At 7 years old, Milagro enrolled in our Child Sponsorship Program. She found many things at the center that she would never have found anywhere else. But above all, she found hope. She also found people who would care for her in unimaginable ways.

“Milagro has a twin sister,” says Maria, Milagro’s tutor since she entered the program. “The grandmother gave the other girl away when they were born,” she adds, hoping that this would clarify the situation of poverty that the family has endured for years.

“When Milagro entered the program, she had a very low self-esteem. She would say that any day she would die, and that the people pity her because she did not have an arm.” She used to wear her hair on the face because she was ashamed of the marks on her cheeks.

The tutor and the center director were committed to improve the family’s situation. The love that the church staff had for Milagro was so obvious that Milagro started to see in Brother Alvaro, the director, the father she never had.

“When you show Milagro you care and give her a caress, she would stick to you like a band-aid,” says Maria.

The church staff that because of the poverty, Milagro’s family moved from one place to another frequently. They also realized that the mother was in need of much help, materially and spiritually.

“I told her I would hire her as my assistant, and her payment would be food,” says Maria.

This was the strategy she chose to keep mother and child interested in the program.

“They would have breakfast and lunch here every day, and she would help me as my assistant, helping here at the program.”

Veronica and Milagro were having three meals a day at the center, thanks to the help Veronica provided at church. The surplus of the food they cooked for the children would go into a bag for Veronica’s family every day. The church did not stop there.

“We went to talk to the principal at a Christian school,” recalls Maria. “The principal got upset when he heard about the attitude of the public school. He also made the commitment to help in all ways possible.” 

The only problem was that the Christian school had fees, and Milagro’s family was too poor to pay $9 a month for that private education.

It was then that the provision came.

A sponsorship.

“She got a sponsor from Korea. We cannot even say the name because we do not know how to pronounce it,” Maria says with a smile.

The sponsor sent a gift to help the girl get a prosthetic arm. With the gift, the staff began to make arrangements to get Milagro an arm. To their surprise, they found a technician that made them at a special price and committed to help with adjustments and repairs at no cost.

“We were able to pay for the arm, the enrollment fee, and two months of tuition, as well as for the books and supplies for Milagro,” says  Maria. The rest of the monthly $9 fees were covered through the Compassion program, with authorization of the church partner facilitator.

Milagro began to attend first grade. She has learned to write, and now writes her own letters to her sponsor. She is now 9 and will be accepted into the public school, since there is proof now that she is as able to learn as well as any other child.

“We still have to work on her self-esteem. But we see she has improved,” says Maria.

Milagro now has a brighter future and now she prays and wishes to have a picture of her sponsor. Her biggest dream is, however, to one day meet in person that Korean man that God used to impact her life.

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It is sunrise on Friday, just a week before Christmas. The morning smells fresh and the sun shines strongly. A light breeze fills the air with that cool Christmas feeling. For a foreigner, it would almost feel like spring, but for Salvadorans, it feels like Christmas.

This is how the day starts for the team at the Lighthouse Child Development Center, run by the Central American Mission Church in a municipality of San Salvador named Soyapango.

Soyapango is north of the San Salvador metropolitan area. It is an industrial zone, with factories for brand-name beverages and a local shoe brand. Soyapango is also home to thousands of lower middle class to lower class families. According to the last census, it is the third most populated place in El Salvador, representing 4 percent of the population (nearly 250,000 people). Soyapango is also a stronghold of the Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13 gang.

Yet, all that smoke from the factories and trucks, and the danger and crime, seem to fade away because it is Christmas time.

For the children at Lighthouse, that Friday, December 17, becomes Christmas. The special event has been planned for months, and arranged for days, with love and enthusiasm from the center staff. All week they have been working on the final arrangements – the food, the decorations, the packaging of the presents.

Every Compassion center in El Salvador presents a yearly schedule of the events they will hold, to plan and budget accordingly. The Christmas celebration is one of the biggest. It does not only mean lunch and piñatas for the children, but it also reminds them that there are people who care for them, at the center and also far away.

Their sponsors think about the children, and it is because of them that this celebration is possible and that the children receive a present for Christmas. Raul and his team recognize that effort made by the sponsors to bless the lives of the children, and they put their best efforts toward that celebration.

When asked about the average situation of the children in the community, Raul answers,

“They come from three communities: San Luis, October 10th, and March 16th. These are places with scarcity, dust floors, aluminum walls. Some people must survive on $1 a day. Our children do not want to go on vacation because they know that they will lack the meal they receive at the center, and also the love and hugs.”

Knowing this reality changes the perspective, and for Raul and the team it is not a celebration on the calendar – it is the opportunity for a blessing.

To celebrate Christmas in El Salvador means to mix a variety of traditional Christian beliefs and adopted Western customs.

Christmas for El Salvadorans still carries a strong meaning that brings families together. Despite the business on the streets and the red, green and white flooding the environment, Salvadoran people try honor the true meaning of Christmas – the birth of Jesus.

Santa Claus is known for appearing in TV and print ads, but people ask children if they already wrote a letter to little baby Jesus instead.

For Brother Raul and his staff, to host the Christmas event means an opportunity to put a smile on the face of each child and teenager at the center. They hold the celebration for the teenagers two days earlier, on Wednesday.

“With the older ones we make a special dinner. They all dress up. We start at the temple and then each of the tutors accompanies their students one by one to the place we prepare with the tables.”

Today, Friday, is reserved for the little ones. There are flowers at the center of the tables, all decorated with white tablecloths. But the nice lunch is just the frosting. They have prepared a special Christmas program for the children.

“In other years we just had a piñata. This year we had a clown who performed a small play to teach the children that their heart must be just for God. We wanted to do something that will have an impact.

“Nobody gives attention to these children. They might live in the capital city, but they have no attention, no love. What our center gives is love, understanding, and attention. We want them to know that somebody thought about them.”

The program starts with songs and games in a “Father Abraham” fashion. The clown presents the play. Then it is piñata time, followed by lunch. While the children enjoy fried chicken with fries and salad, all of them homemade, the staff starts to prepare for the moment that all of them wait for: the Christmas presents.

Raul says that in past years, most of the children chose shoes over the gift options they are given, including toys and clothes, because it serves them to go to school. For many children, the shoes that they received for Christmas was the only pair they received for the year.

This year, since the new government said they will provide shoes and uniforms to all the children in the public school system, the best long-term need the center can fulfill is the school bag, something that even the parents have agreed to. The children will remember every time they see that school bag that there is a sponsor who cares for them.

“Our parents understand that there is someone on the other side of the world making an effort to help their children because they love them. It has a big impact to know that someone cares,”

“We thank God for the sponsors lives, and we ask God to pour blessings over them. They are sowing, and they will see the fruit. God will provide and multiply everything they give.

“Thanks for providing for one more Salvadoran – one that will become a doctor, a lawyer …. Thanks for being a Good Samaritan, for giving us a hand and caring for our children. For a smile that you put on their faces, or a tear that you wipe off their cheeks, God will bless you.”

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The eyes of hundreds of thousands of people are glued to the field. A commentator narrates the last seconds of the game: “… and there comes Landaverde with a pass from Valdez … Landaverde surpasses the defense quite easily; he aims at the goal … shoots … AND SCORES!!!” El Salvador wins. The people in the stadium shout and celebrate; the national team has won the World Cup.

For now this scene is just a dream, since Walter Landaverde is just 13 years old. But it is a dream that we at Compassion El Salvador hold onto tightly.

In El Salvador, our children are being saved from a country where the crime rate is out of control, where every day 12 or 13 people are murdered, where — according to numbers cited in the LA Times – El Salvador has about 15,000 gang members perpetuating violence, vice and broken families.

Walter lives in the Iberia community, which is one of the most feared places in San Salvador. It is divided into sectors A, B and C, but unofficially divided in two zones, the one for the MS-13 Gang, and the one for the 18th Street Gang. The community has become one of the headquarters for the gangs in the metropolitan area of San Salvador.

“Walter is a boy of few words,” says Sister Glenda, sponsorship coordinator at the Growing Up in Jesus Student Center. “We never know whether he will show up with a good mood or not. I think that his behavior is like that because of his family. Sometimes when we are on our way to his soccer school he cries, because his mother does not believe in him … but I tell him that I believe in him, and that is why Compassion supports him.”

Walter lives with six people: his mom, three brothers, an uncle and his grandmother. The only one sustaining the home is his mother, who is a seamstress. Walter’s father abandoned the family, and even though he and Walter have contact from time to time, the father does not provide for the family at all.

Walter’s family receives help from his participation in our sponsorship program. He is one of more than 35,000 children in the country that are receiving material and spiritual nourishment, and educational, social and emotional support through the love and lessons that our local churches share with them each day. But he is a sober young man.

To run the day-to-day operations at our child development centers and to meet the basic four components of our sponsorship program, your monthly sponsorship funds are used to help your children. To implement additional benefits, such as entrepreneurship workshops or to rebuild after a disaster, the Complementary Interventions program is the tool we use.

Complementary Interventions are additional funds that are obtained through specific proposals written by our country office with input from our church partners. The soccer school that Walter attends was funded by a Complementary Interventions proposal and it benefits 100 children.

The children attend the school Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 2 to 4 p.m. The desired outcome is to help develop their kinesthetic intelligence, just as other initiatives at the center work to develop the children through music, art and other skills.

After a few months of attending the soccer school, Walter was chosen to go to the national federation and compete to become part of the U-13 national team. This is a team that represents El Salvador in the Olympic Games, in the age category of 13 and under.

Walter was not only accepted, but he was promoted to the U-15 division; he will train with older teenagers. He will get focused attention to further develop his skills and represent his country.

The difference with this soccer school is that at the beginning of every practice the Word of God is shared. God is part of the exercises and strategy that are taught. The children read the Bible, pray, and share before and after every session. This has moved Walter to become more involved at church and in the worship team.

Through this program, God is repeating to Walter what He says in His Word: “Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me” (Psalm 27:10, NIV).

“If I was not part of this program, I would be sad, feeling like I am worth less than other people,” says Walter.

This soccer opportunity has been given by God to His loved Walter to tell Walter that he is very precious and capable of amazing things through Him, no matter what his family or other people say or think. We are sure that he will not become another gang member.

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Easter feels like summer. The sun shines strong in the skies, the breeze somehow fresh, somehow warm. It is definitely the middle of the dry season in El Salvador, the equivalent of summer in northern lands.

Everything around, from sale signs to music, talks about sun and sand. The opportunity to enjoy beaches that are just an hour away from San Salvador is almost here.

For a full week, students are out of school and have the opportunity to enjoy beaches, visit relatives and do nothing; it is almost the equivalent to spring break in the United States.

However, there is one unequivocal characteristic that reminds every Salvadoran that it is not just a break, and that there is more than just sun and fun waiting for us during that week in April.

In El Salvador, the week of Easter is “Holy Week,” and the festivities revolve around Roman Catholic tradition. Roman Catholics account for nearly 60 percent of the population. Protestant (also called evangelical) churches account for slightly more than 20 percent.

Even though El Salvador does not have an official religion, since the time of colonization Roman Catholic traditions have been the most common and most practiced in the country. Easter Week is the most important celebration for the Roman Catholic Church.

“It is slightly different for the Protestant Church” says Sister Wendy, wife of Pastor Rodolfo at the Baptist Tabernacle Church of Majucla. “For most of the children, Easter Week is an opportunity to spend time with their families. People take advantage of this time to go back to their homeland and spend time with their families.”

One of the most important Easter traditions in El Salvador is Lent. During this 40-day period before Easter, named “Cuaresma” in Spanish, people fast, pray and give alms. The last week of the 40 days is called “Bigger Week” or “Holy Week.”

On Good Friday, there are two major processions. Early in the morning there is the “passion,” which is the representation or commemoration of the walk that Jesus took with the cross toward Golgotha. It is finished around noon.

Then in the afternoon, Roman Catholic churches and communities start making rugs on the streets with sawdust, which will later be part of the path where the “holy funeral procession” will pass, carrying the symbolic dead body of Christ.

The making of these rugs represents one of the greatest traditions for the Roman Catholic Church in El Salvador, since entire streets and main avenues in many places of the country are completely closed. The rugs cover entire streets.

Appreciation of the rugs goes beyond religion. For Salvadorians, it is about appreciating the art and about appreciating the effort the people put into making the rugs. For Salvadorians, it is a gift, an offering they are making for Jesus.

Catholic or not, Salvadorians go out into the streets on Good Friday to see the rugs. Apart from this tradition for Good Friday, Holy Week develops differently for Protestants.

For the Evangelical Church in El Salvador, Holy Week is an opportunity to spread the Gospel to as many people as possible. If there is the opportunity to preach the Gospel and carry more people to the feet of our Lord, the church takes advantage of it and tells El Salvador the true meaning of Holy Week.

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The community holds about 2,500 homes, with an average of five people per home, according to the last census Rosario’s church conducted. (Rosario is a Compassion-assisted child in this community.) Most of the families rent space as they cannot afford to pay between $8,000 and $10,000 for a home. Most of them work at factories called maquilas, earning the minimum salary – about $170 per month.

Rent goes between $40 and $50, depending on the condition of the home. For some families, who earn their income as street vendors or have large families, their income barely covers the basic staples, and their option is to inhabit an unoccupied home, with the risk that someday an owner will appear and kick them out.

Sometimes a house will suddenly be empty. The reason lays in the comunity’s biggest problem – gangs.

In poor communities like Montelimar, gangs are a constant threat. Nobody comes in or out without them noticing. In fact, the commercial activity in the community has gone down, and small businesses such as pupuserias (little and simple dining places where they sell a local dish called pupusas) or convenience and staples stores are gone because the gangs ask them for “rent,” which means business owners have to pay a weekly amount of hundreds of dollars to receive “protection.” Otherwise, the gangs will do as they wish with the store and the owners.

In Rosario’s case, her family rents and her father, who sells sandwiches on a little cart on the streets of San Salvador and earns the minimum salary, supports the family.

Rosario is a quiet 12-year-old girl, very shy and organized. She is the oldest of four siblings. Even though she is very quiet, Rosario has many friends at school and at the child development center she attends.

The one thing that makes Rosario stand out from her other classmates is her creativity. Rosario discovered her creativity through the piñatas workshop her child development center offers. She has been able to develop her art skills, elaborating piñatas of all shapes, colors and sizes.

“She has a natural creativity” says Sister Roxana, a tutor at the child development center.

Rosario has the ability to reproduce the traits of cartoon characters, giving the piñatas the exact same look. From a total of 10 children that started in the piñatas workshop, she moved quickly to a new group of five children because their development was a lot faster than the rest. But Rosario did not stop there.

Taking into account the resources she had available, she started to experiment with new products. She used whatever she had at hand, such as cardboard folders and colors.

For the piñatas to be made exactly the same, she needed paper, colors and wire. With the resources she had on hand, like her own colors and folders, she made little piñatas about the size of a soda can. She took her first creations to school, and she sold them for 15 cents each.

“When she saw how quickly they were gone, she raised the price to 25 cents” says Sister Roxana with a smile, as she sees how smart Rosario is. With the money she got, she took some and gave it to her mom and asked her to get more materials for her, and the other part she shared with her little brothers.

Rosario’s classmates are now her loyal customers, but she did not stop with them. For a festival in Olocuilta, the main town in the area, she asked a neighbor if she could go with her to take some of her products and try to sell them at the fair. She made small and medium piñatas, and at the end of the day, she had sold all of them.

Rosario is always innovating. The afternoon I had the opportunity to meet her, she appeared with a new product in her line: she had made a puppet with the same materials as a piñata. As soon as she appeared at the church with the new toy, all of her friends made a circle around her. They all wanted to take a look at the new product and give it a test.

Rosario is not only receiving an education and the support and tools she will need to become a financial support for her family in the future, but she is also being raised to become a businesswoman. She is learning that honesty and excellence come first in her business and her life.

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Prices in general have increased, reducing the buying power of the average Salvadoran. On average, people are spending twice as much money on staples for the same amount of goods.

But Juan Carlos looks at his crops that extend over the mountains of the El Capulin community about 45 minutes north of San Salvador and says, “What crisis?”

He explains that he has received help with his crops from Compassion through the child development center his children attend. The help came through a Complementary Intervention (CIV) developed by Salem Bible Church with the advice from Compassion El Salvador.

Complementary Interventions are additional funds that are obtained through proposals written by the Compassion country office as a team with the implementing church partners.

Since sponsorship funds are strictly used to run the day-to-day operations at the child development centers – to meet the basic four components of child development (spiritual, physical, educational and socio-emotional areas) – additional funds obtained through CIV are necessary to implement additional benefits, such as entrepreneurship workshops, or to provide equipment for the centers (computers, water sanitation units, etc), or to offer crisis response and relief.

The CIV proposal Juan Carlos benefited from is called “Fertile Soil.” It has blessed a total of 19 families who had no resources to plant and who depend on agriculture for a living.

Brother Juan Carlos received approximately $400, which was the amount he needed to get the seeds, pesticides and fertilizers he would need to grow his crops. The other families received similar amounts of money, depending on the size of their crops. Each family is expected to pay back their loan once they have sold their crops.

Brother Juan Carlos has been able to plant about two and a half acres with maize, beans and pipian, a kind of white little pumpkin very common in the Salvadoran diet. He will have corn and beans, the base of the average Salvadoran diet, secure for his family for the year.

He has also calculated that from the sale of the pipian, he will be able to give back the money he received from the church so other families’ needs can be fulfilled, too.

The faith that these families put in God shows not only in the provision to get what they needed. The faithfulness of the Lord also shows in the abundance that these crops have produced, even in the middle of a scarcity.

Brother Juan Carlos is a witness that God provided exactly what was needed for the crops to grow up and produce a good harvest. “It is because we plant with faith,” he says.

Along with his crops, brother Juan Carlos has seen hope grow, too.

It is solely because of the mercy of God that brother Juan Carlos has been able to face this crisis with a smile and hopes for a better future. But to get to this point, there were other elements that helped make a difference. The love and hard work from the church staff was key.

Pastor Mena shares about the beginning of this vision, with an expression in his eyes that communicates the passion that he and his team have for this ministry.

“We realized that the time for sowing was close, and we are in the middle of a world crisis … many parents have portions of land, land that was not going to be planted.”

This is when the church started its job, not only praying and crying to the Lord for blessing, but also knocking on doors and looking for a way to help these families.

One of the tools that God put in their path was the ministry of Compassion. Through Compassion, the church was able to get the funds needed to make the loans to the parents so they would be able to harvest.

“We do not charge interest. What we have is a covenant between gentlemen,” says Pastor Mena.

The pastor continues that families will not only fulfill their needs, but also bless other families with the abundance they will receive by giving back. Brother Juan Carlos in an example of this.

Next to the church, there is a portion of about 1,600 square feet; there is a plantation of corn and beans where the children learn from Brother Juan Carlos the basics about agriculture.

“It is beautiful. I can´t help it when I see the children excited to learn and take care of the plants. My eyes get wet.”

For next year, the church staff, pastor and parents are planning on expanding the financing of productive activities to chicken, rabbit and fish farms for the families that are willing to do so. The church is also making arrangements to get a bigger space to keep implementing the agriculture workshops, and implement the learning about animal farms as well.

There are other CIV programs in place to help church partners throughout El Salvador, including programs to help parents grow maize and beans by providing seeds to them at low costs and programs to teach children and parents to make dried fruits and jelly, then sell them as a sustainable activity.

“The cry of a child cannot be comforted when the father is lost because he stole to give food to his family. The call to the church is to do something before this happens, to prevent.” – Pastor Mena

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Just as any other Sunday, there are people in the streets coming and going. Housewives with shopping bags going to the local outdoor market to buy the ingredients for lunch, families with their best garments coming from church, and kids going with balls to the park.

The air is filled with freshness and calm, and somehow the future seems brighter for many people going to the local church in the Majucla community.

In a neighborhood named Cuscatancingo, in a poor area of San Salvador, walls full of graffiti, stray dogs, and police and military forces are part of the normal landscape. There are also groups of teenagers with baggy pants and big shirts, some of them with tattoos. They are gang members just ‘chilling.’

In this neighborhood, there is a church named “Tabernaculo Biblico Bautista Majucla” or Baptist Biblical Tabernacle of Majucla. And on this day, at a little bit past 10 in the morning, there are over 100 people in the church.

There is a line outside of the church, and it is growing. The church is almost full. For anybody just passing by, this seems like the second service at the church, but it’s not. The message is a bit different because it is a monthly meeting that the center has with the parents of the children enrolled.

Brother Rodolfo, the pastor, isn’t sharing the message, but his wife Wendy, a respected woman in the community with vast experience in pedagogy, is.

The people attending these monthly meetings come from low-income families. Most of them do not have formal jobs. They survive making tortillas or selling vegetables at the local street market.

These meetings are an initiative in El Salvador called “school for parents,” and the initiative is being financed through a Complementary Interventions Fund (CIV).

CIV is a tool used to provide additional assistance to the families of the children registered in the Compassion programs.

“We come here to learn,” says Ana Luz, mother of Rosibel. “It is a blessing too, because my husband is not Christian, but he likes to come to the meeting.”

The purpose of a school for parents is to inform the parents what their children are learning, but also to have an opportunity to provide parents knowledge and tools that will help them in their role.

The Compassion centers have adopted this model and meet with the parents at least once every two months. In the case of Tabernaculo Biblico Bautista Majucla, they meet once a month.

The school for parents has been active since the beginning of the center, a little more than three years ago.

Just as in a school meeting, the parents get acquainted with the upcoming events at the center, they know when the next sponsor letter is due, and which children have received letters from their sponsors. There is also participation by either the pastor or a special guest, such as a medical doctor, a police officer, a firefighter, or a psychologist, who talks about a subject of interest for the parents.

The talks at the meetings touch issues from marital problems to good health practices for the family.

“We do not take our children with us for these meetings because they are a distraction, and some of the subjects are not appropriate for them,” says Ana Luz.

In fact, some of the subjects studied at these meetings teach the parents about the well-being, the trust, and the intimacy of couples.

“I believe that if the couple is ok, the children will also be ok,” says Sister Wendy, explaining that if the couple lives in an atmosphere of love and understanding, the children will also receive love.

There is also the spiritual component. The parents read the Bible, pray and sing hymns, and those seeds are starting to bear fruit.

“I was not Christian, and I did not want to know anything about church, but I liked to come to these meetings” says Dinora, mother of Laura.

Finally, the Bible studies given by the pastor at the school for parents penetrated Dinora’s heart, and she became a Christian.

“Since last December, I started attending church,” she adds.

The success of this program does not happen just because of the training and knowledge of the staff, but because of their love for the children and their families, and the commitment of the pastors and the church.

“We have spiritual help and material help,” says Sonia, mother of Edwin. “My children are learning about computers … [But also] I know that if one of them gets sick, I can come looking for the pastor and he will help me.”

This morning, Sister Wendy is talking about the psychological implications of a divorce in the lives of the children. After about 20 minutes she ends her talk with the words: “The best solution to face a divorce: to hold hard in the hands of the Lord.”

The staff plan the school for parents with love and enthusiasm, knowing that this will impact the lives of the children at a deep level.

Brother Nicolas, grandfather and caregiver of Brenda and Tatiana, shows his excitement for what he learned at the school for parents and for the efforts of the church to provide a good service, with integrity. “Whoever is not grateful with God for this blessing, and with the staff, is not being fair,” he says.

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This is the fruit of seeds planted with hope, watered with hard work and dreams, and, at last, harvested with joy.

Pastor Damian checks two sacks full of beans. It is just the beginning of the harvest and the fruits already look promising.

Another man, Brother Juan, a seasoned farmer with dark skin and gray hair, is a perfect example of a Salvadoran farmer – thin but somehow robust, quiet and wise. Juan has served as an adviser to Pastor Damian since they decided to implement program “Double Seed.”

Juan talks about the beans and how they should keep some leaves and dirt in the sack so the beans will not lose the humidity they need.

“This way, they can last for about a year,” he adds, and smiles, knowing that the efforts made these past three months have given results – promising results that translate into hope.

It has been three months since Double Seed started in the community of Corinto, in Zaragoza, a city located eight miles south of the capital city, San Salvador, in El Salvador.

These past months meant sweat and great efforts for the people, but it also meant hope for a future that did not seem so clear a few months before.

Declarations made by international organizations since the third quarter of the year contrast with the hope at Zaragoza.

On July 13, 2008, the president of the World Bank, Mr. Robert Zoellick, declared to news agencies that they estimated that poor countries will need over $6 billion in assistance because already rising food and energy costs will continue to climb until 2012.

The economy section of El Diario de Hoy newspaper the next day showed that the cost of staples has increased 40 percent. But numbers are not as compelling as individual stories.

The journalist recalled a scene at a street market where a woman who preferred not to be identified collected the grains of maize that fell on the floor after the salesman weighed the grain to put it in bags and sell by the pound.

After much effort, this woman collected about one pound of maize just from the grains that fell on the floor, which would her feed her family that night.

Since the global food crisis filled the headlines and breaking news segments, Compassion El Salvador and its partner churches began to create strategies to face this threat. Among the strategies are agricultural development programs for the families of Compassion-assisted children.

The crisis experienced all around the world has complicated roots, and the truth is that the most affected are the people in greatest need. Now Compassion is striving to provide help, hope and the Word of God to those families at greatest risk.

Compassion El Salvador created multidisciplinary teams at the country office level, which developed a strategy that first takes into account the valuable input of pastors and church leaders.

This strategy has been implemented in two stages. First is the short-term response, where families  most in need receive immediate relief through our Complementary Interventions program (CIV). They are receiving enough food for their families to cover six months.

The second stage involves the church more, since the purpose is to support the families at the child development centers, and start income-generating activities such as chicken farms and hydroponics.

Among these programs to secure food for the short term is Double Seed, implemented by our church partner, Iglesia Jesucristo es El Señor, which runs the child development center, Nuevo Amanecer (New Sunrise).

In rural communities like Corinto, most of the people do not have a steady job and survive with what they can harvest with the seeds they receive from the government. The real hope and help they have comes from churches and organizations like Compassion. Churches like Jesucristo es El Señor and Pastor Damian understand this and have taken the challenge to make a difference in the lives of the children.

Sister Sandra, partnership facilitator for Jesucristo es El Señor, says the church received $2,000, and there will be another $700. With that money the church was able to buy seeds and other materials they needed to begin the harvest.

The land was borrowed by the pastor’s family, and the labor was the result of the collaboration of the families of the children at the development center. So far, they have sowed five acres of corn and one more of beans.

The most impressive part of this plan is the name, Double Seed. “At the place where they have sowed the beans, the church has a small group that meets to share the gospel,” says Sister Sandra.

It is called Double Seed because they are not just planting grains that will secure food next year for the families of the children from the child development center and the church - they also are planting the gospel that will secure the salvation of the families that are not Christian.

For now, Double Seed has been a short-term immediate response to the food shortage and is intended to secure food for the families of the children enrolled in the program for the next several months.

The church is becoming a holistic oasis in that poor community, where people are not only finding support for their children, but also for their families and for their souls.

“The LORD will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest.” – Psalm 85:12 (NIV)

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“Lord, if you allowed this to happen, it’s because you will give me something better.” These were the words that Rosalva expressed when she saw her home torn apart by an earthquake that hit the town of San Lorenzo, in the department of Ahuachapan, about 100 km west of the capital city San Salvador, in El Salvador.

Earlier that day, at about 1 in the morning, the town had felt a tremor. Then, at 11 a.m. of the same day, a 4.6 earthquake hit the area; this is like detonating 1,000 tons of TNT.

Rosalva worked as a baby sitter on the other side of the town, and as soon as she could, she ran home, only to see a big hole in the roof, since most of the tiles had fallen off because of the magnitude of the quake. The walls, made of adobe (a mix of clay and straw), had cracks all over, and the danger of them falling apart was evident.

Thanks to God, her family was okay, but the damages to the house were irreversible. “All four corners of my house were completely separated” says Rosalva, trying to describe how her home, a small, one-room house, had cracks so big that the corners were not together anymore.

Civil Protection, the government agency designated to evaluate damages in these situations, reported that 90 percent of the houses in the area suffered damages, and about 70 of the 200 houses of the town were declared uninhabitable.

Rosalva lived with her parents, her husband, her two children and her niece. Suddenly, all her family had to sleep in the street because the earth kept shaking, and being inside the house was too dangerous.

According to the Seismology Investigation Department of El Salvador, what occurred in the town of San Lorenzo was labeled a seismic cluster, which indicates a series of quakes centralized on an area. This particular seismic cluster lasted from December 19, 2006, until the middle of January 2007.

According to El Diario de Hoy, one of the main newspapers in El Salvador, in just three days, there were over 800 earth movements reported, even though the magnitude and frequency of those kept descending.

“I asked my pastor if I could go to the temporary shelter at the local school, and he said it was okay,” says Luz, Rosalva’s mother and caregiver of Yaquelin, Rosalva’s niece.

“So I took my children there [the shelter] and the earth kept moving, and so did they [the church staff]… my brothers and sisters did not stop, the Lord gave them the strength to keep moving” adds Luz, taking pride in being part of such a lovely church, where everybody takes care of each other in troubled times.

“The angel of the Lord stays close around those who fear Him, and He takes them out of trouble” says Luz, convinced that she trusts a powerful God.

In fact, she trusted God, as did her daughter Rosalva and her granddaughters, Yaquelin and Laura. God answered their needs, and the Church and Compassion were the tools to deliver His blessings.

“We contacted the director and told her to raise a census of all the families with children registered at the child development center who needed assistance” says Omar, Partnership Facilitator for Compassion El Salvador.

“Then, we proceeded to make a physical inspection of the damages, so we went to San Lorenzo and made home visits and took pictures to make a Complementary Intervention (CIV) request to help those families” he adds.

Complementary Interventions is a tool used to provide additional assistance to the families of the children registered in the Compassion programs, since the money received from sponsors are strictly designated to provide each child with the four main components of the program: spiritual development, health preventive and corrective measures, school reinforcement, and socio-emotional development.

Through CIV funding, the children and the church partners can receive additional help, such as construction of houses, which is the case for the Shaddai Student Center.

When the staff from Compassion went to San Lorenzo, they took a tour with Brother Omar, the pastor. Brother Omar did not have the usual look of a pastor, with a tie and suit. He had a sweaty T-shirt and a baseball cap, and his black shoes were not black anymore, they were a mix of mud brown and green. And it’s because the pastor along with the rest of the church members were already helping.

A proposal for disaster relief was sent, and two months later, it was approved and the child development center received a total of $27,245, to benefit 29 children and their families affected by the earthquake.

The proposal included a local contribution of $3,100, which was the cost of labor. The families of the children committed to work in the construction of the houses to save the $3,000 needed. Brother Omar kept the muddy shoes on, as well as all the student center staff, and helped the families to reconstruct their homes.

“Some months before we had the blessing from God to get a little piece of land” says Rosalva. But they did not have enough money to build a house and move out of her mother’s house. After the earthquake, Rosalva had the blessing of having her own house built on that land, and her mother Luz Maria also had her house rebuilt.

Since the local government promised to provide the affected families with aluminum sheets and plastic to build provisional shelters, the disaster relief from Compassion was used to build cement walls, and the materials provided by the government were used for roofs. The money was not enough to put in floors, so the houses had dust floors.

Laura and Yaquelin were two of the children who kept receiving blessings from the Lord, through their sponsors. Laura and Yaquelin received family gifts from their sponsors, which was enough to put tile floors to both houses. Laura also got a bed, and Yaquelin got a bike as well.

They are two of the 186 children assisted at the Shaddai Student Center.

Yaquelin and Laura have not forgotten the fear they felt, but now they are two happy cousins with big dreams in their hearts. Most likely, one of them runs to the other’s house and they go to the child development center together.

Laura’s mother, Rosalva, now works at the Compassion child development center, giving school reinforcement to the children, and helping them with their homework. A total a 31 children and their families were assisted. These families trusted God, stayed close to Him, and he took them out of trouble.

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