Breaking Bread with Friends

El Barial is a village on the top of the mountain in an area known as Ciudad Segundo Montes located in the eastern part of El Salvador. There is a single road leading in and out of El Barial. It is only 1.5 miles long but the incline and the poor condition of the surface cause our micro bus to have to work for over half an hour to climb into the sky and meet with the friends we made there last year.

When we met the people who live in El Barial in 2007, we listened to their stories. We heard how these families were forced from their homes due to the heavy violence in this area during the civil war. We listened as they told us how they had all lost family members, mostly husbands, sons and brothers. We heard them tell us of how they all became refugees in Honduras and what it was like to live together in Refuge Camps in Colomoncagua.

We were very aware of the sadness in the eyes and spirits of these people as they went on to tell us that once the peace accord was signed, they were resettled here, on top of the mountain. There was less violence here at that point and they were safe. Later, they were told they could return to their original homes but since they had been in exile together, had survived together and had learned to live as a community, they choose to stay here, on top of the mountain. The fact that there was no work, limited access to health care and huge challenges as far as nutrition did not change their minds. They choose to stay together as a community. Survivors all.

As they talked last year of their current condition we learned that they lived on corn and salt. We heard that many of the children were suffering from amoebic infection from the water and that malnutrition and illness forced them to bury loved ones regularly. They told us that if they could only get started on a project they knew God would restore hope to their community and they would begin to truly recover from the trauma that the war had left them with.

We met with Miguel Ventura and his wife Evelyn. Miguel had been a Catholic Priest before the war and now he and his wife work with communities like El Barial to start economic and vocational projects so that the communities may become self sustaining and vibrant once again through Christian Based Communities of El Salvador or CEBES. Miguel and Evelyn told us of a project to help the people of El Barial build a bakery and teach them to make and sell cakes. The people of our group set about raising over $3000.00 for this bakery project. We had no idea the impact this would have on this community.

When we returned this year, we saw hope. There were smiles and laughter, happy greetings and a bustling of activity that was absent on our last visit. Something was very different this year. We were welcomed back like old friends and we walked together through this village. When we got to the far side of the village we sat together in a circle and shared the news of both of our villages, El Barial and United States. While I can't recreate the feeling of the day, I can report the facts.

God blessed us in the United States group with the ability to raise the money. It was sent to the community and they bought an oven, work table, trays and pans and went to school to learn the mechanics of running a bakery. The team had been baking for about a month when we arrived. They bake three days and walk it down the mountain in baskets on their heads to sell for three days. They always sell all of what they make. They are currently trying to build the bakery's capacity so that they can make and sell more as they are only covering their costs at this point. Part of the challenge is that they can only walk a limited number of breads down the mountain. They are planning ways to build a bigger facility (they currently rent space in the back of a home). Our friends asked us to consider if we could help with that project and it's estimated $8,000.00 cost. It was a question asked not out of need, but out of cooperation and that motivation was clear and received. We sat and talked for 2 hours and shared stories of hope and joy. It had the feel of a planning session between friends.


As this bakery project has unfolded for the people of El Barial, other signs of hope are springing up. They have established a medical team to educate about boiling water, medications, and immunizations. They have a woman who works as a dentist, another who dispenses medicine and a third who teaches health related issues. There is a standing team now in place for future planning. They are researching how the community can plant other crops so that their diets are more nutritionally balanced. This team is called the Production Team and will help lead their community forward as they learn and grow. They have an education team in place that is very active in making sure that the young children of El Barial are given a solid foundation and seeking to build a scholarship fund so that they can all go on to high school or university. They are looking to get some computers into their school so that the kids will be familiar with them when they move on to higher education levels. They asked us to help them name this bakery that was bringing not only bread, but hope for a future and a sense of pride in their own accomplishments. This project was truly the light they needed to see to begin to move forward again. After some discussion someone suggested Manna. Everyone knew immediately that this was the right name. Bakery Manna. Manna supplied by God so that His people could be sustained in sufficiency while they moved out of exile and toward the promised land. Manna, a true gift from God delivered through the cooperation of peoples who had once been strangers but were now forever connected in friendship and miracles. And then we ate bread, together. Sweet bread that tasted of honey and friendship. Bread that left a distinct aftertaste of the Holy in your mouth. It was a true Communion.


Those are the facts. A miracle of hope. A people given sight of what they are able to accomplish with help from friends and God and the transformative power of that hope. We are not wonderful because we helped, we are called and we are blessed so we responded. The gift the people of El Barial gave us was so much bigger than any dollar amount we gave them, They invited us into their home, shared their stories with us, and trusted that we would return. When we did, we truly saw how great God is. We were witnesses to His healing power and the resiliency of his people. We were able to eat Manna. We could not say that before our visit.

God bless the Bakery Manna. May it continue to be a symbol of hope and a project that not only feeds people stomachs, but also their souls, their hearts and their friendships.


For more pictures of this wonderful day, click here.

Riding for Immigrant Rights

I found this article on a web site called Workers World. It is a great story about one man's journey over many thousands of miles in support of immigrant rights for El Salvadorans. One man's journey could seem insignifigant to some, but could inspire, educate and inform many others. Click here to read the story!

Audio Interview Regarding the Upcoming Elections

You can listen to an interesting audio interview with Lara Pullin of the Canberra Committee of the FMLN and her opinions on the upcoming elections and the current state of Human Rights in El Salvador. I originally found this audio source on a far left wing blog called Left Click, so please keep in mind that is coming from a specific point of view. I can tell you that we were able to verify some of these same issues regarding the upcoming elections including the split elections, which will make it difficult for the most poor and rural communities to vote in both the local and the presidential elections, and propaganda campaigns regarding the potential shutting off of remittance if the FMLN were to win a majority in the elections when we met with the Supreme Electoral Tribunal during our visit. This interview is worth a listen.

Beauty and the Bomb

In the small village of Perquin, near the Museo de la Revolución Salvadoreña (a museum filled with exhibits and artifacts from El Salvador's civil war), you will find a peaceful resting place. A spot to sit and listen to the song of wild Parakeets and other exotic birds while you watch the wind move the cocoa and banana trees. If you close your eyes you can quickly be lulled to sleep by the sounds of nature, and of peace.

But stay awake. Look around you. Look at the small artesania where you can purchase bracelets, key chains... and small hand made dioramas of guerrilla encampments as they looked during the war. Those little sculptures of bunkers and armored vehicles would seem out of place in a lot of other bucolic locations, but not so in Perquin.

Look at the small grove in front of you, right on the edge of the forest. Notice how this beautiful little copse of trees seems to be growing around an open circle, a depression in the earth that may have once been a very small lake, or a clearing for a large campfire circle. Had you been standing in this very spot just 20 years ago you would have seen the 500 pound bomb fall from the sky and rip into the earth as it was intended to rip in to the lives and spirits of the FMLN forces and civilians in this town. These trees are growing around a scar on the face of this town, a crater left over 20 years ago from a bombing raid.

In Perquin, remnants of the war and it's destruction are part of the landscape, reminders of a time so tragic and horrific that it can never be erased, either from the earth or the collective memories of the people. Yet somehow, these permanent scars have caused a transformation. This town was once the center of operations for the FMLN fighters and headquarters for the underground radio station radio venceremos. It was often fought over and held by both sides of the conflict. This entire region was once the bloodiest and most heavily bombed area in the country. It now has the distinction of being one of the least violent and most peaceful parts of El Salvador, according to El Mundo.

Even as I stare into this wound in the earth, I am not crippled by the violence or the death. I am enchanted by the growth. I am uplifted to see that the forest is reclaiming this little plot of land. The trees still grow, the flowers still bloom, and the people still live. It feels to me that even though the memory of the war is still visible, the earth and the people who live here are more focused on life. The horror and destruction will not be the last word. There is true Resurrection in Perquin and Morazan, indeed in all of El Salvador.

It is important to this town that they carry the story forward. The people are aware of that responsibility and have opened the museum and other sites that others may see and hear of their struggles and their losses during the war. It is in the teaching of history that we can open all of our minds and hearts to do what we can to avoid war. This place and these people have not let their history turn to hatred or anger though. It feels to me as if Perquin and Morazan have seen so much violence that they have come to know that they can no longer be violent. While parts of El Salvador suffer from one of the highest rates of crime and violence in the world, this battle scarred area remains safe and peaceful. Talk about beating swords into plowshares!

We walked around the town and saw children in school, people worshipping, teens playing soccer. We even met some members of the El Salvador Army as they walked down a hillside. Nowhere in this town did we feel anything other than peace and a definite sense that even though the land and the people wear their scars for all to see, there is not shame. Even though they have seen and felt horror, they have emerged from the other side and are focused on God's consistent ability to bring life out of death, hope out of horror, growth out of destruction.

I hope that I can learn from Perquin that my scars are able to support new life. I pray that I can never again hide the holes left in my own personal landscape but rather trust that God will fill them in. The depressions in the hillsides of this town give it character. It is obvious to me that the same is true of it's people. Thank God for Resurrection.

Earthquake near Usulatan?

I saw a preliminary report from the US Geological Survey of an earthquake hitting a 4.5 magnitude near Usulatan on August 21, 2008. Has anyone heard anything about this?

El Salvadors Police Chief Resigns

I just read this article from the Washington Post. I find this interesting, that three top officials in the national police would be caught up in scandal. During out visit to El Salvador we noticed and increased military presence. It was explained to us that the national Police had requested an increased military presence in anticipation of the elections. According to this article, there may be connection to drug dealers as well. If this is true, is there any one still wondering why people are worried about fraud in the elections? If this is true and the police, Military and Drug Dealers are all in bed together how can anyone expect an honest transfer of power with money like that on the line? Just my opinion...

Hammocks, Horchata, and Hope

We have been back in United States for three days and I feel like I am only starting to come back to reality. As we were driving home from the airport, I was listening to my travelling companions tell our driver (the mother of one of the teens on the trip) what we did in El Salvador. I was struck at how little the words can actually convey. It sounded like "We saw some people", "We visited some villages", "We ate some Pupusa", all very true but it felt like the words didn't capture anything of the essence of the trip. This is my second visit to El Salvador and I am convinced that it is impossible to describe in words alone.

El Salvador to me is more than a place, it is an experience. You can't just see it in pictures, or hear about it in words. You have to taste it, smell it, breathe it in and cry it out. You need to feel dirt floors beneath your feet in a church (as described by my wife). You need to hear the sun rise. It brings not only light, but also dogs barking, roosters crowing, insects chirping, and the whistle of a bird that sounds an awful lot like the first twenty notes of "the girl from Ipanema". You need to feel your clothes soak up your own sweat as you sit in a metal building, baking in the sun and then just as quickly feel it evaporate in the cool mountain breeze only inches outside the door. You need to laugh with the children as you try to communicate in different languages. You need to hug new friends and sit and talk for hours about what you have in common and also how very different your lives are. You need to experience what it feels like to be in the middle of hope and desperation at the same time. Your ears have to ache from the thunder claps in the mountains only to be soothed by the rain on the bamboo and palm leaves.

To know what it is like in El Salvador you need to sip coffee that was off the bush and into your cup before it ever hit a refrigerated storage unit. You need to taste honey flavored by those same coffee plants. You need to sway along to Latin rhythms that are unfamiliar to you yet remind you of something you can't quite put your finger on. You need to be made dizzy by the butterflys that rise up from the flowers as if the enitre flower bed were rising and falling and dancing to those unfamiliar (to you) Latin rhythms.

The experience of El Slavador is impossible to get over. That stunningly beautiful country, those incredible warm and honest people, all part of a sensory experience for me. I am begining to get reacquainted with my life here in United States and working toward bringing the gifts I received from El Salvador into my everyday life here. I am missing some of the experiences though.

I will hang a hammock on my porch and sway to the rhythym of my life here. I will prepare a glass of instant horchata, a flavor not completely authentic but reminiscient enough to stoke my memory of meals shared with friends in El Salvador. I will do these things and I will be filled with hope. Hope for our two countires, hope for our two peoples, hope that I may be able to bring the passion I feel to love and serve others in El Salvador and put it to good use in United States, hope that I will return to El Salvador in March and that God will continue to bless the relationships forming on both sides of the border.