Our last days in El Salvador

Part 4...

And then, as we neared the end of our time in El Salvador, we got to spend several days sightseeing, shopping, and just plain being together.  Those days definitely were a highlight of the trip.  We spent a day at the beautiful Pacific beach, soaking in the sunshine, sand and waves.  We soaked in a little too much sunshine tho', as we didn't think about how direct the sun was until we were pretty near burnt to a crisp!

 The amazing fish and chicken we feasted on in a little restaurant on the beach...

That last picture there is our wonderful mission trip parents!  We had an amazing time with them along!


One amazing thing about those days was the wifi we had at the guest house we were staying at!  Yes, we certainly made good use of it!

                                               Thanks guys for the wonderful mission trip!

Deaf School

Part 3...

After our time was up at the children's home, we moved over to the deaf school where we spent a few days interacting with the staff and children there.  It was great to get a change of pace and learn to know a new group of people. 

The main project we girls worked on was SEWING CURTAINS!!  Now normally, I love to sew, and sewing simple curtains like they wanted would not have been an issue at all, but 3 of our 4 available sewing machines either didn't work or all or only part of the time.  And the rest of the time we spent messing with them, trying to get them to work!!  It was a patience testing time for me, probably the most learning experience I had on our trip. But, we did manage to get a lot of curtains turned out and it majorly brightened up the house!

Now of course the guys didn't help us with the sewing, instead they worked on building a lean-to/garage type of deal.  We also got to see a lot of sign language in use, which I did enjoy.  It kinda gave me a hankering to know some sign language as well!

All in all, we really enjoyed our interaction at the deaf school! 

Good Shepherd Children's Home

At long last I'm back for Part 2 of our mission trip to El Salvador... our time spent at the Good Shepherd Children's Home. 

We spent nearly a week there, and poured ourselves into various parts of the operation that is going on there. We dug up flower beds and planted new plants, prepared a new garden, did some cooking, sewing and cleaning.

 Of course, we spent lots of time with the kids that live at the children's home!  I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with them, although the language barrier definitely made life just a bit rough for us all.  I was wishing pretty badly I knew Spanish!

Here's a few of my favorite pictures of the time we spent with the children:

We enjoyed our time there a lot and I am thankful we had the opportunity to go!

-Kim

El Salvador bound! -July 17, 2012-

On Tuesday, July 17, we began our adventure on our Hillcrest mission trip to El Salvador, Central America.

It started about 9:30 when we loaded up our van.  Yup, traveling with 8 people sure makes for a nice amount of luggage!

                            l-r Kendra and Wes, Jason, Ben, Jess, me, Sarah, Eleanor

Excitement ran high as we loaded up our luggage and ourselves and took off down the road towards Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport. 

                                          My awesome "lil sis" Sarah and I! =)

After checking in all our suitcases, and getting our boarding passes and everything squared away, we had several hours to kill, awaiting our flight into Houston, Texas. I spent part of the time reading. (Or thinking, as this photo depicts!)

Finally, we were in the air!!

After about a 2 hour layover in Houston, we said good bye to phone service and the good old USA as we took our flight South. We were already over an hour delayed due to our first introduction to the laid back, El Salvadorian culture where people don't seem to realize that there is a deadline or reason for what airlines ask of their passengers!   Anyhow, as we came in to land in San Salvador, we flew straight into an incredible thunderstorm.  The lightening flashed all around us in incredible bolts and patterns, while the thunder rolled and the plane jerked and bounced and threatened to send us all sailing into the unknown. It was the worst turbulence I've ever been in, and I've done my share of flying already! But I wasn't too freaked out until about the time we went to land. We were awfully close to the ground when I realized that we were going entirely WAY too fast for us to ever be able to land and I'm thinking, 'what in the world is going on here?!'  Suddenly, we began a sudden and sharp ascent into the dark skies, leaving behind the lights of El Salvador as we banked sharply to avoid volcanoes that spread out to one side.  I'm sure my heart stopped and started a few times through that whole ordeal as I wondered if we were gonna make it through all of this and still live to tell about it! 

And then we flew, and we flew, and we flew.  Where too? No one knew!  It was maybe 45 minutes later, when finally the welcome voice of the pilot came across the loud speaker informing us that because of the storm in San Salvador, we were unable to land there and were now 15 minutes away from landing in Managua, Nicaragua to refuel and wait out the storm.  We were able to get up and move about the plane during our 45 minute stay in Managua, but we were unable to get off, so it was still so tight and cramped in there.  Eventually though, we were cleared for take off once more, and away we went, this time we were able to make a safe and uneventful landing in San Salvador!  We were all thanking the Lord very heartily.

It was a little bit after midnight till we had our luggage gathered, and had gone through immigrations and customs and out into the world of El Salvador.  We were all exhausted and beyond ready to crash at the lovely guest house where our hosts had everything prepared.  We were all so thankful to be there safe and sound and all in one piece! (Although that definitely may be questionable!=)

And thus begins our adventure in Central America.  Stay tuned for the next post about our time spent at the Strong Tower Children's Home!

-kim

Early Monday Morning Ramblings...

Somedays I find myself wishing things were different.  If I were somewhere else, if circumstances changed, if there were other people in my life, well then maybe I could be happy, maybe i'd feel more alive and useful.

But I keep coming back to that rock solid truth, that no matter where you are, what you're doing, who is in your life that keeps annoying the tar out of you....no matter what's going on, true happiness comes only from finding joy and contentment in Jesus Christ.  True happiness comes from total abandonment in Jesus and letting go of the insecurities and the things that annoy you and realizing that life is too short to waste time on the lies of the devil.  One of the biggest lies I deal with is feeling like I have nothing to offer anyone else.  Satan has succeeded many times in making me feel like I'm just a bumbling Christian who has ever so far to go and I'll never be able to be an encouragement or blessing in the lives of anyone around me.  I find I bottle up inside of myself, scared to even allow myself to try, cuz I'm sure people are going to look at me cross eyed and wonder what kind of saint I think I am when I have so much to grow in. 

God keeps touching my heart and reminding me how untrue this thought pattern is.  It boils down to calling God a liar, because I'm not willing to accept and admit that God has changed me and is doing an incredible work in my life.  God has given me the gifts He's given me for a purpose, and if I don't stick out my neck and use them, I'll never know the power that He has and the ways He could use me to impact the lives of others.

My challenge today is, renounce the lies of the devil, and rise above the feelings of insecurity! Realize that you serve an awesome God who has absolutely amazing plans for you!  Embrace each moment, make the most of each circumstance!  Love the hard to love, because they are the ones who most need it.  Let go of the annoyances and look beyond the inconveniences people bring to your life and see the heart that is crying out for love and acceptance.  Others don't want to view you as a perfect person who has your life all together, but want to know you for who you are.  They want to know that you struggle, that you cry, that you feel like you don't measure up.  Sometimes all they need is a listening ear, and a shoulder to cry on that understands.  Never underestimate the power in a caring, Christlike heart and the impact that can make on the hearts of those around you.

Just a few of my ramblings... hope they can make a little bit of sense!

blessings on your Monday,
kim