Movie reference? Anybody, anybody? Bueler?
Well we did go up a hill today, and we did come down a mountain, but not all quite at the same time.
Our journey started early Monday morning, when we left Dulles after a travel blessing from Pastor Leah and a lesson on the theological merits of sitting in coach, rather than first class (as though there was that option) from Pastor Edgar (“I do not need to be there. I want to be back with my people”). We arrived relatively rested and well-fed in San Salvador to find Xochitl, Paula, Axel (and of course some delicious Deli Maya snacks waiting) for us. After a round of hugs we headed into the city, stopping to collect Pichy, who took us to view the construction site at the house that Shalom is building for one of its members. We saw both the old house–which has been moved to a temporary site during construction–and the new one and met with family members and Shalom members.
Heading down the house road.
After checking in to our hotel, we headed out for a rice AND corn serving pupuseria. The smarter half of the group knows that rice pupusas are far superior, but a few holdouts are still lingering in darkness. We even have some claims from more naive members that both are good, though as we know there is no room for wishy-washiness in this polarized debate. Hopefully this week will enlighten everyone.
We spent most of this morning at the construction site. Our job involved cleaning out trash and transporting cement up and down the hill where the new house is located. As the work began, we carried loads up and down individually, often bumping in to each other on the hill’s narrow paths and struggling under the weight. A few folks decided to form an assembly line, which worked extremely well. At first we tried merely passing buckets full of debris and cement up and down to each other, but Pastor Edgar showed us a far better method.
“Easy. It’s just like Judo,” he told us before launching into a demonstration of the sport.
Apparently Judo involves not a show of brute force but a transfer of power from one object to another. By throwing, rather than simply passing, the bucket we would transfer its momentum–especially as the buckets gained steam near the bottom of the hill. Some of the folks at the bottom of the hill didn’t always love this, but it worked well enough.
“He has no training in Judo,” Mario told us later. “He just watched The Karate Kid recently, so he thinks he knows about it.”
Oh well, other than a few sand mouths the Judo method worked pretty well (it turns out that the person on the receiving end of the power has to be fully aware of its transfer in order for it to work). We knew that we could basically become Olympic champions in the sport, and more importantly bonded while singing and joking as the buckets made their way up and down the hill. Several youth listed the assembly line as the highlight of their day, since we had the opportunity to get to know the folks around us and laugh over this crazy-but-perfect idea. Of the theological metaphors, we decided the best fit is that “The Kingdom of God is like an assembly line. Everyone does one small job, and usually nobody can see the beginning or end (and certainly not both at the same time). You don’t know where you’re starting and where you’re ending, but you know you have an important role.”
The assembly line helped our work to be done quickly, and after a delicious lunch back at Shalom we headed back to the hotel to shower and change. After the hard work of the morning, it felt good to clean off a little bit and put on our church clothes before heading out–where else?–to climb a mountain.
As Roberto explained, the Doorway of the Devil acquired its name during the war. The twin peaks look like a doorway, and many people died during the dangerous trek through the passageway en route to San Salvador. And as Jason explained, “Most people call it the ‘Doorway of the Devil,’ but Pastor Edgar calls it ‘Doorway to the Sun’ because he likes the name better.”
The Doorway is beautiful, and between clouds that rolled in and out we had a chance to look down and see all of San Salvador, as well as surrounding towns and even the Pacific Ocean. It also made our little hill from that morning seem so much smaller!
Halfway up!
Middle of the doorway. From whence we came.
Along with the assembly line, the highlight for many of us was evening worship at Shalom. It seems that self-actualization on mission trips has become such a facet of American church life, with mountaintop experiences and new friends followed immediately by normal life and a failure, for whatever reason, to maintain that experience. The difference in Shalom and Calvary’s relationship has been characterized as “sister churches,” but as Jason said in his sermon, “We are not two churches. We are one church, just separated by some geography.” This fact became apparent so many times during the day, from the assembly line to youth from both churches goofing off in the back of the van to the fantastic reunions between old friends to the pride we all felt while watching a slide show of the churches’ combined construction efforts (there were, in fact, few dry eyes in the house) to singing “Make Us One” on a rural road and “Estamos Juntos” in the sanctuary to–of course–many, many questions about Calvary family members who aren’t on this trip (everyone says hi!) to laughing at the antics of our communal and beloved Pastor (and apparent Judo master). Our first day has been a great reminder of what a special privilege it is to be part of a larger body of believers, not only in the often-theoretical seeming sense, but in a very tangible way as well. I know more than a few of us felt this during Pastor Luis’s welcome speech.
“Welcome to your family. Welcome to your house. We are glad we are home.”
Gracias, Pastor. It’s good indeed to be home.
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Calvary To El Salvador 