Day 1 in El Salvador

My name is Jon McClay and I will be posting about the April 2nd trip to El Salvador that was partly organized by the Simple Way. Today Caroline and I both woke up at 3:30 am and began our journeys which united us in Houston Texas. There are 7 members of our team and we have all come from different parts of the country.

I am from Greensboro NC where I work for the Habitat for Humanity Affiliate there doing home repairs. This trip attracted me because I wanted to learn more about the events of El Salvador’s revolution and I wanted to hear stories about how the church united to care for those in need and how their communities banded together in order to survive! The idea of Liberation Theology is also completely new to me.

Day 1: We all met in San Salvador the capital city of El Salvador. We met at the Shekinah faith community with Ruth the Pastor. I should introduce the members of the team and include photos of them.

Ron Morgan is leading our trip and was a college professor before he discovered his passion for furniture!

Caroline is co-leading our trip and she is representing Cielo Azul.

Eli is from Grand Rapids, Michigan and is currently working at the St. Joe’s Catholic Worker Community in Rochester, New York.

Chava is the Chaplain at St. Joe’s and is a ex-communicated female Priest! She told me that she is probably one of approximately one hundred on the planet

Barret is a Minister at Carpenter’s Church in Lubbock Texas.

Leslie is our fantastic translator.

I am a guy who engages college to students to rethink what life is and how they want to spend it.

After we met at the airport we then drove a few hours to Santa Ana where the Shekinah Faith Community is located. This will serve as our home base. One of the unique parts of this journey is that we will be sleeping with members of this community! Instead of being together the entire time, we have the opportunity to share life daily with true Salvadorans.

Once we finished our meeting, we then met the different families we would be staying with and traveled to our new homes. Eli and I were paired together and most of my night reflections will be shared with him. We will be staying with the Baides family. I would say that I already feel as if Eli and I are brothers and I am very pleased with the pairing! We got to the house at approximately 6pm, got showers and then took naps. Sometime around midnight I woke up and realized I had missed dinner! Which is completely fine because we were told to bring our own snacks. Some filtered water and a snack was all that I needed and I returned to sleep. It is amazing how much energy travel will take out of you. Ron and his team have done a great job of recognizing that and have scheduled our trip around such factors.