Surprise!

"So what do you think about El Salvador?"  Our first few days in the country I struggled to answer this frequently-asked-question because we split our time between the classroom where we were leading a training event and the home where we slept. But by the end of our time there, my answer centered around unexpected surprises like the following:

• Spending quality time talking about the situation of the youth ministry at the church which sponsored the Raices event with everyone from the pastor, the elders, and the youth ministry team to parents and teens. We rarely have the chance to develop such a comprehensive understanding of the context we're teaching in. As a result of this unique opportunity we were able to be more helpful to them as individuals and as a community.

• Catching up with our EJ Institute student from El Salvador.We try to visit our students in their ministry context, but we never dreamed we would have the chance to see her world, meet her family, etc. Our relationship deepened more in 36 hours than it had in a year in Buenos Aires.
 
• Dreaming of exciting future projects with our co-worker and friend, Felix Ortiz (stay tuned for details).
• Counseling a newly married couple trying to mesh their lives and ministry styles as they pastor a church in a marginalized part of San Salvador. They are on the front lines of bringing Good News to a broken community and it's a privilege to become part of their support system.

• Viva Espresso (link). The first morning of the conference, the organizers brought us lattes from this local coffee store. One sip told Tim that this was no ordinary coffee. It turns out that this coffee shop has groomed the 2011 world barrista champion, serves amazing coffee, and quickly became our "meeting room" since it was five minutes away from the conference site.