Op dit moment zitten Sharon en ik hoog in de lucht op weg naar onze vakantiebestemming Hawaii. Aan de ene kant ben ik blij dat we nog een paar dagen vakantie hebben en aan de andere kant vind ik het contrast met wat we de afgelopen dagen hebben gezien en gehoord wel groot. Alhoewel ik tijdens ons verblijf in El Salvador dagelijks mijn blog had bijgehouden (in het Engels) wilde ik toch iets in het Nederlands schrijven, zodat het wat toegankelijker zou zijn voor mijn Nederlands sprekende vrienden. In totaal waren we 8 dagen op pad met Rocio en haar team. Rocio was verantwoordelijk voor de tour in El Salvador. Het was een druk en zwaar schema, maar terugkijkend ben ik blij en dankbaar dat we dit alles mochten zien. We waren met een grote groep: Jan-Willem Vink, Jonathan Dickhof en Paul de Vos waren namens Compassion mee. Verder was er een grote groep ambassadeurs: Ben Ketting, Reni en Elisa Krijgsman, Rob en Lee Ann Vermeulen (van de Kids Crew), Hanne en Corinne de Vries en Sharon en ik. En tenslotte waren er twee camera mensen mee: Tim Neeves en Ben Sherlock. De laatste twee komen uit Engeland. 

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Since I can't find the right words to say, I wanted to end this blog with some pictures. I hope these pictures can somehow reflect this special trip and all the beautiful people that were in the group and we met during the trip. 

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Today is the last day of our program in El Salvador and our hosts decided to go out with a bang. We were invited to visit a CSP project. CSP stands for Child Survival Program and is esspecially designed for moms and their new borns. Again we were amazed to see the passion of the project workers and the impact it has on the moms. But next to the joy and hope we saw, we were also confronted by the broken hearts and the pain some of the moms had. The stories about runaway dads brought many of the group to tears. And it really hits you when a young girl (18 yrs) starts crying because her boyfriend left her. It's very hard to find the right words and I don't think that those words could be found... The one thing we could do was to hug them, listen to them, pray with them and smile and cry with them. Sometimes that is much more impacting and a bigger help than the most intelligent peptalks. 

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What a joyous day we had today! It was such great fun to meet up with 5 LDP students for a fun-packed day. We went zip-lining and it was amazing! It was a route of 14 lines and the longest line was 280 meters. And the view while going down was amazing since the line was around 125 meters above the ground! We had so much fun with the LDP-ers. After this amazing adventure we had lunch in a beautiful garden. The best thing of today was that we had the chance to chat with and get to know the LPD students better. 

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Today started like any other day during this trip. The alarm went off around 6.30 AM and we had to get ready. Before the church service we received a tour of the project run by the church. We visited the bakery, the "chicken farm" and the beautysalon. We saw how the kids were trained and developped the skills to be able to work in those areas of expertise. Again I was amazed to see how kids can be helped by teaching them simple and basic things. In a country as Holland education is almost taken for granted, but in a country like El Salvador you really see the difference education can bring in someone's future.

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After a not so pleasant night (with lots of stomache problems) it was the day for the concert. I found out that I didn't had the right medicine with me. Luckily Barbara had some medicine with her and it helped! So I was ready for the concert. We had hundreds of kids in the auditorium and they were ready to party. There were 7 local bands performing and we, the Dutchies, did our songs in between the performances of the local bands. We had so much fun with the kids. 

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I think that yesterday's dinner wasn't a real success for me. This morning started with stomach ache and diarrhea, so that wasn't too nice. And the rest of the day I felt nauseous, but thinking about today's program I didn't want to miss a thing so I got ready to leave. Today hundreds of kids came for the workshops. We had several topics: vocals, band dynamics, songwriting, accoustic guitar and choreography. But before we started with the workshops we had some plenary sessions. Lee Ann opened with sharing on "the character of a musician" and she did an excellent job! So proud of this rock mom. And after Lee Ann it was Hanne's turn. It was his first time as a speaker and he gave his all. He shared on "the character of a worshipper". Since Hanne ended 25 minutes earlier, we were asked to tell the people who we are and to "show" our talents. That last thing felt a bit weird, since we didn't came to give a show... but okay, we all played some music and sing some notes :-) 

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After a great night sleep (I slept all through the night) I was ready for day three. Today Sharon and I would be filmed for our new video. We were invited to visit Avi's family. Avi's family is a loving family. She, her brothers, sisters and mom live together with the rest of the family (grandma, granddad, aunties, uncles and cousins. But I did noticed that her dad wasn't mentioned in the story. Later her mom told us that Avi's dad left two years ago and never came back. But through it all we saw a strong mom. 

The family makes a living by selling tortillas. And with that they make around 20 USD per day. I must admit that I was surprised that they make so much every day. I mean, in a country where most people earn 300 USD per month, 20 USD per day isn't bad... but then I discovered something...

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After a short sleep, because of jet-lag, we had to be ready by 7.30 AM to leave to our next project visit. This project started six and a half years ago and had never received a group visit before. It was a 1 hour and 45 minutes drive and we were heading west from San Salvador to Chalchuapa (15 km west from Santa Ana). The city is located 650 metres above sea level in a wide valley. On our way to the project we passed beautiful sceneries... the mountains, the trees... it was amazing. And when we arrived in the city we passed through so many colorful streets. You would forget that gangs are active in this country, but seeing the police escort reminds us of this. Sharon even took a picture with one of the police officers :-)

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Our trip to El Salvador started on Monday September 5. Sharon and I were late at the airpoirt because we didn't heard our alarm in the morning. It was so embarrassing to be late since every one else had to travel for at least an hour and we only live 20 minutes away from the airport. But we made it :-) Before we landed in El Salvador we had to fly to Houston first. That flight was quite long, but I'm so gratefull that God blessed me with the gift of sleeping LOL I slept 6 hours and that made our 10 hours flight much shorter. Our touch down in Houston was one to remember. The plane was shaking like a dancing baby and just seconds to the touch down it really seemed as if the wing would touch the ground. It made me realize that our lives are not in our hands, thank God that everything went well and we landed safe in Houston. 

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