Pilgrims and strangers

As I'm sure some of you know, getting all the paperwork done for a long stay in a foreign country can sometimes be a long and arduous process--especially if your paperwork isn't exactly right. My paperwork was all in order, praise God, and it still took 5 trips to various locations in El Salvador until I had my NIT and my carné (see below). Plus, before I even got to El Salvador, I needed to acquire a certified copy of my birth certificate with an apostille attached and a criminal record sheet with an apostille attached. All told, I made 2 trips to Harrisburg at home and 5 trips down here in order to get the two plastic cards below. Also, my wallet was about $160 lighter. Yikes!!

My carné, a residency card that serves as identification.

My NIT, an identification number that you need to get your license
 and also for other various reasons.

All this stuff about immigration made me think of what my high school science teacher, Mr. Harrison, used to say when we would talk about citizenship, traveling, passports and such. [This is my best Mr. Harrison voice] "Brother, Mr. Stoltzfus, did you forget that other country you are a citizen of?" :) And he's right. If we are Christians, we are part of the Heavenly Kingdom of God. It's free (money-wise), anyone can be a part of it, and there is no paperwork required! Only heart-work. Praise God for salvation and His blood that he shed on the cross to pay for our "immigration"! I hope this thought blesses you as much as it did me.

In other news since last time...

The week after vacation started off with a bang! On Tuesday night, a group came to visit Melody. They are staying until this coming Thursday morning. They brought along a bunch of things for school and otherwise that us staff had order online and shipped to Melody's house. They also helped to butcher 87 chickens on Thursday. Now we have plenty of meat for a while!

Chickens meeting their doom. Left to right: José, Nata, Mauricio, Manuel,
Matthias, Melody, Rose, Andrea, Kendra, and Elmer.

On Wednesday was Joel's eighth birthday! In the last period of school, we made ice cream and ate it with some cake. I also gave him some Legos for his birthday. He and the rest of the class have had lots of fun playing with them already!

What would I do without Eduardo, Joel, and Jairo! They all
tremendously enjoy playing with the new Legos. Joel appears a bit
frustrated, however, in his search for the Lego piece he desires. 

On the weekend, we had a conferencia at church Saturday evening and all day Sunday. Arturo (Arthur) Nisly talked about some key things that makes us different as Anabaptists. He introduced the acronym BISNES to help us remember the key points.

B = Biblia (Bible -how we interpret the Bible and our emphasis on the New Testament)

I  = Iglesia (Church - how we worship)

S = Salvacion (Salvation - our doctrine of salvation)

N = No-Resistencia (Nonresistance - how we treat our enemies)

E = Evangelismo (Evangelism - how we evangelize others)

S = Separacion (Separation - our doctrine of Noncomformity)

Between the power-point that he used and his clear Spanish, I understood most of what he said, which was a blessing! I really enjoyed the weekend and it was well worth the extra church time.

Another major thing (for me). I got more mail! We hadn't gone to the guest house in San Salvador (where all the mail goes) for a while, so there was a bit of a backlog. I got 4 envelopes, a new record! I about couldn't wait to open them all. :) Thanks so much to all you kind people who took the time to write. It is much appreciated! I also want to thank all of you that are praying and supporting me in other various ways. I can't thank you enough and God bless y'all richly!

I hope y'all enjoyed reading! I'll wrap it up with some prayer requests:

• Thank God that the first third (!) of the year went well and pray that He would continue to bless the work here at CICS
• Pray for all of us here that God would give us patience and wisdom as we work with students. Pray that we could plant the Word of God in their hearts and that it would bear fruit in their lives
• Pray for Carlos. He is a student here and he has asked for prayer several times that he could draw closer in his relationship to God. Pray that God would work mightily in his life.
• Pray for safety for our visitors in their travels
• Pray that I could continue to learn the languages. I'm not nearly there yet! I now need to have story (for devotions for the deaf children) 6 times a month, so that'll be a real challenge. I will also start translating for the deaf at church soon.

God bless y'all once again for your support! If you'd like to contact me, please see my contact information on the top right. Until next time...

¡Vacaciones! feat. the Ramos family

This past week was Semana Santa, which is Holy Week for Catholics throughout Central America, and a week-long holiday for everyone else. Most stores are closed and few people stay home. It is said that during Semana Santa, all of El Salvador goes to the beach, and if they are too poor, they find a river somewhere. :)

We opted instead to go to Apaneca, a quaint town in western El Salvador about 15 miles from the Guatemala border, from Tuesday to Thursday. The Loncho Ramos family also vacationed with us and provided us with transportation and helped us fulfill all our touristic needs. :) We were all very blessed that they were able to go along and save us the headache of trying to decide and plan our own trip, plus they were a lot of fun to be with! After our Apaneca trip ended on Thursday, I went home with the Ramos' and stayed at their place for the weekend.

Some highlights:

• Walking/shopping in the beautiful towns of Ataco and Guayua at dusk. There were painted walls everywhere and the late-evening light made all the tourist merchandise glisten and sparkle in the sun. Pretty much everywhere we traveled was at a higher elevation so the air was cool and fresh.
• Zip-lining in the mountains of Apaneca. Some of the cables were strung above canyons probably 500 feet below. Flying over them with nothing supporting you but a 3/4 inch cable is a feeling like no other.
• Talking and playing games until late at night and not needing to stand up (that's how I say it) until...well whenever you felt like it!
• Spending 4 days at the Ramos residence. The whole weekend I was worrying I wasn't doing enough to warrant a bed and food, and the Ramos' were worried I was bored! Whatever the case, spending the weekend at someone from my own church and being able to just let it all hang out was very rejuvenating. I adopted Kendrick as my little brother and made him behave the whole weekend. It wasn't an easy job. :) 
• Texting (via iMessage) and Skypeing with my family. My little sister is starting to talk now and I can't wait to see her and everyone else face to face again!

Below are some pictures of our vacation. I posted many more on our photo stream. There's also a link in the right sidebar of this blog.

Where we stayed for a couple days during our
vacation. A beautiful place to stay!

Pretty merchandise just waiting for a tourist to snatch up.

The zip-lining adventurers! Left to Right: Verónica, Mary Eva, Andrea,
Melody, Matthias, Kendrick, Samuel (me), and Elmer.

You can't see it, but's there's a lot of air beneath me!

Elmer, Matthias, and I. Some of my favorite people! 

¡Qué chistoso! A somewhat drunk individual paid us a visit at the park and
made himself look pretty stupid. Elmer kept fingering at the man's clothing
and eventually convinced the man that he was crazy. :) 

My little bro. Hey there, Kendrick!

After the week of vacation was over it was hard to get back in to the rhythm again, despite the fact that I missed my students. For one, I was short on sleep (isn't it ironic that people always seem to be tired after vacation?!) and doing some actual work again seemed a bit tiring, but I'm definitely not complaining!

School this week has been going well. I'm focusing on really hammering new words into my students. The first of three spelling competitions (more on this later on) is coming up in the beginning of May and we need to be ready. Jairo has been missing the last two days for unknown reasons. Let's hope he comes tomorrow ready to learn!

The rest of this week is going to be a bit different for several reasons:

• Melody's visitors are coming tonight and staying the rest of the week.
• Joel turns 8 tomorrow, so I won't have the class the last period. Instead I will give him his gift and we'll make ice cream to celebrate. I found some Lego's at a mall down here for really cheap and I know he'll like them. I about can't wait to give them to him!
• Also tomorrow, Nata's (the family that's in charge here) are going to San Salvador to get Visas for when they go to Mexico later on this summer. Matthias and Andrea are going along to work on their immigration papers (Melody and I are already done, praise the Lord!)
• On Thursday, we are planning on butchering chickens when the visitors are here. This means we won't have any school that day--instead everyone helps with the chickens, or tries to help as is usually the case for the little ones. :)

Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to the rest of this week and this year. God will help me if I have problems--nothing is too big for Him! He is the one that strengthens me!

Some prayer requests:

• Thank God that vacation went well and that He could help all of us teachers and students as we "get back into the grind"
• Jairo, that he could come back to school soon
• Joel, that he could have many more happy birthdays and that he could grow up to be a soldier for Christ
• Safety for our visitors as they travel

Many thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read! If there's is something more you'd like to know, or you would like to respond for any reason, feel free to contact me! My contact information is on the right sidebar. God bless you all for your support and prayers! Good-bye for now.

Meet the staff at CICS

I thought I'd dedicate this blog post to introducing the people I work with on a daily basis. I'll refrain from giving too many boring details, but hopefully you'll know everyone a little bit better by the time you finished reading. :)

The amazing people I have the privilege of working with here at the deaf school. This is at El Boqueron, a volcanic tourist attraction where we stopped to eat pupusas. Left to Right: Andrea Hershberger, Maria Eva Pacheco, Melody Eash, Verónica Rosales, Matthias Beachy, Elmermontano Adalberto, and Samuel Stoltzfus (that's me!)

Andrea is the dorm mom for Beatriz and Silvia, the two girls that sleep here during the week, and is responsible to give work for them to do. She also helps with the cooking, does most of the cleaning, and washes all the clothes (and scrubs them when we wear, say, a white shirt for a very dirty activity). We try not to let that happen. :) Taking care of the girls (in her first year, no less) takes quite a bit of wisdom and patience, but she does a swell job.

Maria Eva teaches the oldest group of girls in school. Her students are Ana, Beatriz, Paola, and Teresa. After school here at CICS is finished, she eats a quick meal and walks over to the local hearing school where she teaches again until about 5:30. In spite of her busy schedule, she is usually quite amiable--which is more than could be said of me, I am sure! She is often mistaken to be the daughter of Nata and Becky, the family that is in charge here, but she is actually Becky's younger sister.

Melody is the teacher of Miguel and Silvia, in what you might call a "special-ed" type of class. Probably the most important requirements for a teacher in this class are patience and creativity, of which she has plenty. The children are cute and all, but sometimes they can get on your nerves--you constantly need to keep changing things to keep them from getting bored. She also assists Andrea with dorm mom responsibilities, when needed. Also, her boyfriend got killed by a thoughtless person's sandal. It was quite traumatic for us all when that mouse died!

Verónica is our main source of grub around here. She is deaf, but she doesn't let that get in the way! Besides all the standard El Salvadoran food, she also makes great peanut butter pie, soft pretzels, pizza, and the like. She uses an English cookbook for some recipes, and all the others she has memorized. She is the sister to Ana and Teresa, two students that attend CICS. She is almost never mad, and has an unforgettable laugh that is frequently initiated by Elmer, the clown of the bunch. (see below)

Matthias is the guy in charge around here, besides being a teacher for the oldest boys--Carlos, José, Kevin, and Mauricio. He is also the person I go to for advice and or answers to questions. This is his third year here at CICS, so he has plenty of experience with Spanish, ASL, and various cultural nuances. He has the distinguished honor of being baby Dwight's favorite grown-up, except maybe for his mother Becky. Another fascinating tidbit which earns him quite a bit of teasing from the rest of us: he doesn't like any food that is green or grows on a plant (except Coke and Oreos). Oh, wait...

Elmermontano (Elmer for short) takes care of the boys that sleep here (Carlos, José, Kevin, and Miguel) and makes sure they help with the work--lots of patience and wisdom required! He is also deaf. His main responsibility is making sure everything works as expected around here. This includes such unpleasant work as unclogging the sewer system when it goes kaput and the water comes back up Andrea's shower drain. His other "responsibility" that he fulfills quite well is keeping us all entertained. If he is not telling a funny story or telling a joke, he is pranking some unsuspecting victim and making everyone else laugh in the process. He has (almost) no shame and will often be the first to volunteer for daring or downright crazy ideas. The other night we did the thing where we told him we'd give him $20 if we cracked two eggs on his head. We had a good laugh over that!

And I'm the newbie of the bunch trying to find my place. :) I teach the middle class, Eduardo, Joel, and Jairo. Even though I have the title "teacher", I'm probably learning close to the amount that I'm teaching. Just today, I had to ask my student what a sign was for a certain animal in their books. I often hang around Elmer and Matthias, partly to learn new things, and partly because they're just fun to be around. I'm the only one here from Pennsylvania, so my accent gets mocked frequently. *sniff* Also, I have yet to win any game here at CICS. But there's always hope...

Of course, there is another thing that is the responsibility of ALL of us here that I didn't mention above for repetitiveness' sake, and that is to reflect Jesus Christ in the way we relate to the children. Both by loving them at all times, and also by encouraging them to walk on the straight and narrow way. Sometimes the children need correction, and it is up to us to perform that unpleasant, albeit necessary, task. A lot of these children have grown up in less than ideal homes and they need LOTS of love and encouragement. They very rarely refuse attention, and it is that bright-eyed response, that eager smile, that teasing laugh which helps us to look at the big picture and realize that indeed, as Jesus said in His very own words: "Let the little children come to me... for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these." Helping a child respond to the things of God is a privilege unrivaled by anything on this earth! However, doing the above requires a close relationship with the Father. I can't speak for the others, but I really need your prayers in this area. There are so many distractions that Satan would have us observe, but with God's help and your prayers he can be defeated!

And now for some prayer requests:

• All of the students here at CICS: Ana, Beatriz, Carlos, Eduardo, Jairo, Joel, José, Kevin, Mauricio, Miguel, Paola, Silvia, and Teresa
• Especially for Carlos and Ana. They have asked for prayer concerning their spiritual lives. Pray that God would reveal Himself to them.
• Us staff as we try to fulfill our ultimate responsibility: exposing our students to the way of Jesus

Thanks a lot for reading and God bless you for your support and prayers! I couldn't do it without you all! If you would like to contact me, look for my contact information on the right sidebar of my blog. Until next time...