Samuel's Adventures: Life is short

I was reminded of this while attending an El Salvadoran funeral this past Tuesday...

Let me explain a little bit further. In our church there was a very feeble, old lady named Hermana Rosa (Rosa is her name, with the Spanish "hermana" (sister) as a prefix which is used as a courtesy).

I never heard much from her. Actually, pretty much the only way I knew her name was because I took her to church sometimes when I drove my route to pick up the deaf children. But later last year, she stopped coming because she was just too sick to be able to do almost anything. We would occasionally go and visit as a church, but that was almost all we ever saw of her.

Last Tuesday, after a few years of battling with a bad heart, she finally went to be with Jesus. And it was good that she was finally able to leave. Now she can run, dance, sing, and not have to worry about anything anymore!

And so all of us went to the funeral which, in itself, was a very interesting cultural experience. For most El Salvadoran funerals, the procession is usually done sorta like the Amish do it in Lancaster County. Everyone stays behind the bier, and the whole line moves veeeeeery slowly sometimes walking and sometimes in vehicles. There were about 15 or 20 of us packed into an 11 passenger vehicle going about 2 mph. We were very glad we had air conditioning!

The pickup truck with the casket in the back.

Yeah that's a lot of people in a van!

Once we got to the graveyard, and after stepping over many graves to get to the tiny plot where Hermana Rosa's body was to be buried, we had a short devotional and some songs reminding us of the brevity of life and how we need to make sure we are living correctly right now and not waiting until tomorrow.

During the service I noticed a few strangers beginning to mingle with the crowd whispering, "candy, sweets, snacks... only a quarter". Now THAT was a shocker for me! I have known the market people to be very aggressive with selling fruits, vegetables, etc., but seriously?! At a funeral?! I asked Paty about it later and she said that it's pretty normal. She said that actually they like funerals, because they can usually sell more. (!) Anyway, that incident left me shaking my head, and realizing that there are still quite a few cultural nuances of El Salvador that I don't know about.

All the peddlers eager to sell us anything from sweets to ice cream.

School this week went well. We were blessed to have Christina Beiler come and work for us from close to home (I say close 'cause it's close compared to the distance between home and El Salvador. :) ). Christina arrived in El Salvador on February 2, and stayed at Strong Tower Children's Home for three weeks helping them with cleaning, cooking, and other jobs. She was initially going to stay only a week and come to the deaf school for the rest of her time here, but she did such a good job, that they weren't ready to let her go after a week!

She was still able to be at CICS for 10 days though. Those days came and went very fast! While Christina isn't an expert at ASL or Spanish, she got along pretty well and made a lot of progress while she was here. We were all very glad for her help. Nata said she should get married then move down and live here. :)

This weekend we are all staying at the AMA guest house in San Salvador and hope to go to the beach tomorrow, if everything goes according to plan. Can't wait to go to the beach again!

Thanks so much for all your prayers and support! I've really felt God helping me these days with school. Sometimes it feels overwhelming, but then I have such a wonderful day at school, and I know that God is telling me "just trust Me". Pray that I could do just that!

God bless y'all. 'Till next time!