The Happenings

These past couple weeks things have still been going great, here in El Salvador. I just praise God that I have the opportunity to serve the Lord here. I truly love working with the children in Guayabo, even on those days when I am stressed or tired, they always make me smile! :) Since I have been here a month the kids and I are starting to bond and they are actually starting listen to me now, which is very important because many of the children pretty much have free regin in their homes and haven't really ever experienced discipline or have been taught a lot of what we would consider proper behavior, so when I would tell them not to throw things they wouldn't really listen but now they are starting to listen to me, PTL!! I know this is going to be a process and some days are better than others but I praise God for this progress!

I have also have had a few times in the past couple of where I have had to "exit my world and enter theirs" and I have to say it's a lot easier said than done!!! Exiting my world and entering theirs is something we learned about at SPLICE and I'm SO thankful that we did, because the times when I have encountered these moments, I did not expect them and I wouldn't have been about to do it with out God's help. During those moments I was so very thankful once again for the time I spent in CO at SPLICE!! I am so amazed at how much I use the stuff I learned at SPLICE everyday. I also miss my amazing friends so very much! I would love to be able to go shoot some hoops and play some Monopoly Deal with the Posse!!

Here are some more pics of the beautiful children I get to work with everyday!! :)

One Month!

Well it has been one month since I arrived here in San Salvador! It doesn't even seem like I have been here a month, it seems more like a week or two. El
Salvador already is starting to feel like home. When I got here I hit the ground
running and started going up to Guayabo and working in the community center everyday
during the week. It has been amazing to be able to work and serve these children!
At the center I’ve been helping the students with their homework as such as math, reading and writing. Also we have been working on various projects with the kids because September is the month of El Salvador’s indepencence so we have been decorating the community center in order to celebrate.

I’ve also have been able to continue to learn Spanish more and more everyday, which has been a huge answer to prayer. The biggest thing for me is that El Salvador has a lot of slang and idioms that they use and sometimes I have no clue what someone says when they use those words but I praise God that I have friends who help me out and tell me certain words that are only used in El Salvador and how to use them and such.


Here are some more pics of the kids at the Community Center!! :)

Feliz Dia de Independencia

Today is El Salvador's independence day! It's has been great so be able to experience how the people of El Salvador celebrate their independence. In El Salvador it's not just the 15th of September that they celebrate, people are celebrating and preparing the whole month, which I think has been really kind of cool. The kids at the center all month long have been working on projects to decorate the center with El Salvador's colors and flag. They would randomly break out into singing the national anthem of El Salvador and they were just so excited.

So we got up early this morning to go to the parade that they have. I was told that it is tradition to get to where the parade is going to be early (because otherwise there is no parking) and eat traditional Salvadorean food and then head out to watch the parade. The parade was cool, but it was strictly a military parade which is where all the branches of the El Salvadorean military march in the parade. It was cool to see all the people and the music, although they didn't throw out candy like they do in the states, but I have a feeling that the whole candy throwing things really only happens in the States. I got to wear my El Salvadorean soccer jersey today also so that made me very excited. It has been a wonderful day and I'm excited that I have been able to experience independence day in El Salvador.

When I am weak, You are strong!

As I have mentioned before one thing we talked a lot about at SPLICE was the stages of transition. I have to say that I am still in the chaos stage but hopefully I will exit this stage soon. Don't get me wrong I have loved my time here so far but this week was one of those moments where I felt like I couldn't say anything correctly in Spanish and at times having trouble communitcateing and I got hit with a big dose of homesickness. I have to say that I think one of the most humbling things in cross cultural ministry is when you aren't able to communitate what you want to communiate. This experience this past week has just lead me to cry out "God Help!" I was also just reminded of 2 Corinthians 12:9

"But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me."


It's weeks like this past week that I am so incredibly thankful that where I am weak, God is strong!

Yesterday I got hit with a huge wave of homesickness. I don't know what happened exactly but I really started to miss my mom and my nieces and nephew. I think its probably because my niece, Amelia, is starting her first day of kindergarden tomorrow and I wish I was there, because I helped raise Amelia for the first 2 years of her life and I am really going to miss not being there for her first day of school. I also just really started to miss my best friend Sarah. I miss seeing her and hanging out with her. However, I'm thankful that in the midst of my wave of homesickness, God gave me something to smile about...Victor Raul and I have started to become real good buddies :) and as I was really feeling homesick, he comes running up to me and says with a smile on his face, "Alyssa, mi mejor amiga quieres jugar conmigo?" it was so cute and def put a smile on my face and it was def my yay duck moment for the day. :)

Music speaks to me so much and this morning at church God gave my a song that really hit home today and it was just a really good reminder that He is all I need no matter what is going on in my life. In English it's the song called All I need by Hillsong but I love the song SO much more in Espanol. :) I couldn't find the Spanish version so this one has English subtitles but its still really good!

A week of yay and yuck ducks

Well I would have to say that this past week was a week filled with yay and yuck ducks. The yuck part of the week was that Saturday morning I woke up and I had a really really bad cough and I had no voice. Silvia called Doctor Henry and he said that I probably had picked up a throat infection from working with the kids at the center and he told me what medicine I needed and told us to go to the pharmacy ( I learned that you can buy a lot of RX drugs here without a RX). I laid low the next couple days all of Saturday and Sunday I couldn't talk at all and it was not fun! :( becauseI do have to say that being sick and such made me miss home and as much as I don't want to admit it I kinda just wanted my mom to come and take care of me because I really felt terrible. I do have to say that Silvia took care of me, it was such a blessing she kept asking if I needed anything and then she made me homemade chicken noodle soup, which was wonderful and a huge comfort thing that reminded me of home in the States. However, I finally started to feel better on Monday but not totally better so I stayed home from Guayabo.

I did have yay duck moments too! :) I went with my friends Luis and Pamlea to BW (which is one of my favorite places to eat here) and celebrated the birthday of Luis's sister Andrea and then after we met up with peeps from La Red to go see a movie. We saw super 8 and I didn't think that it was all that great. Then I got to hang out with the kids in Guayabo the rest of the week which is wonderful. It's been really cool to see that now the kids are getting use to me being one of their teachers so we are bonding more and more. :) One thing that I have found quite funny is that at first many of the students have trouble pronoucing my name because my name in no shape or form goes well with the Spanish language. I just found this funny because a lot of people can't pronounce my name in English either. The best and funniest thing was Silvia (one of the little girls) came running up to me and was like Senorita Suzie I need your help...you kinda had to be there but it was funny and I have no idea where she got the name Suzie. ;) I've also realized that the kids LOVE getting their picture taken...if they even see my camera case they ask if I will take a picture :)








I do have to say that in this past week I experienced my first bit of missing being in the US. It was mainly because I was missing my nieces and nephew, because they are just growing up so fast. My niece who is six months old said her first words earlier last week and my sister sent me this pic of her and it just made me miss her more!

One Week

Well it has been a week since I arrived here in El Salvador(actually its more like a week and a half but I've been too busy to blog). It's still kind of sureal that I am actually here and being able to serve the people of El Guayabo. It's been such a blessing. So far things are going well and I praise God for that. Last Saturday I got to go to La Red again which is the college age/young adult group and it was SO nice to connect back up with a lot of my friends. We had a great time studying the Word as well as just hanging out and having fun. Then on Sunday I was introduced to the whole church and such, which was fun and then later that afternoon, I went with some of the girls form La Red we went to play some FUBTOL!!!! It was wonderful, I have really missed being able to play actual games of futbol!

I went up to Guayabo with Silvia on Monday,Wednesday and Friday and I met some more kids who attend the center but where not there last week and on Friday we had students from one of the local universities come and give dental consultations to all the kids. However, the bad part was I think that something I ate Sunday or Monday morning was not really safe for me to eat because I got really bad stomach pain, but it went away on Tuesday night. I think that it helped that we didn't go up to Guayabo on Tuesday because both Silvita and Victor Raul were both sick so Silvia had to stay home, so I got to relax during the day which was really nice, because it was really the first time since I have gotten here that I have been able to slow down a bit because I have been going going going constantly since I got here, so it was since to be able to take a Sabbath and just rest in the Lord. Thursday I didn't go up to Guayabo either because I was going to have a conference call with GCM, GCLA, Stonebrook and Victor,so I couldn't go up to Guayabo since there is no internet. It was actually really good and encouraging meeting. :)

Like I said today (Friday) we had students from UEES who are dental students and they came and did dental work on all the children in the center. It was such a blessing for the children and their parents to have the children to be able to have their teeth looked at because these families can not afford dental care. It was a really good time but most of the children cried while they were getting their teeth cleaned and such which made me really said but in the end they are going to be healthier for having cleaner teeth. Afterwards, I decided that we were all going to play games to help cheer the crying ones up and it kind of just turned into four kids grabing my arms and legs and wanting me to carry them around but it was fun and later I was giving piggy back rides and they think that that is just the coolest thing ever :)

That's about it for now. It's been a great first week and a half and I'm excited to see what God has in store next week, but for now I am going to head to bed, but first here are some pics from today.



This is Darling and I
This is Aldo Josue
This is Margarita and I
This is Yulexia and Emerson
This is Tatiana Damaris

El Guayabo

I've been here a little over three days now and I'm adjusting well to all the transitions. I think that it has helped a ton to have stayed with the Turcios family when I was here before because that gave me a little glimpse of what was to expect, but there are still many transitions and changes that I am adjusting to.


Today was my third day up at the community center. It's been wonderful to work with the kids and help teach them. God is doing to do some amazing things in this community. Today all the kids learned how to say my name and the rest of the day randomly they would yell out "Alyssa" and I would ask them what they needed but they would say nothing I just wanted to say your name...it was funny( the best part was the huge smile on their faces :) We had a lot of fun playing this afternoon because since it is Friday the kids have a bit more free time and they love that I will play with them and today all they wanted me to do is to swing them around in circled while holding onto their hands....it was hilarious :) then I have piggy back rides.

I finally took some pictures today of the community center and of some of the kids. So here are a few that I took...I'll post more on Facebook when I get a chance.