El Salvador: Day 7 - "Hard Stories with Hope"

Today is Thursday, July 25th and today had a different tenor. After the heaviness of yesterday, we spent today once again meeting with incredible people and wonderful witnesses to God's grace, justice and mercy.

We started off meeting with UNES (in English it translates loosely to "United for the Ecology of Salvadorans") who mainly talked to us about the issues of metallic mining (with its' humongous economic and ecological exploitation of El Salvador) and water quality.  For instance, when a foreign company comes in to mine in this country AT MOST 2% of the profits will stay in this country.  Also, this country is already second to last in the western hemisphere in access to water (about 1, 300 Liters/person/year here vs. 700,000 L/person/yr in Belize not far to the north and using 900,000 Liters/day (the amount an average family uses in 20 years) for the 5-10 years that the mines are usually open.  The other huge ecological issue is the use of cyanide to break apart the rocks and the possible/probable poisoning of the water supply is unconscionable!  When mines close, the land in that place is just done.

Here is a poster showing the actual red color of a few of the rivers that have to suffer the consequences of run off from the existing mines:

Those rivers that run red are full of arsenic and other chemicals that cause all manner of disease and distruction.

I am so grateful for the passion and energy of these two amazing people working hard on this, along with many others.  Here are Alejandro and Alexandra that spoke to our group.

(They also shared stories of workers and organizers who are disappearing and being murdered for their involvement in helping the people of El Salvador)

Then we went to the CRISPAZ office (it is new since the last time) and met with a few groups, but first, here is a picture of Gail taking a picture of a picture of our last delegation in 2010:

(I had to wonder if someone was also taking my picture of Gail taking a picture of a picture)

Here is the picture itself:

After meeting with local artisans, and having lunch with them and the whole CRISPAZ staff, we met with a group called COFAMIDE (in English it is the "Committee of Family Members of Migrants Who Have Died or Disappeared on the journey through Mexico on the way to the USA to find work to take care of their families (or possibly reunite with their family members or escape the violence in their home country: 

And here is Luis (with Elba):

Our last stop of the day was at a home for street children run by the Delores Medina Foundation, and Sister Claudia is an amazing example of the incarnation of the love of God!  She is as proud of her kids as I have ever seen any mom:

All in all, today we again heard some hard stories, but also had an air of hope for things to be different.  In order to get there THEY will need to band together as Salvadorans, but we will ALL have to band together as human beings and children of God.

I truly believe that our world is tiring of cowering to the god of capitalism and the almighty dollar, and I hope and pray we are experiencing a shift in our human will.  

What will it take to change all of our structures to lift up people over of profits?  

What is God calling me to do? You?  

Does a revolution always have to be violent? What would a revolution of God's grace, justice, peace and mercy even look like? 

Does it even matter?  Or will I/we have the courage to follow Jesus come what may?  

We are all wrestling with huge questions, and probably / hopefully won't come up with easy answers soon.  Easy answers never work for complicated issues, do they?

Paz, 

Pastor Gregg (o "Pastor Gregorio" porque es lo mismo, mas o menos)

(BTW I am still not sure why  it is somehow easier for native Spanish-speakers to pronounce, "Pastor Gregorio")