More Cool Stuff

So this past week has been pretty incredible. We've been on campus each day Monday to Friday to meet new students, explore their spiritual lives, and tell them about Vida Estudiantil and how they can both meet new friends and be challenged in their faith at weekly meetings and Bible studies. We knew that Matias has 2 separate campuses, but since coming here we have discovered that students only have classes in one or the other depending on their major, so half of us have been going to campus 2 every day, and I am in that half! It's pretty cool because we're kind of launching a new movement on campus 2 as well as being a catalyst on campus 1. Each day has been a new experience, with both challenges and blessings. All the students I have talked to have some kind of spiritual belief, yet some are more secure in their spiritual life and destination than others.

As well as just sharing our faith, we also advertised to each student we talked to about the first weekly meeting of Vida Estudiantil (VE) on Campus 1 which we had on Thursday. It really was just a party to start the semester off for them. It was kind of a stretch to get students from campus 2 there since it was about a 15 minute walk, yet still a bunch of students came, and there were at least 50 new students from both campuses at the party which was really exciting for us on project and the Matias students. It was a great time of meeting new people, sharing what the mission and vision of VE is, and hanging out with the students. I would say there are roughly 20 students actively involved with VE, mostly from Matias campus 1, and Manuel and the other staff told us that if we could help them get about 15 or so new committed students to this ministry, they would be ecstatic. Already this week there have been at least 9 students who made first time decisions to put their faith in Jesus. I had the privilege of witnessing this first hand with 2 guys that I and my friend Clay got to talk to. Each day this week seemed better than the last. Though some of us on the project have had some tough times with students either with language barrier or disinterestedness, the day we had the party was a huge boost of encouragement, and God was definitely doing awesome things through our conversations. I think we all felt great about this first week.

We also had the opportunity on Monday and Tuesday morning before going to the campuses to hang out with students at a christian school. Monday we were with students grades 7 through high school to do Soularium, a picture survey that is a great tool for making conversations about life and spiritual things both fun and comfortable. I was surprised at how vulnerable these students were to talk about what is good in their lives and what is hard. Many of the ones I talked to wished that they had a better family life. On tuesday all of us guys did a pretty ridiculous dance routine for a while to a crowd of younger students, which was such a blast. Then we just played basketball and soccer with a bunch of kids. Definitely a fun and great experience to see the joy these students had when us big kids came to hang out with them.

Last night we went to Benihana's for Jamey and Lauren's birthdays which were the last couple days. I've never been there, but it's so entertaining to have the chef cook everything in front of you. After that we all saw Inception. Amazing. My mind was blown as I'm sure is true of those who have seen it. Don't miss that one.

This next week the Matias students have a vacation. Seems early after only 1 week into the semester. Since we won't be on campus, we will be able to do both some service projects and some fun things which I look forward to telling you about!

I feel like the longer I'm here, the better it is. Praise the Lord for that.

I'm loving this place more everyday!

So I've been super busy the past week and haven't found much time to update the blog again, but I've honestly been having the time of my life here. About half the time since my last update we've been just getting to know and appreciate our surroundings. That includes driving a couple hours to a cool town called Juayua (pronounced "who-a-you-a") to see a cool artisan and food market and experience delicacies such as rabbit, going to a beach and trying some surfing, and going to the top of a nearby dormant volcano to eat at an awesome restaurant that overlooks the city and countryside. Last Sunday we visited a local evangelical church that Manuel's family usually goes to. The songs and sermon were in Spanish, which I know very little of, but it was still really special to see the passion for Christ in the congregation, especially all the men in the church who show outwardly their love and need for God. 2 of the nights this past week, we split up into men's and women's times in which we shared life stories with our groups. It was so awesome to hear how God has worked in the lives of all the other guys on our team. I was really impacted by how powerful testimonies are in general and how people's lives being changed by Christ's love are much more compelling to me of my certainty of Christianity than all the best philosophical arguments for it. In my fellowship with the group, we all connect super well and just love being with each other so much. I'm certain that we have been hand picked by God specifically to be together for this project.

During this past week, we went on campus 2 different days. The first time, we met up with the staff and the students involved in Vida Estudiantil, did a prayer walk through the campus in groups, and got to know the students a bit. I really love them. They are super friendly and funny and passionate about the ministry of bringing students closer to Christ. Our second day on Campus this past week we went out in groups sharing our faith and inviting students we met to come to the weekly meetings of Vida Estudiantil and the english clubs we will be having twice a week. Most students were very interested in this christian community we told them about, and in finding a more meaningful relationship with God. This week the students would only come on campus to find out what their schedules would be for this next semester, but this next week when they begin classes for the new term we will be on campus each weekday to either evangelize, work with the english clubs, or do follow up with new students. A couple days ago, we were trained by the staff alongside the other Salvadorian students how to effectively organize and share our personal testimonies of how we have come to follow Jesus and also how to effectively do outreach and followup during launch week to get new students involved in the movement.

So only about 10 days after arriving, God is already rocking my world. Can't wait to see what else He has in store for us when our ministry starts to pick up more!

First couple days in San Salvador

The team: from left to right: (top) Jared, Clay, Jamey Pappas (staff) with his son Jason, Riley, Andrew, Meredith, Alex, Christian, Karli, Kimberly Lauren, Myself, staff Adam and Alyssa, (bottom) Brandon, Sarah, Hannah, Jodi, and Grace.

El Salvador! Before I write anything else, I need to preface by telling you what this project is about. Our team consists of 6 guys and 8 girls from Cal Poly, a guy from UCLA (Jared), and a girl from New Hampshire (Hannah) and 3 staff members and one of their families. Our main purpose is to continue building spiritual movements on 2 of the top universities in the country through evangelism, follow up, and discipleship in hope that we may be influencing the future influencers of El Salvador to be Christ-centered leaders who lead the country with godliness, and sound moral judgement.

After a 3 day briefing at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, CA, our summer project team flew out of LAX on a redeye and arrived in El Salvador at 7 AM yesterday morning (thursday). We were all quite tired by the time we arrived, but very glad to have made it nonetheless. Most of the day was spent driving to our hotel in San Salvador, the capital, and sleeping since we didn't get much rest on the flight. We're staying at the Hilton Princess, a pretty nice hotel actually with lots of amenities, because we apparently got an unbeatable deal to stay here. We met Manuel, a middle aged Salvadorian who is on staff with Vida Estudiantil on the campus of Universidad Dr. José Matías Delgado which we refer to as the Matias campus. Vida Estudiantil means Student Life and is the Campus Crusade for Christ movement in El Salvador. Manuel is such an awesome guy, super friendly and great sense of humor. I learned that he is friends with Steve Jordan, who is the father of one of my best friends in Lodi. It's crazy the connections you can make! After some rest, we went to have dinner at the house where the STINT girls live when summer project people aren't here. STINT stands for short term international missions. It's about a 1 year commitment to an international mission project with campus crusade. For dinner, we had pupusas, the only truly native Salvadorian dish. It's kind of like a tortilla, but really thick and stuffed with anything like cheese, beans, pork, and/or vegetables and topped with vinegary cabbage and salsa.

Manuel, his wife Sessy, and a STINTer Brandon who went to Cal Poly, and Selegna and Jeanette, 2 other women on staff, talked to us after dinner a little about how the campus ministry works. Today they came to our hotel and gave us a pretty comprehensive overview of what is appropriate and acceptable in the culture of El Salvador; how to dress, how to greet, interacting with the nationals here as visitors from the United States, and other social etiquette. We learned that Salvadorians are very people centered with respect to time rather than event centered like in the US. People place high value on who they are with at the present, and will be late for class or any appointment rather than abruptly leave an unfinished conversation. There are many other things about the culture that I will just have to experience on my own and tell about in more detail later, but one thing that is very striking so far is that Salvadorians are extremely friendly, polite, and hospitable people. Although I haven't had interaction with a ton of nationals yet, it has been true with every single person I've met, and I've been told numerous times that this is a common thing about the people. It is now past my bedtime and I need all the sleep I can get, but I will update again once we have more interactions with students on the college campuses.