heading home...

Pots and pans clanking in the kitchen, smells of tamales wafting up the stairs and the water pump has begun its insistent cycling, pumping water up to the tinaco on the roof.  The morning of our last day in El Salvador sees everyone trying to find the last clean shirt and socks, packing bags, and generally fiddling with whatever is at hand as we each wrestle with the mixture of sadness of leaving this wonderful country and its people and excited anticipation of returning home to friends and family.


After breakfast and before leaving for the airport, we'll be heading out to UCA (the Universidad CentroAmericana) - the site of the assassination of eight Jesuits (including six priests/scholars) on November 16, 1989 by the Atlacatl Battalion in El Salvador's 12-year-long civil war.  Only two of the officers involved were ever brought to justice.  The incident was a climax in the conflict and helped focus international attention, helping to set the stage for the agreement signed three years later in Chapultapec Castle, Mexico which brought an end to the war and allowed the Salvadoran people to begin the long road to recovery.

That road is far from over and we have seen and heard countless testimonies to the persisting scars that people in the countryside are still dealing with today.  San Salvador today is overflowing with shops, taxis, Pizza Huts and Mr. Doughnuts but the challenges, both urban and rural, continue.  Poverty and economic injustice remain amongst the greatest challenges with which the church wrestles.  To these chronic societal illnesses have been added the twin plagues of crime and gang violence (exported from the U.S. with young deportees).  As they face this challenge the Lutheran Church has adopted the lema "No a la violencia, Si a la vida" (No to violence, Yes to life).  It's a slogan we have heard repeatedly and one we must take to heart as we continue engagement with our sisters and brothers here in our Christian walk of accompaniment.

CL-O