The Summons

With the pandemic raging world-wide, the eagerly anticipated sea turtle project in El Salvador is on hold. Now we spend much time in our yard, Nancy with her flower beds and my work is in the vegetable garden. The garden has been fruitful: asparagus, potatoes, lettuce, spinach, onions, and my major crop of garlic. I find the package seeds very interesting. They remain dormant until opened, planted and watered. Then very little seeds, like a grain of sand or a very small pebble, produce gigantic plants. Not only having fruit but many seeds to do it all over again. I find it fascinating, wondering how this works. What summons these seeds to life, what generates such abundance? Unlike our garden that has been producing food for life and health, early May was catastrophic in El Salvador. While Central America has dealt with drought for the past three years, the winter rains provided hope that the drought was over. Then Amanda hit and the capital city was flooded and the Eastern zone (Usulután and rural San Miguel) were also flooded, wiping out established fields and fields of newly planted crops. Our project partners wrote advising that the season could be saved with a second planting as normal rains have continued (normal – like in the tropics). Nancy wrote a grant to her Rotary District that was generously approved. We were able to send enough funding to provide replanting of fields, planting of fruit trees for improving their diet and to secure more erosion control. Other donations allowed the purchase of food as the price of red beans is escalating; another project will be determined by our partners after they revisit and assess the needs of the people. We will miss our annual visit with our project partners and the people we serve together. At every visit we are witness to the growth in each of their lives. I think there is a correlation between seeds and people. While created by God, both have boundaries and limitations. To grow, seeds need to be planted and rooted. God summons people to move into new areas of life, to experience different cultures and people to see a more balanced approach to our world’s population. You don’t need to live in another country, maybe just to visit another neighborhood in your city, visit an outdoor food court, listen attentively to learn what others are talking about, talk with them to find out what you have in common. Our culture may hinder us from immediately embracing others as they seem different but that openness is part of personal growth too. The summons that grows those minute seeds is at the door of all our hearts. Unlike seeds, we have choices to grow or stay in the package. But we as individuals who love justice and seek to show mercy, we can be the planter and gardener of those seeds.

The Call

Reflections on our mission Call As we do during down times and longer absence from El Salvador, we like to reflect on our past experiences. When we first married, Nancy and I discussed mission work. We contacted our National church and before you could say Amen, we got an abrupt rejection, told we were too young. Fast forward to 2003, with 40 more years of experience we again contacted the National Church about mission work and were told we were too old. That same year, the missionaries our congregation supported returned home and our congregation reconsidered mission opportunities for our members’ personal growth and spiritual development. To implement our church’s mission strategy, a delegation of 13 traveled to El Salvador. We were matched to little community not far from the capital of San Salvador. We visited there three times that week. It was very hot, dirty, dogs everywhere, chickens, and mosquitos. It was too hot to sleep at night, we were becoming fatigued. On the second last day of our visit to the community I told Nancy I would never come back to this country. On the last day of our visit to the community, three women leaders approached Nancy and me and said “could you help us, our children are dying from diarrhea”. With heavy hearts we returned home. Over the next year, we came in contact with a young man attending UW-Madison who gave a presentation to a Rotary Club on the work of Engineers without Borders in Africa. We emailed him asking if his chapter could help this El Salvador community with sick children. He took the concept to his EWB board and they said yes. The Rotary/EWB project started in 2005 and finished in 2012. The project was valued at $2.5 million and completed with all volunteers and $140,000 in Rotary funding. Now 15 years later, no children have died from diarrhea. We visited the community often during the construction and our stays became longer and longer. Returning home from a summer visit in 2007 I was very restless. At the morning kitchen table I said out loud. “Lord what to do want of us” He said in a real voice “move there” I laughed and replied to the Lord telling him he had a lot of obstacles to overcome. Nancy woke up, joined me for coffee and I told her we are moving to El Salvador. It took us 2 years to prepare; there were obstacles and we could only pray over them as this is the Lord’s work and we would not meddle. We moved there in 2009 and returned home in 2012. Our time in El Salvador was all about deepening our relationship with the Lord. To accomplish this we needed to see the Lord through a different lens and free from our North American culture. Our relationship with our Lord grew stronger as we lived, worked and shopped in the most dangerous country in the Americas. It was still very hot, dirty, dogs everywhere, chickens, and mosquitos. It was too hot to sleep at night, we were still fatigued but stronger in our faith, hope and love with the Lord. David y Nancy Slinde

2020 El Salvador Project

Winter is long in Wisconsin and for us, by not traveling to El Salvador the time we would spend in preparations, travel and post travel recovery are absent. This extra time generates memories and nostalgia of the good times. The women’s empowerment chicken project is completed. Our public school projects are almost over and no one has approached us for another. At breakfast a couple of weeks ago, we met with a dear friend who has traveled with us to El Salvador. Together we shared our memories of what was so different from our culture and opened our eyes to another world. We agreed that our time with the rural project communities was some of the best. After breakfast I wrote to our El Salvador Partner asking about any pending projects. Well before you could say “it’s time to shovel the driveway”, he sent us a proposal totaling $25,000. The proposal is related to saving the endangered sea turtles. Why do they need saving? People living on the beach need any resource they can get to feed their families. Turtle eggs are treasured for gourmet eating and fetch a handsome price. As the turtles lay their eggs, the villagers wait for them to return to the ocean and rob the nest. There could be up to 40 eggs in a nest. We were served turtle eggs at an ocean side café years ago and believe me they are a treat. As we swallowed we were told we are breaking the law as eggs are protected, but having no enforcement. Turtle projects allow the villagers to continue to collect eggs, but then sell them to the project. The turtle project creates a turtle corral and reburies the eggs. In 41 days the turtles begin to surface and are placed in plastic tubs for two days while their shells harden. This simple process allows a 90% survival rate for these hatchlings. Our partners for economic development and sustainability have a plan for a huge project involving over 200 men, women and children. These are the type of projects we dream about. But we had to write back asking the project be reduced in size. Currently funding the project is an issue. We have started sharing this with others and believe we have some pending financial supporters. If we gain the financial support, we will be having two delegations to El Salvador. The first will be in August/September (hot & rainy season) to build the turtle corrals and the second in January/February (hot & dry season) to collect and incubate the eggs and release the newborns. If you would like to join us, let us know in order to reserve a place for you. David y Nancy

Community Development

We are writing from home in West Bend. We are enjoying the potatoes and garlic we grew in our garden, along with shoveling snow and receiving reports from our project partner in El Salvador. In 2013 we were introduced to a women’s cooperative that was determined to establish food security for 41 families. It involved raising chickens. During the past 7years we have been raising funds for these families. Some women have a chicken coop and others were waiting. We visited these women yearly and they never complained about waiting. The women with a coop always advocated for the women waiting. They are a close knit group that encourages and supports one another to be successful. We are delighted to report that this 7 year project is now completed with support for all the families. Following is an introduction to the women with pictures of the coops they constructed on their own. Silvia Yaneth Granados Karina Estela Aparicio Rosario del Carmen Rivas Jesús Martínez Briceyda Lisseth Saravia Rosa Estela Chávez María Candelaria Guandique This funding came from people who read our journals and support our mission for community development in El Salvador. Projects like this allow people to remain in their community close to their families. Thank you for your blessing David y Nancy