Transfiguration

If you are not a parent or a donor, please feel free to skip to the next paragraph...Parents and donors, I simply want to say thank you. Thank you, parents, for trusting your beloved child enough to allow him or her to go on this trip. Thank you donors for making this experience possible. By your love, prayers, and support they had the opportunity opportunity to serve, but more importantly to have their hearts enlarged by the love they encountered.

In my three years on this trip, each has been significantly different both on a personal and on a group level. One of my favorite things to do on these trips is to take a step back and watch the students grow and flourish in ways they could not have even imagined. 

I am so proud of each of the 34 wonderful students for their willingness to be both a Martha, by serving, and a Mary, learning from the hospitality and love of the people we encountered. For me, some of the most precious moments on this year's trip are simple but profound moments, such as Tuesday's dinner when the camaraderie told us we no longer just a group from Benedictine on a mission trip but now a group of friends.

When I asked some of the students what they got out of the trip, a number of them expressed how clearly they saw Christ through the love and care of the people Unbound serves. Fittingly today's Sunday Gospel tells the story of the transfiguration. Peter, James and John saw Jesus more clearly. They heard how much the Father loves Jesus. Peter even said, "Lord, it is good to be here." And after those precious moments, they continued their journey, allowing that experience to strengthen them.

In the people served, in the Unbound staff, in one another, we had the special opportunity to see God more clearly and to hear God call each one of us his beloved. It truly was good to be there, to experience our own transfiguration moment. But, like the apostles, we must continue the journey. Please pray that we may not forget what we have learned. May the instruction we received about love, joy, and care of one another inspire us to a deeper love of God and to a deeper charity with those God places in our lives. 

God bless,

Prior Jeremy

Back in Atch

Well, we made it back to Atchison! Thank you all for your prayerful and financial support of this trip. The blog doesn't even begin to do justice to the experiences we've had and the people we've met, but I hope you've enjoyed this little glimpse into how our lives were changed this spring break. Here is a small sample of some of my favorite photos from El Salvador, because a picture is worth a thousand words. God bless! ~Kathryn Hermes

No Skills For Us!

Hi! My name is Meredith and I am a sophomore studying accounting. Today we traveled to Ataco! So much happened that opened my eyes.
    For starters we met a group of scholarship students that are studying to become all sorts of different professions. It is truly inspiring. We were able to ask questions and they were so grateful in their responses, and one of the students spoke to us in English, now that was an inspiration! He loved any opportunity to use his skills, and that made me want to speak Spanish so I could just have a conversation with any of them.
 After our gathering was over we had small groups that were able to visit the houses of some of the students. I had a wonderful talk with the girl and her family while sitting in her home. Again questions were exchanged about each others lives. She is going to go to school in a couple weeks to study to be a bartender so she can provide more for her family. At the end of our talk we could walk around and see her house. She showed us her bedroom which was separated from the other room by a sheet. The room consisted of two small beds where she shared with her family members. Four people total were in a small room squished together. This made me realize what I take for granted. I have my own room at home with a queen bed and too many pillows for my own good. I am thankful, but I just don't realize everyday when I crawl into a comfortable bed, that I am blessed.
  We said our goodbyes, and took this experience as we explored more of Ataco, leading us to a beautiful church where we could see the handcrafted altar and climb up to the bell tower. It amazes me how open the strangers in Ataco were to us, compared to strangers back home.
 Walking from the church to the soccer stadium every single person in our group was welcomed by a cheering crowd of locals waiting for us to get beat in soccer! First, we enjoyed coffee straight from El Salvador, probably to give us the energy to play against the kids in Ataco. Well one thing is for sure, we do not have the skills they do! It helped to laugh because the crowd was loving every minute of it! It was entertainment for sure! Even though I speak very little Spanish, the boys on our team understood when I told them just to take the ball from me and shoot it themselves! We might not be as good, but we all had a blast!
   There is something about the laughter in the crowd that makes it that much more enjoyable to play. Even if we don't understand each other, we can laugh together!
  We ended the night with a talent show where the BC students sang, rapped, changed Frozen lyrics to fit our trip, or even impersonations of the guys. So much laughter from the staff and students! It was an inspiring day filled with lots of joy.
  Goodnight to our last night at the complex.
Buenos noches,
Meredith

Dimples Are Universal

I have done hard things this week.

On our first work day, I sawed through tons of rebar (that is steel, my friends) and mixed bag after bag of concrete by hand with a shovel. On our second day, while ankle-deep in water, I crouched for over an hour while plastering the inside of our cinderblock structure. I lugged bucket after bucket of sand, filled block after block with cement, and all under the relentless El Salvadoran sun.

But none of these hard things compare to the difficulty of what I did yesterday:

Yesterday, I said goodbye to Nayeli.

The first thing I noticed about Nayeli was her dimples. Beautiful, beautiful caverns in her brown cheeks, deep and cradling a smile that seemed to hold all of life's secrets. This probably sounds strange, but her dimples surprised me, as if somehow I just didn't realize that the El Salvadorans, so foreign to me, could have anything so simple as dimples in common with us Americans. But they do. And they have so much more. In fact, the similarities far outweigh the differences.

So, it didn't take long for Nayeli to open up to us. She is spirited, she is brilliant, she is joyful, she is sassy, she is so ready to love and be loved. I really can't explain it, but this little 8-year-old girl stole my heart. Love is such a powerful thing. It just sweeps over you. Hardly two and a half days was all it took for the Lord to fill me with a love so great for this girl that saying goodbye to her this morning tore me to pieces and brought me to tears.

Nayeli is forever a part of me, a part of my heart.

An El Salvadoran teenager we encountered while playing soccer yesterday afternoon said something that caught my attention. In reference to the English language, he said:
No puedo hablarlo, pero puedo entenderlo.
I can't speak it, but I can understand it.

It's true. As for speaking, Nayeli and I could barely speak more than two words to each other at a time, but honestly, it didn't matter. Because we understood each other perfectly. You don't need words. Anyone can understand giggles and holding hands and hugs and making farting noises and playing "hot potato."

Dimples are universal.
Love itself is a language that transcends all difference.

The Unbound staff told us a story about a very grateful elderly El Salvadoran man who told a sponsor who was visiting from another country, "Thank you for everything you do. Heaven is waiting for you." The sponsor replied to the elderly man, "You are my heaven."

In El Salvador, I have found the kingdom of heaven on earth. An endless, colorful collage of tarps and tattered cloths form holy tabernacles in which the Savior, El Salvador Himself, dwells in the souls of the people. Here, His Sacred Heart beats to the rhythm of the rain tinkling on the tin rooftops.

Nayeli is my heaven. She is Christ, El Salvador, to me.

I held her tight one last time, kissed her head, and said some of the only Spanish I know:
Te amo.
I love you.
She replied,
Yo tambien.
I love you, too.

And where there is love, what else is there to be said?



Marie Brinkman
Class of 2016
Secondary Ed, English, & Theology Major

Houses are Complete!

Hola! My name is Leanne Bergsieker, and I am a sophomore at Benedictine studying Theology and New Evangelization. This is my first "official" mission trip and I am so excited to be here in El Salvador and spend the week with some amazing friends, while meeting many new ones!

Over the course of the past few days, my group and I have been building a house for a mother, her four children: Giovanni (18), Marta (14), Ishmael (6), and Ana (4), and their grandfather. After three long days, we finally finished the house! Prior Jeremy and some others from the group came to our work site for the house blessing, and we presented the family with housewarming gifts. We continued down the path to bless the remaining houses and latrine. My group thought that we would be able to go back to the house to collect our tools and say goodbye, but the Unbound staff collected our things for us. As we were finishing the blessing at the third house, we turned and saw our family running down the dirt path towards us. The mother began to speak to us with tears in her eyes and said something along the lines of "This feels like a dream. I could have never imagined having a house like this. Thank you so much." For me, that was the greatest moment of the trip thus far. Although we could not understand each other, the love and gratitude she displayed for us was so evident. We all exchanged hugs and goodbyes and went back to the Unbound compound for lunch. I left for El Salvador knowing that the lives of the families we would be serving would be transformed, but I did not know how great of an impact the families would make on my life. What a blessing it is knowing that the families we have served will sleep soundly tonight and will have a future full of hope. Praise be to our Lord for his graciousness and love for us!

 Ishmael (left), Ana (center), and me (right). These cuties stole my heart, especially Ishmael. We shared many laughs together and bonded over our love for playing catch with a ball that he owned! Ana is sponsered, and I pray that one day Ishmael will be as well.

 This was at one of the house blessings! Prior Jeremy blessed the house and we nailed a medal of St. Benedict onto the doorway.

 I didn't catch this boy's name, but he was too precious and he loved to have his picture taken. He walked around without shoes a majority of the time, because the shoes he owned had large holes in the bottom of them. It was such a great reminder how blessed I am to live the life I do.

In the afternoon, we traveled to downtown Santa Ana to play soccer with the Unbound staff. While we were there, we met some local teenagers. They watched us play and cheered us on, and weren't shy about laughing at our terrible soccer and Spanish-speaking skills.


Please continue to pray for the remainder of our trip, and know that we are keeping all of you in our prayers!

May God bless you always,
Leanne

El grupo de caca (The Poop Group)

Hi! My name is Andi Heither. I'm a sophomore Catechesis and Spanish major. I decided I'd better write a post, because my group of five is doing something different than everyone else - we're building a latrine. Yup, a latrine. Not a house. The other thirty missionaries (because yes, if you are on a mission trip, you are a missionary) have given us the name "grupo de cacas" or "poop group." Nice, huh?

We work with cement and bricks, not wood and aluminum. We have no shade in the morning. We get DIRTY. We're in a rather closed off location, so the only people we ever get the chance to see are the family who live in the house (which was built by a group like BC back in August) and each other. We use bricks to sand and bricks to level, no fancy instruments. So yeah, it's really different. But it's good. The *cough* products of the latrine will now be able to be used as fertilizer, so the family can plant and sell produce.

So far, this experience has taught me that people need so much to live. The houses that our friends are building, to us norteamericanos, aren't much better than sheds. Some people wouldn't let their dogs live in these conditions, and these are human beings. People. That are in every single way exactly like us. The same desires and dreams.

And yet, my new friend Nayeli, the most intelligent and joyful child I've ever met, throws a stone back and forth and calls it her pelota (ball). She worries about getting dirty, because while the floor in her house is dirt, who knows when her next bath would be.

Trash lines the streets and meadows of the beautiful terrain because they don't have a recycling system. The government provides uniforms for schools, but not education. The average income where we are working is $120 a month, minus "deductions" and minus all the ridiculous daily expenses the poor have to pay because they can't afford to invest for the long term - water, cell phone minutes, shoes, clothes, food, etc.

But the people are so happy. I was in the truck on the way to the work site this morning and made eye contact with a little boy who was sitting by the road. He gasped and shrieked, "Gringa" (white girl). I'm pretty sure we just made his day just by driving by.

I guess I don't know how to conclude this because there wasn't a thesis. All I can say is that the animals here are weird. Most of the birds here are new to me - they make the most beautiful songs. The dogs are everywhere. Horses feed by the road and cows stand in the road. And that's all I have to say about that. :)

Hola! My name is Erica. I'm a junior and am having the best time of my life in El Salvador! Before now, I've never even been on a plane, to the ocean, or out of the country. Cross off all 3 of those now! My group and I are building a house for this little girl, Daniela, and her super awesome Grandma!

 

We just met Daniela today, but we've been playing with the other little kids in the house. Here I am with 6-year-old Michelle and 7-month-old Daniel (I think that's how they're spelled, just pronounce them as Spanish-y as you can :)

Michelle was super excited to use my camera and to get her picture taken; here's some of the results of our little break from work:

 

I have fallen in love with the people of El Salvador and am so blessed to have the opportunity to be a part of this trip. You'll never find such happy, helpful people, and the language barrier doesn't even matter. Case in point: here's a school boy posing for a photo:

This is one of the very best experiences of my life and has totally changed how I view the world. Please remember to pray for the people of El Salvador and for all in poverty.

 Adios from El Salvador!
Erica Johnson

Hola! My name is Chanel and I'm a freshman. Coming on this mission trip was quite the adventure! I've been on mission trips before, but nothing like this. I've never been out of the country and have taken minimum Spanish. From flying, to being immersed into a Spanish speaking country has been a learning experience. This country is filled with so much beauty not just the landscape, but the people of El Salvador also. The thing i was most excited about was meeting the families for whom we would be serving. At the house that I'm working at we're building a house for Danielle and her grandmother. The little girl lives with her father right now and hasn't been around a lot. 

Michelle and Tiana who have been around the house :)

Our days have been pretty filled. In the mornings we start off with morning prayer, breakfast, and heading out to the neighborhood. It only takes about ten minutes to get there. We then work all morning and  head back for lunch and a little bit of down time. Then in the afternoon we head back out for about 3 more hours to finish up our work. When we get back to the Unbound compound we have some rec. time and usually play volleyball before dinner. After dinner we have meetings, debrief time to talk/reflect about our day, and then mass and night prayer. So It's been a really good past few days and I know we all feel very blessed to have this opporitunity to serve here and learn about this country. 

This is a picture of all of us on the truck heading back to the compound. With all the kids heading home from school! :)

Adios y Buenos Noches!

~Chanel Woiderski

¡Las fotos!

¡Hola! My name is Kathryn and I'm a sophomore studying theology, Spanish and mass communications at BC. Being in El Sal is still surreal for me, and it's truly humbling to be here and serve Christ in the people here. They live in homes with one or two rooms, dirt floors and tin roofs and yet they are some of the most joyful people I've met. One local woman came to the house we are building and was just brimming with joy and excitement at our being there. She's not even a part of the Unbound program, but said she prayed for God's blessings on us daily. "Giving is receiving," she said. How right she was. Please continue to keep all of us in your prayers, and enjoy these photos from today!

Peter, Tara and Becca working on a window out in the street.

Me with my 5-year-old "novio," Ezekiel. It was such a wonderful experience being able to talk to and play with him all day in Spanish, and he taught me a lot. At one point he even half-jokingly asked me to be his girlfriend. He's such a sweetie.

 Becca, Megan and Marty. They are inside the area where we're building the house.

Tara and Ezekiel. We all had fun playing with this cutie.

"Oh yeah!"

Día numero tres

Hello all!  My name is Jared Baxter.  I am a senior at BC majoring in Biology and Spanish and minoring in Chemistry.  I am graduating in May with a few others that are on this trip.  This is my second year going on the El Salvador mission trip.  After my experience last year with the trip, there was no way I could not return.  It truly is an experience that cannot be fully explained if you do not physically experience it. 

Today was our first day working on our perspective projects in the community.  Three of the groups are building houses and the fourth group is building a latrine.  The houses are for families of sponsored children while the latrine will be used for producing compost in the community. 

Today, the group I am in got all four walls up, the door frame built, and the roof beams installed as well.  It is a very humbling experience.  One of the first comments I heard from my group today was "It should NOT be this hard to hammer in a nail".  It truly is much harder to hammer in these nails into this wood.  I do not know if it is a combination of multiple things or if the change in latitude.  I'm leaning more towards the combination of multiple factors like the nails and wood.  Either way, the nails bend very easily and the wood tends to split as well.  This really entertains the Unbound worker that is helping us with the house, the family whom which we are building the house for, and the other friends that tend to hang around the house.  They started collecting some of the really messed up nails and they would show each other when someone new came to the site and they would bust out in laughter.  This was all meant in good humor, the people are truly the most welcoming and nice people that I think I have ever met.  The good thing is that smiles and laughter are universal; UNBOUNDed by language barriers. 

The sponsored child at my house is named Daniella and she lives with her father and her grandmother.  She is 6 years old and had a lot of fun drawing on the framework of the house.  At one point, she used a red colored pencil and drew a self-portrait.  The picture included hair and so I told her that her picture, with red hair, looked like Emily, a red head in our group.  Daniella looked over to Emily and laughed in agreement. 

As the day went on, more and more people showed up to help.  It was very touching that people who would not even be directly benefiting from the house were so eager to help.  It seemed as if they were happy that the work was being done, period, regardless of who was receiving it.  One man in particular, Felix, had a lot of fun fixing our mistakes.  Every time he would finish fixing one of our bent nails, he would exclaim "Oh yeah!" in English.  Our team and the rest of the local people would all share a laugh after that.  It sort of became a running joke throughout the afternoon. 

The day seemed too short... I wanted to get more work done, however we are limited by the hours of day light to ensure safety of our team. 


Looking forward for a good night's sleep and another great day of work. 

Que Dios te bendiga,
Jared

I Forgot a Title...

Today was Chanel's 21st birthday! We thought it was fitting to celebrate with 2 cakes and a nice El Salvadorean brewski.

Some girls were dehydrated so they decided Peter's hair was a worthy filtration system. Yumm...

 "Look what I can do!"

 Many hands make light work... but really though it was heavy.

Unripe Mangos are Sour

Dia numero dos

Today was an immensely productive day in El Salvador. I mean, the sun was out (I got sun burnt, and so did Natalie) and we planted trees and re-painted the new playground. This morning started well with mass at around 8AM, which was a challenge for some people, we were and are, pretty tired. I tend to look at the exhaustion associated with this trip in a positive light, we are just starting the Lenten season and I believe that the suffering that comes with mission work and service helps to mold us into better Christian models. I digress. This morning after mass we gathered again to discuss the days itinerary. We were to be split up into three groups and were to be assigned three separate projects. The first was planting lime trees, the second was painting the new playground and the third was working on developing flower displays near the recreational area near the entrance to the compound. (I accidentally omitted the third task that some of us had been assigned). I had been assigned, rather I volunteered, to work planting the lime trees. The majority of the men on the trip also opted to plant trees however some decided to help paint parts of the playground, which was also a valiant cause. As we began digging the holes for the trees, which were to be 2ft deep and 1 and 1 half foot wide, we discovered that the soil was rather easy to dig up however, when we approached deeper depths of earth we soon found out that the soil turned to clay, which slowed the digging process. Whats funny is the first reading for today's liturgy mentioned the creation of man from clay, I understand there is very little spiritual correlation between the clay we dug up and the creation of man, but I just thought it was a happy coincidence. We planted 12 lime trees today and after a hard days work, shifted our efforts to aiding the other group in their artistic endeavors. By the time we had finished they had almost completed their task so those of us who were already down moved to cleaning up some of the garbage that had been tossed by the side of the road just outside the compound walls. We worked for about 45 minutes that proceeded to call it a day. Safe to say, we had an excellent first day working in El Salvador. The members of Unbound proved to be amazing hosts yet again, and as we continue to become acquainted with them, we are discovering a plethora of humorous jokes that will continue to be "inside jokes", so sadly, I can't share them here.

After we halted our work, we all decided that the best decision would be to partake in a friendly, yet competitive, match of volleyball. A volleyball net had been set up earlier after our lunch and many more of the mission workers wanted to play the second go round after work and before dinner. Safe to say, my team dominated, but others will disagree. Where we lacked organization and say, a real team, we made up for in spirit and mental prowess. We scored entirely different types of "points" and we gained victory on a unique scale. We had fun. Dinner followed our game of volleyball and as we proceeded to fill our bellies with warm, scrumptious lasagna, darkness enveloped us and we encountered our first thunder storm. I have to say, thunder storms make the most magnificent backgrounds to warm dinners and friendly conversation. I enjoy watched God unleash his almighty power via millions of volts of pure electricity. Its pretty neat. El Salvador really is a gorgeous country and I am truly blessed to have the opportunity to call it my home for these next few days. As dinner ended most of us went off to shower and get cleaned up before the movie. We had decided the previous night that we would all watch a film entitled, "Innocent Voices". Its a film about the El Salvadorean revolution and how one small boy endured hardship and intense suffering. His tale is told through his eyes, and while there are some humorous parts in the movie the vast majority of the movie is focused on the conflict between the Army and the Rebels. The movie certainly made an impact and provided all of us with a small window of insight into some of the experiences shared by the Salvadorean peoples. I really enjoyed it.

As I wrap up this short note describing some of our share experiences, I would like to point out that we are all so fortunate to live lives in the United States. We are also so very blessed to have the ability to aid those who require greater aid then ourselves. I hope that this experience gives me a different set of eyes; eyes that allow me to appreciate the simpler things such as a warm bed, decent clothes and a full belly. So many people forgo simple commodities on a daily basis, most of them things that we take for granted. I just hope that we can make an impact and continue to do so on a daily, even after we leave. Just in these first few days, God has taught each and every one of us a lesson. My lesson has been in patience and gratitude. I cannot speak for the others, but I see it in their eyes and in their words; they have been affected as well. I cannot wait till tomorrow to help out in the outlying community. I look forward to what God has in store for this mission trip and those on it. God bless those who support us everyday. God bless El Salvador.

-Peter Reimer (assisted by Natalie Roberts)

El Sal Day Numero Uno

      At 2:45 this morning, all 35 of us met in the abbey and loaded up the bus to head to MCI airport. Most of us were operating on an hour or less of sleep. One bus ride, two planes, and a van trip later, (during the majority of which I was making up for lost sleep) we arrived at the Santa Ana office for Unbound in El Salvador. We spent our afternoon basking in the 80 degree weather, enjoying the gorgeous tropical scenery and mountainous landscape, and playing on the center's playground which featured recycled tires made into swings. We met Yassenia, Henry, Jorge, and Mama who work full time at the center here. Additionally, two dogs named Tacho and Oso run wild around the Center's enclosure and are always looking to lick faces and get head pats.
     Dinner was some chicken, soup, and salad made by Mama and her kitchen help. I sat with Jorge at dinner and he gave some background to Anna Mol, Megan, Meredith, and me. Unbound is an international group that matches up sponsors with under-priveleged children and families. The organization was founded by Roberto Hentzen, a native of Kansas, and is headquartered in Kansas City. Jorge serves as a translator for the organization, enabling sponsors and children to keep in touch and understand the letters they receive from one another. The organization goes through over 100,000 letters a year.
    After dinner, Henry gathered our group and gave us some ground rules and info about the country and people. Tomorrow is the day of the El Salvador presidential election. For this reason we are planning on staying and working at the center tomorrow rather than going out into the communities, because Americans moving into a poor community to do work on election day runs the risk of being perceived as a political move. It is against the law in El Salvador to buy alcohol in a store on the day before, day of, and the day following a presidential election. Fortunately, our hosts purchased some beers ahead of time and made them available to us.
    Henry told us about the poverty of the people in the communities we will be visiting. 75% of the families consist of single mothers and children. If a woman can get a job in a textile factory, she will earn $200 a month for working 6 days a week. High taxes (including a 13% sales tax on all goods), rent for a home (about $50 a month), bus fare to get to work ($12 a month), and lunch money ($35 a month) cuts off about half of this. Most of the people do not pay for running water, and end up purchasing water in barrels from trucks. This ends up costing about $30 a month.
     We are all eager to get to work tomorrow morning after Mass and breakfast. We're excited to see what God has in store, and how we will learn from and contribute to these people on this adventure here in Tropical Paradise. But now, I need to get some sleep. Good night!

- Peter Harrison
    

About the Blog

Hello, all!

My name is Becca Zander and I am a senior at Benedictine College. This weekend, a group of 34 students and one priest from Benedictine have an amazing opportunity to travel to El Salvador to spend a week building houses. We thought it would be a great idea to create a blog so we could share our experiences, pictures, and stories with our friends and family back home. We will be updating it as much as possible throughout the week, so check back in every few days starting Saturday when we arrive in El Salvador.  Feel free to share the blog and leave comments on the pictures and entries.

Our trip is run through an organization called Unbound. They currently provide assistance to over 20 different countries and serve around 300,000 children, youth, and elderly. If you would like to know more, you can visit their website at www.unbound.org.

Please pray for our trip, safe travels, those that we will be serving, the Unbound staff, all of our benefactors, and for good health. Thank you and God Bless!

Through Him,
Becca