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