Going back to El Salvador was a heavy topic for me and many others on the trip this summer. After losing my Uncle Rob, my best friend’s dad, 4 years ago, it affected a big part of my growing up and my relationship with God.
Throughout the years I can testify that God has been a counselor to me and I’ve grown and learned many many things from that, but death still wants to have its sting. Since then, El Salvador was characterized by darkness for me. I didn’t see hope, I couldn’t think about it without confronting the darkness that I left there in 2021. This hurt a big part of me because for so long I’ve felt a special connection to El Salvador, maybe because of my parents, maybe because of the amount of times I’ve been. Either way I know it’s because of my first mission trips in El Sal that I got the calling to learn its language and stay connected with the work we were doing there as a ministry. But now that part of me was lost, it stayed there in the darkness.
I was very nervous to go back. In all honesty, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to receive the healing I know God was capable of doing. There was a comfort in the lights being off.
This testimony is not only to say God did something I never expected or that He exceeded my dreams but that when He is invited into a situation He is able to change it. No matter how dark, no matter how unorganized, when His word has given the opportunity to turn on the lights — its changes atmospheres.
I will testify that God turned on the lights for me in El Sal, He showed me that when people stay close to him blessings and FRUIT follows! I saw the work our cooperatives put in to learn the Bible and language, I saw the investment, determination, and faith in them to uphold obedience to God in difficult circumstances, their faithfulness to teach youth and be the examples of Godly people in their lives. And man, that turned on the lights in El Salvador. I thank God for His transformative and illuminating word that truly, truly changes lives.