Preaching, Teaching, and Piñatas Oh My!!

Well hello there my incredible subscribers, long time no… read?? Anywhoo I apologize that my blogs have been a little scarce this month, but I have been living it up here in El Salvador- a beautiful country full of even more beautiful people! I wanted to give you all a little update on what life has looked like for me this month, and a little of what is to come for my team and I in the upcoming month as well! 

So without further ado let’s breakdown Team Magic Treehouse’s time here in El Salvador shall we?!!

This month my team and I live in a small town right outside the capital city of San Salvador and it is called Mejicanos. We are currently serving at a church in Mejicanos called Iglesia Pentecostal de Jesucristo El Shadai and we live with the Pastor of the church and his family. Our hosts, Daniel and Mireya Alvarez, are two of the most incredible people you will ever have the joy of meeting. God gave my team and I the biggest gift this month when He gave us these two as hosts. To say that they have made our time here in El Salvador incredible would be a HUGGGEEEE understatement! They welcomed us into their country, their home, their church, and their hearts without any strings attached, and I truly feel so wanted and loved by them. 

Ministry this month has ranged from teaching English to local children from the Mejicanos community, to preaching for the congregation and youth group, to traveling to another church so that children can have a celebration with piñatas and just enjoy and embrace being children even if it is only for one brief afternoon.

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons from 4:30 -5:30 we would teach English classes to children ranging from ages 6-14. The incredible thing about these classes is that the church offers them free of charge to children within the community and they offer them a free meal after each class. Learning English can be such a vital tool for these students in furthering their education. Many of the local schools here in El Salvador that are public are quite dangerous due to the fact that they are often infiltrated and run by gangs. This is why many parents do all that they possibly can to send their children to private schools, and other children who don’t have that option often drop out before they graduate. These English classes are so vital and truly an answered prayer from God for many of these children and their families. 3 of the biggest blessings of my Race thus far came in quite little packages. I had the joy of teaching English to Mateo, Steven, and Suri, three of the sweetest 6-year-old’s in the world! I’m not looking forward to having to say goodbye to them this week, and know that there will most likely be tears.

The church has services on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings, a Saturday evening youth service, and a Sunday morning service. Each team member rotated and would be responsible for preaching on our allotted evenings of Tuesday’s, Wednesday’s, and Saturday’s. This month I have had the opportunity to preach twice! I remember when our hosts first told us that we would be preaching, I was absolutely terrified! It is amazing though to see the boldness and confidence God gave me when I was willing to say “yes.” I preached in front of the youth group and shared a lesson on “How to Defeat the Darkness.” It talked about the fact that we can defeat darkness with one key ingredient… light, if the light aka Jesus is living in us then we WILL shine and we WILL defeat any and all darkness that the enemy throws our way. I also preached in front of the congregation recently and God laid it on my heart to preach on the topic of New Year’s resolutions. I had a lot of fun getting to prepare and share this message, and it ended up being a great time of growth in my intimacy with the Lord as He is preparing my heart to begin the New Year (please feel free to find me on Facebook if you would interested in watching these sermons. I shared them there).

This month for ministry we also got the opportunity to travel with our hosts to a little church two hours away to throw a party for the local children. We packed up four piñatas and the BIGGEST bag of candy I have EVER laid my eyes on and headed off to have some fun. The afternoon was spent teaching songs and dances to the kids, watching them take a wack at the piñatas, and passing out goody bags and juice at the end. All in all it was an incredible day and one that truly brought me so much joy. 

That about wraps up what ministry was like this month, and speaking of wrapping things up… my squad is preparing to wrap up month 3 this week as we head off tooooo VIETNAM!!! That’s right we’re getting ready to hop to our second continent of The Race and start our time in Asia. We will be leaving El Salvador this upcoming Saturday to begin our travel day(s) to Vietnam. Vietnam is a closed country, which means that it is illegal for us to openly evangelize. Because of this and in an effort to keep us as safe as possible, my entire squad will be making our blogs private. This means that if you want to continue reading my blogs… which I really hope you want to do… you will need to know the password for my blog. This will go into effect on Friday evening so make sure you write the password down somewhere so you won’t lose it. Okay here it goes, are you ready??? The password for my blog, and for the blogs of every other member of my squad for that matter, is Psquad2019.

So there you have it! An overdue update of life in El Salvador, and some important info as we head into month 4. I’ll be sure to post an update blog for you soon so you’ll know what life in Vietnam will look like for my team and I.

Sending all my love direct from El Salvador straight to you!

-Meagan