Ascension’s seven delegates had an amazing trip visiting our brothers and sisters in El Salvador at the beginning of August. Upon following the Facebook updates on the trip, one of Paw Pa Soe’s friends messaged her and said “It looks like you’re on a field trip!” And so it was.

Together with the community from our sister parish, we traveled to Algeria and Jucuapa to Lutheran World Relief’s cocoa project to learn the latest about sustainable cocoa farming, from seed to pod, to fermenting and drying.

The next day, we all traveled together to Playa El Tamarindo where we learned about the endangered sea turtles that nest on the beach and what steps we can make in our lives to prevent these beautiful animals from going extinct. With this knowledge, we worked together to clean the beach at Espino later in the week. The community from San Jorge took the lead, stopping to speak with other beachgoers about the importance of keeping garbage out of the ocean.

We visited homes in San Jorge to see goats and trees from Ascension. We worshipped together on Sunday and we traveled to San Salvador where we were some of 4000 Lutherans marching through the streets to celebrate the 33rd anniversary of the Salvadoran Lutheran Church.
As we shared experiences side by side, our bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood where strengthened and tears were shed by both visitors and hosts when it was time for us to say goodbye.

(Reprinted from the Sept. 2019 newsletter.)