San Pedro

By way of introduction Nidia explained that in all El Cordero de Dios were doing at San Pedro they wanted to see Jesus in the community, she then went on to outline the various projects in which the church were currently involved.

Housing Project

Following the earthquake 2001 the church felt that they should look for opportunities to help a community affected by the earthquake and as San Roque was largely unaffected, their attentions shifted to the San Pedro community. They first visited on 15 February 2001, two days after the second earthquake and found families in a very distressed state. When they got back to church they gathered money, medicines, food etc. and with donations from FEBES they were able to help. They were worried because they saw very poor people that had lost all they had. Since that time they have been working in that community.

They have now built homes for 16 families in the San Pedro community. This includes four houses with funding from the UK, two with money sent from Didcot Baptist Church and two with money from Upton Vale Baptist Church (Mike and Sue’s former church in Torquay). They have money in hand for a further two houses, one for Luco and his family, for which Mike and Pastor Tito, laid the first stone during our visit and which will be built in November and another to be built and family still to be selected (with money sent in June).

Families that have had houses built have then helped build homes for others in the community. The other houses have been built with the help of funding from elsewhere; three with grants from FEBES, three with the help of Baptist men from the USA, and two with the help of Bob Perry from the USA. Amongst members from the church involved in the building are; Eber (electrician), Carlos (logistical arrangements), Maria Delia (architect), Francisco (finance) and David (legal issues).

When they have the money available for a further house they get information from the families and meet with the community before selecting the next family for whom a house should be built. They will now start this process as a result of the funding recently received. This will include the evaluation of each family, the number of children, dependant members, income, condition of present housing etc. They also indicated that as most of the families are inter-related they have to be careful not to be seen to favour one particular family group.
Although the initial project was to build 16 houses which they will have done once they have used the money in hand, they feel that they should continue to replace poor housing in the community. Following the earthquake they identified 26 families in particular need, although there were many more. Of these, they built 10 houses from 2001 – 2004 and five more were built by other organisations working in the community. At the end of 2004 they reviewed the situation and identified another group of 17 families of which six have had houses built and they have the funds in hand for a further two.

As referred to later they would be keen to build a house in December 2007 with the help of team members from the UK. As we saw during our visit it would really be impractical to attempt this during the rainy season, due to the heavy downpours of rain and the uncertainty of access to San Pedro due to road closures.

During our time in El Salvador we visited San Pedro on three occasions and met a number of families for whom houses have been built who ask that we pass on their thanks to members of Didcot Baptist Church and Upton Vale Baptist Church who have made this possible.

Children’s Team

They indicated that the present children’s work really started with the team visit from Didcot in December 2002 and initially continued every December. The church then realised that once a year was not enough, so started to visit monthly since October 2005, and now visit to run a children’s programme on Saturday mornings twice a month.  That has opened up many opportunities for contact with fathers and mothers. They have appreciated the support and encouragement from Didcot Baptist Church, by way of the gifts to buy presents for the children at Christmas.

The key members of that team are Anna Ruth, Neomy, David, Carolina and Xiomara. There are 55 regular children of which only two have bibles. The cost of a good illustrated children’s bible to buy in El Salvador is $20, so for 53 they would need $1060. We suggested that we could try to enable them to buy a bible for the 53 children without one and we could prepare a small sticker to go in the front of the bible.

Women’s Team

It was the visit to Didcot last year that encouraged them to start working with women in San Pedro. They initially started working planting vegetables but realised that women wanted to learn a skill, so started the crochet and sewing classes. Last month they received a visit from two people from the USA who gave a gift of $400 for two old style treadle sewing machines. The key members of this team are Nidia and Christy’s mother who is a seamstress.

Evangelisation

They described this as soft evangelism. Many of the community have asked for bible studies, looking at reflections, to look at issues and harmony (there are problems where families belong to different political parties, which may not be a problem in the towns but they said could be a problem in the smaller communities). Also they were looking at ways to unite the community, forming groups to visit people/families with problems etc.

Plantation Project

This year El Cordero de Dios have helped eight families to plant corn, beans, and other vegetables made possible with help received from FEBES. Last year there were problems as storms, associated with Hurricane Stan destroyed crops, therefore didn’t have seeds for this year.

FEBES applied to BMS and BWAid, for grants, due to the bad weather conditions last year. They see this as a one off grant but they have plans to fund the purchase of seed next year if that is necessary.

On our first visit to San Pedro we meet with representatives of all eight families and were able to visit a number of the plantations and heard stories of how families had used their grants. They were very grateful to all who had helped to make this possible.

In addition we met the Pastor of Jucucupa Baptist Church who also have a similar ministry to the poorer communities and who had received grants to help 11 families with plantation projects.