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March 25, 2001
Dear Extended Family,
Greetings from El Salvador, where life is slowly returning to
normal for most, but remains very difficult for hundreds of thousands
without adequate shelter for the upcoming rainy season. The rains
begin in full force in April or May. Presbyterian funds channeled
through A.C.T. have been extremely helpful in responding to the
needs.
It’s Sunday afternoon, 5:20 p.m. and we are here at the
house. In a little while we’ll be going up to Santa Tecla,
near the main site of that slide at Las Colinas that buried so
many houses during the first earthquake in January. We are going
to meet a new friend, Marta Benavides, who is working with victims
of that slide, 2,000 persons now living in Red Cross tents on
a soccer field in Santa Tecla. She is coordinating some mental
health and pastoral services, providing psychological and trauma
counseling to the victims.
There was almost no damage here in Colima. However, Santiago
Flores has asked Bob to help with Alfalit’s efforts to get
housing for victims in some of the other communities where Alfalit
and the Reformed Church are working. He wants technical advice
on types of alternative housing. One method we really like is
as follows: make a four-sided fence of cyclone fencing to the
dimensions of the house. Mix soil, cement and water into a pastey
mud. Apply the mud to the fence to create strong, flexible, cheap
walls. A lightweight corrugatex metal roof tops it off. That’s
it, basically! In most cases, the families can build their own
homes..
There is so much to share. Here are some highlights:
Alfalit has a new director whom we like very much, Lilian de
Benavides. She is a woman of action who is supporting the work
in Colima 100 percent, directing special attention to the work
in the community with the women’s craft group, the teak-forest
management, the trash collection project, the fuel-log project,
the co-op’s financial issues, the lake bed’s restoration,
the hacienda’s restoration, and the youth crafts group (which
has just received an order for thousands of necklaces for an international
conference!).
Some of the good news in Colima is that the newly-elected council
of the co-op, with new President Mauricio Quijada, invited Alfalit
leaders to meet with them last week. We were all there. For the
first time, the council directly requested Alfalit to help them
get good technical advice about how to handle their financial
affairs. This direct request from the co-op represents a long-awaited
moment in this trust-building and partnership-building process.
We believe it is not too late. For the first time, Alfalit’s
accountant and lawyer are now preparing to meet with the co-op
council to look more deeply into their situation with bank loans,
etc., and to give them some good advice about options. Right now
it looks possible to sell of some of their land and use the proceeds
to pay off some of their debts. They end up with less land, but
a clear title. This is what we are all hoping for. If the bank
doesn’t jump in and foreclose.
And due to the earthquakes, the Salvadoran government has put
a nationwide moratorium on bank foreclosures, for the time being.
Could this be an example of God’s using a tragedy (in this
case caused by human neglect) to bring about good? We thank you
for your prayers.
We feel more hopeful that when we return to El Salvador this
September the coop’s financial woes will be resolved, and
we can all dedicate ourselves more wholly to the fantastic opportunities
that present themselves in Colima.
More good news: Alfalit has requested Bob take over the supervision
of the sugar-cane firewood project. There had been a long period
where production in larger quantities had not really gotten off
the ground. We believe Bob will be able to make some progress
now that he has been given the green light. One need is to see
about getting the process patented, so that others can’t
simply come in and run us out of business. We meet with a lawyer
tomorrow about this.
We finally have good production cost figures for the fuel-log
project after a series of test runs. Alfalit and the co-op have
chosen a young man from Colima to start up the business. He is
very familiar with the fuel-log machine and is excited about the
potential it has to become a viable business and have a positive
impact on the forests around Colima.
We leave for the U.S. on April 16 and will fly first to Oregon.
We will be visiting churches for four months, into August, all
over the country! It will be hard to be away from the work here
where there is so much need, but we recognize the importance of
building bridges between North Americans and this struggling land.
This e-mail address will work for us while we are on the road
as we can access our mail with the wonderful old laptop Bert Swanepoel
gave us four years ago!
Thanks, Bert, and thanks to all of you who have supported us
and the work in Colima in so many ways. We share these words of
gratitude on behalf of many who now work side by side with us
and dream of a new day when their stomachs are full, their fields
less saturated with chemicals, their water clean, their streets
covered with cobblestones, their yards boasting latrines, their
work satisfying, their children happy and healthy, their future
hopeful….
We, too, pray God’s Kingdom will come to this land.
In faith,
Bob and Julie Dunsmore
The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 240
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