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April 2002
Dear Family and Friends,
A lot has been happening here. We have been happily busy and
hope to send you soon an update with more substance. But for now
we wanted you to know how dear your friendship, your prayers,
your support have been for us. These are difficult times to focus
on building a new Kin-dom—when all around us different forces
seem to be tearing down what has been built up. We are resolved,
with your help and the help of our God, to persevere.
Today we will begin work on a solar drying patio for the bagasse,
the raw material used in our fuel-log project. This will be done
with funds donated by churches and individuals in Honesdale and
Bethany, Pennsylvania, and will be supervised by Michael Box,
who is here with us learning Spanish and helping with our work.
The handicraft group in Colima has been selling hundreds of dollars
worth of jewelry, hammocks, organic coffee, Colima honey, Colima
natural sugar, with each delegation visit. We are introducing
a new latrine design (thanks to the Shad family donation) where
the latrine can be easily moved over a shallow pit.
We have been busy doing workshops to teach people who to build
improved stoves at no cost or, with chimneys and dampers, at a
low cost. And Bob has been invited to do many reflexology workshops
for hundreds of health promoters in northern El Salvador.
We recently hosted 90 Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission personnel
from Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and the church’s
headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, from the 23rd to the 28th
of March. Though very complex logistically, everything went very
smoothly and most felt they were recharged for their work by the
time they left. They celebrated in song with the composer of the
Salvadoran mass, visited the museum of the martyrs, remembered
Archbishop Romero on the 22nd anniversary of his assassination,
began the retreat on the beach, visited Colima for a day, and
visited the forest reserve. In Colima the hacienda’s legendary
marimba was inaugurated with three hours of traditional music
while our visitors feasted on chicken cooked over bagasse fuel
logs, fresh fruit, tamales all prepared at buffet tables as per
my sister-in-law Marcia Dunsmore’s advice. (She was here
just before the retreat, and as a chef for one of the finest eating
establishments in the northeast of the U.S., the Settler’s
Inn in Hawley, Pennsylvania, was able to move us closer to the
day when Colima has a restaurant in the hacienda.)
We were also blessed here with the visit of my nephew Rees Shad
and his wonderful family. Their enthusiasm for life helped lift
me to a new level. Rees’s sense of humor and our laughter
was pure worship for me. They left with a copy of the laughing
Christ poster I have on our wall. Jesus had to have had a great
sense of humor. Imagine sitting around a campfire every night
for three years with twelve guys….
On that note we close. Wishing you love and laughter, in the
name of Jesus,
Julie and Bob
The 2002 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 241
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