December 2002
San Salvador

It is early morning. El Niño has brought refreshingly cool breezes to El Salvador. I hear roosters crowing, but more for the full moon than the dawn. The mourning doves that nest in our bougainvillea vines have been singing their lullabies all night long. Soon our home will echo the incredible concert of all the birds that have left the cold of El Norte. More than three hundred varieties that have migrated here to join their relatives in El Salvador, over two hundred varieties that live here all year long, will make our last-minute packing chores easier.

We are off to Oregon today, where the winds blow cold and warm homes await us for the celebration of Jesus' birth. We are very much looking forward to being with family and friends until the first of the year. We will be at Julie's Mom's home in Hillsboro.

Now I hear the first bells of the Divina Providencia chapel nearby where Archbishop Romero was martyred and where, to honor him, last weekend good friends of our were married. Always here life arises from fresh ashes.

You should know that things have taken a difficult turn in Colima now that the agricultural cooperative has asked Alfalit to leave the Hacienda. The good news in this is that the coop has assumed full ownership of the ecotourism project, has hired Yanira as its ecotourism coordinator and Don Chepe as its swimming pool and grounds maintenance person, and has an e-mail address of its own (haciendacolima@hotmail.com) to continue correspondence with those of you planning on bringing delegations or just maintaining contacts in solidarity with its efforts to restore a bit of God's kin-dom in Colima.

Yanira has also assumed charge of the on-site coordinator of the Colima handicraft project. She is doing a great job and the orders continue to come in for the bracelets and necklaces, natural sugar and other items. The kids in the group are taking on more of the bookkeeping and quality-control tasks. This is an exciting step in the community development process, one we have been dreaming of witnessing for years. We believe once this step is taken, there is no turning back.

Julie and I have been feeling richly rewarded for all the difficult adjustments we have had to make due to the inter-institutional issues involving Alfalit and the Presbyterian Church, as we stand watching the first 25 families building their new homes. What excitement! What a privilege. Entire families, children racing alone with their wheelbarrows. Cement being unloaded and assigned to each family. The mayor's water tankers filling 55-gallon drums. Older folk flipping tortillas on the hot ceramic comales. Gang members mixing cement, hoisting buckets, laying bricks.

I tell people that I firmly believe Jesus spoke of building God's Kin-dom this way. Brick by brick. With mortar and sweat. With what this community calls mutual work. Of course, it is what is created that will last beyond this material construction that matters. And we felt that understanding at the community assembly last week. Salvation is a community proyecto.

Have a merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!

Julie and Bob

The 2003 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 243