recent mission trips
El Salvador, or The Republic of The Savior, is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. Smaller than the state of Massachusetts, El Salvador has a population of well over six million. While blessed with natural resources, geothermal energy, a climate and land ideally suited for agriculture, this small mountainous country is plagued by extreme poverty, and gang-related violence.
According to a recent article in Foreign Policy Magazine, “The rival gangs MS-13 and La 18 control or influence every facet of life in El Salvador, making the small Central American nation the world’s most dangerous place outside a war zone.” Stating also that “El Salvador is widely regarded as the deadliest place on earth that is not a war zone, but it may as well be one.” Daily death rates from gang violence frequently exceed those of actual war zones.
Gangs routinely extort residents throughout the country. They forcibly recruit children, rape and subject young women to sexual slavery, and murder anyone who opposes them, including journalists, government officials, and the police.
Most of the urban areas are a cluttered mosaic of small dilapidated dwellings, crammed together, walled behind a variety of barriers that are frequently tagged and topped with barbed wire. The narrow streets are riddled with trash and sad emaciated dogs roam freely. There is virtually no sanitation services or trash pick up. The city water supply is randomly interrupted, and severely contaminated. While in San Salvador, in the evening we would frequently hear gun fire in the streets surrounding the facility where we were housed.
Outside the city the remote villages that we visited, are in a state of destitute poverty, where many residents live in tiny makeshift shacks with dirt floors, no electricity, no plumbing and no water supply.
The dire lack of sanitation, nutrition, education, or access to meaningful medical care has greatly increased the risk and incidence of disease for most Salvadorans. Moreover, because of it’s “deadly” reputation, humanitarian organizations are reluctant to send volunteers.
El Salvadorans have therefore become a suffering and forgotten people.
In stark contrast to this dismal back drop, even small kindnesses have been met with great appreciation by the Salvadoran people, that we have had the privilege of caring for.
This makes El Salvador a very special place for the volunteers that venture to go there.
In March 2020, we visited Renacer, an outreach for girls who have been victims of human trafficking. We hope to support this outreach under the direction of Claire Perrault, one of our board members, who has worked with victims of sexual trauma.
Renacer is a lovely mountaintop facility that has a better than 85% treatment success rate; one of the best in the world.
To learn more about this future outreach, please feel free to contact our office.
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