Greetings!

We traveled to El Salvador in mid-February with two of our grown children, teenage grandchildren and some good friends. We had a lot of laughs and cried tears at the end because of the inspiration we all received from the people of the mountains. 

The few young adults from the mountainous region of Chilitiupan and Cuerva Arriba who have the privilege of receiving scholarships to attend college ($1,000 a year including all expenses) arise at 3:30am or 4am to walk through the mountains to get to the town to ride in a van down the mountains and transfer to busses or get rides on backs of trucks and walk till they arrive at their college in time for classes that begin at 7am. They return home each day, carry out their family responsibilities, study and sleep and go to classes again the next day.     

The School at Cuerva Arriba: 

One of the recipients of the college scholarships is a lovely woman named, Yesencia.  She now teaches in the school at Cuerva Arriba.  My ability to speak Spanish came in handy as I talked with her about the needs of the students.  She said that they could use a new eraser, notebooks, a mop to wash the floor when the mud slides down the hill in the rainy season, a bathroom close by for the little ones, some shelves to place their books on, lightbulbs, more desks so all of the students could sit and a math book for each child.   

 

 

 While we were so touched by their simple but very real needs, all of us were blessed by the joy and appreciation of the children.  They have this ONE soccer ball....the same one that was given to them last year...and they play for hours with it.  When it goes over the fence, it falls down the mountain.  Someone, each and every time, goes over the fence and down the mountain to get it...without complaining. 

 

Fr. Robert Cole from Oberlin, Ohio : " Sometimes more isn't necessarily better. Just look at our American culture. Our children today have the opportunity of playing more sports with better equipment and better technology than anything we adults could have imagined when we were growing up. The longevity of life, the discoveries in medicine, and the amount and the variety of food available to us are all increasing. But the number of sad people and the incidence of depression is on the rise, especially among the young and the affluent.

Fr. Cole continues:  "The secret to finding real happiness is believing from the depth of our soul that this wonderful God who created all things, is madly and passionately and personally in love with us as an individual. And no matter what happens in our life, be it good or bad, happy or sad, God will be there for us to see us through and get us through."

"If that's true and we really believe it, there'll be a happiness within us, despite how we feel at any given moment and despite what we have or don't have. "

"If we can accept the truth of our being that important in the eyes of God, we can do the same thing to those around us. Such love and such relationships are the only way of being a happy individual, even in life's sad and tragic moments."

"So, don't confuse having pleasure with being happy. They really are two different realities. Pleasure is good but it's passing. Happiness is even better because it gets us through life. And if our happiness is rooted in and springs from the love that God has for us, we'll have a resource that so many people on our world only dream of having." 

Oh, Happy Lent.

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