One Body.

Our tourist visas expire every 90 days, therefore on Friday, April 17, 2009 my STINT (short term internship international) team and I left Panama and arrived in my homeland of El Salvador. My teammate Juan is also Salvadorian. All six of us stayed at my grandmother's house. Although our time in El Salvador was short (we returned to Panama Tuesday, April 21), everyone had a wonderful time. With the exception of Juan and I my team members had never been to El Salvador before so it was cool showing them around the country where I was born. We went to an art museum, saw a volcano, visited the ruins, ate pupusas, reconnected with a Panamanian friend, and more.

The highlight of the trip for me was exactly two Sundays ago when the Panama STINT team (my group) and the Salvadorian STINT team met. We have a Panamanian friend Selegna who is a missionary in El Salvador working as Staff with Campus for Christ. We went to her church the Sunday morning and then as a team we went out to lunch with her. After lunch, 5 out of the 9 Salvadorian STINTers came to the fast food restaurant we were at and hopped into the van that we were renting so we could all travel to see the ruins together. The ruins are about an hour and a half from San Salvador so we had plenty of time to get to know the El Salvador STINT team that is composed of Americans. An interesting bit of information, all 9 stinters are from the state of California.

It always blows my mind how Christians who are strangers can have instant connections and depths of conversation that you can't have with non believers. Christ can unite and connect people like no one else can. And that is what happened during our ride to the ruins. All of us were talking about our experiences being on STINT in Latin America and it was encouraging to know that the two STINT teams understood each other. We talked about ministry and also about what God was doing in our own lives. I spent the majority of the time conversing with a girl named Jenna and I was so encouraged by her. I stopped her during the middle of our conversation because it hit me how special it was that we had just met each other and there we were talking about God and connecting on a deep spiritual level. I told her what a blessing that was and she agreed. She then went on to tell me how they used to be a team of 10 (6 girls and 4 guys), but that a few weeks ago one of their girls due to health reasons had to immediately leave the country. It shoke the team up and Jenna explained that it was extremely difficult because it was like loosing a member of the body...like all of a sudden a leg had been ripped apart. What she said really struck a cord with me.

Each member of the body is extremely vital. I know that we know this, but sometimes I honestly feel like we forget or we act like we don't care. This past Wednesday during a team meeting I asked Derek if he could read 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 (the section about One Body, Many Parts) because I felt that we all needed to be reminded of this. Later on this week I had a rough night and a fellow team member of mine took the time to come sit down with me, listen, pray for me and just be my friend. His actions said you are an important member of the body of Christ and when you suffer the rest of the body suffers. We are the body of Christ. As hard as it is sometimes to get along or understand each other we need one another. There is no way around it. Every part is valuable.

But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. 1 Corinthians 12:24b-26

5 out of the 9 U.S. stinters that are working in El Salvador and 2 staff members


El Salvador and Panama stinters and El Salvador staff

P.S. Feel free to check out Jenna Lewis' blog at http://jennainelsalvador.blogspot.com Jenna is serving God in El Salvador with Campus for Christ. She's the Stinter that I wrote about in this blog entry.