Dedication of San Marcos Community in Izalco.

Izalco 13 February

Developing a new hamlet is an exciting challenge. It is also an important way of putting faith into action. The hamlet of San Marcos is located on the edge of Izalco, one of the oldest indigenous settlements in El Salvador, and is being transformed into a vital community for 34 families.

Joaqu® Heriberto López Sánchez, one of the members of the new community quietly reflected on his perceptions of the event. "This is a great day for us. The houses are well constructed and intelligently designed to meet the needs of our families. Not only are the houses great but also the process of developing this community has been a strong effort at making a community work. We are doing the important things like getting to know one another and discovering how we might work as a neighbourhood. Mar´za Hernández (the Diocesan Social Worker) has helped us look at some of the directions that we must take in order to be a healthy community. It is exciting to be starting a new community."

On 13 February, exactly two years after the second large earthquake, the Diocese celebrated a formal opening and blessing of the houses. Members of the new community offered prayers and speeches giving thanks to God for the opportunity to venture in this direction. Bishop Mart® Barahona along with various leaders of the Church in El Salvador and members of the Board of Directors of the US based Episcopal Relief and Development Agency celebrated the opening of the community. Community and Church leaders expressed mutual commitment to continued support in this process of integrated community development

At the close of the celebration the houses were assigned to the families that had been integrated into the community. On a long cord small, brightly coloured paper packets were hung. As the roll of community members was called, each family came up in turn to select a packet. Inside the packet was the house number for that family. Next, the families enrolled, indicating the land location in a register. Although members of the families had helped construct the settlement, they only discovered which family home would be theirs at this point. This project is a vital part of partnership between local people in need of housing, the Anglican Church of El Salvador and partners from the Episcopal Church, USA.

Pressing Personnel Needs

• Clergy – the Diocese of El Salvador currently has six clergy including Ed and Kay to meet needs for services for seventeen congregations.
• The Diocese has trained and placed four young evangelists and five adult part–time evangelists.
• In the western area of Ahuachapán, one lay worker and two young evangelists continue to build up San Pedro and San Pablo in Cuilapa (El Mango), and the three missions in Maizal (site of a diocesan housing project), Acajutla, and Cara Sucia. Ed Schmitt officiates at services in Cuilapa and occasionally at the other sites.
• One priest, one young evangelist, and a pre–seminary student volunteering from the US oversee the parishes of San Mateo and San Francisco in the Lourdes area, San Rafael in Santa Ana and the nearby developing housing project of El Congo.
• One priest oversees San Miguel y Todos ngeles in Quetzaltepeque.
• One priest oversees the pro–Cathedral of San Juan Evangelista in San Salvador, and Bishop Barahona tends the diocesan chapel of Esp²itu Santo.
• One priest has charge of both the parish and the school of San Andres in Amatepeque, the nearby parish of Santa Mar¡ Virgen in San Bartolo, and two mission churches in the province of Usulután. One part–time evangelist assists at San Andres, one part–time at Santa Mar¡ Virgen, and two in San Juan Letran, one of the missions in Usulután./li>
• Kay Schmitt serves as priest of Sant³ima Trinidad in San Mart® with one young evangelist.
• A new lay volunteer from the USA has just started to create an Anglican presence in the eastern part of the country in San Miguel, the second largest city of the country.
• The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. (Matthew 9.37–38 NRSV)

Practical Preparation for Evangelism

The construction of the new building for Sant³ima Trinidad parish is almost complete.

The structure will be at least three times the space of the original church, held in one of the houses of the Santa Teresa housing cooporative. The interior walls had been removed to provide as large a space as possible All parish programs took place in the same space, including Summer Bible School programs for over 40 children. The new construction has created two levels of space. The upper floor is a large worship and Christian education area in which 100 people should easily fit. The upper floor will be a wonderful space for the all–night vigilias that Salvadoran Anglicans love, with space to move around for various rites and activities. A small sacristy is yet to be added but will be located at the back of the room.

Children´s programs, led by parish evangelist, Flor Hernández, may also use part of the upper floor, especially in the summer holidays (November through January) when more children attend.

The lower floor, which contains a kitchen, a meeting area, and toilets, also includes a large storeroom and a small bedroom with bath and shower for a prospective guard to live on the premises, or it could be used as an office.

The meeting area will provide the church youth group with space for a variety of activities, and on Sundays, an educational class for small children during the sermon. The congregation also plans to provide space for a Visual Health Clinic.

The building is constructed of concrete blocks with steel reinforcement. The floors will be of dark red tiles. Parishioners are now in the process of deciding about furnishings and decorations.

The building has been made possible by the contributions of the Episcopal Church USA development fund, and also from friends such as St. James Church in the Diocese of Central New York.

Developments Theological Education

Theological Centre Changes

Curriculum evaluation meeting

The Universidad B¢lica Latinoamericana (Biblical University of Latin America) in San José Costa Rica held its regular fall professor orientation meeting. This ecumenical university provides theological education at the Costa Rican campus; however, the largest number of students is made up of distance education participants from all over the Spanish–speaking world. Ed Schmitt was involved in the evaluation of distance learning modules. Also, Schmitt was working at the establishment of a coordinated system in which the specific interests of the Anglican Church would be more clearly met.

English Program at Colegio San Andrés

One gift brought by Kay Schmitt to the Diocese of El Salvador is her training and certificate in teaching English as an additional language. She spends every Wednesday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. teaching at the Colegio San Andrés six levels of elementary school English. As she had taught several classes of Taiwanese children in Vancouver, she had experience working with children when she arrived in El Salvador. The Salvadoran children are warm and welcoming, leaping to their feet and shouting out "Good Morning, Teacher!" – a song they have learned in the past. The classes number from 20 students at the first–grade level to 6 in the sixth–grade.

One challenge in teaching in another culture is the tradition of authoritarian, teacher–centred methods in education here. While new young teachers are learning more interactive teaching skills, there is still a strong emphasis on memorization and repetition of what the teacher has said. The children love to parrot back sentences when they are working on inflection patterns in speaking English. Struggling to differentiate the sounds of V and B, which in Spanish are often interchanged, the children are amused to learn that Kay cannot make the Spanish sound for double R.

Conceptual development is different in El Salvador. For instance, few people here use maps. Even the most simple of maps can pose programs for students as a map is simply outside of their experience. One of the heart–breaking aspects of teaching in El Salvador is that there are virtually no resources to help battered children. Family violence is common, and corporal punishment considered acceptable in at least some levels of the society.

Diocesan Archbishop Barahona speaks out clearly against violence at home and urges members of the diocese to seek more positive ways of relating in their families. While family violence is included in at least one course in the diocesan School for Women, resources to help are slim in this country which has suffered so much violence and where street violence continues to be a big problem.

Three elementary schools are sponsored by the diocese in El Salvador and two pre–schools