RSSMay 16, Easter VI
by the Rev. Barbara Cawthorne Crafton for ERD
5/16/2004
Acts 14:8-18 or Joel 2:21-27
Revelation 21:22-22:5 or Acts 14:8-18
John 14:23-29
Psalm 67
Teach Your Children Well
El Salvador: America's war-torn neighbor to the south, flash point of Cold War politics during the 1980s. Whole villages destroyed -- men, women and children too young to know what a political opinion was.
But even after the war was over, the pain of El Salvador continued. Natural disasters -- Hurricane Mitch in 1998, two major earthquakes early in 2001 -- ravaged half the nation's crops and a quarter of all its housing. Today, as a result of one or all of these disasters, half the population lives in poverty.
But Episcopal Relief and Development has partnered with the Diocese of El Salvador and Fundacíon Cristosal, a nonprofit Episcopal agency, to address the people’s urgent needs. In the communities of Izalco, Congo, Cara Sucia, and San Juan de Letrán, hit hard by with poverty and sudden homelessness, when it would be easy to defer anything but the most current of those needs, what is ERD building?
Schools. Four new schools, one in each of these poor communities. Because the legacy of destruction in El Salvador -- and everywhere else -- will yield to the power of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, will teach us all things. Already families have built new homes, real homes of their own. They've even got the mortgages to prove it. And the money they pay on their mortgages goes to maintain and operate the schools their children attend. Life will be better for those children than it has been for anyone in El Salvador for a long time.
Homes. A mortgage. Kids in school. For us, no big deal. Normal life. For them, very heaven.
Episcopal Relief and Development is an effective, reliable, and vital ministry of the Episcopal Church in communities around the world. Episcopal Relief and Development provides emergency assistance in times of disaster, rebuilds devastated communities after the immediate crisis is over, and offers long-term solutions to help people sustain safer, healthier, and more productive lives.
