Share
RSSFinish What You Start
by The Rev. Barbara Cawthorne Crafton
5/8/2005
I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. -- John 17:3
We don't realize what a difference we make being there, a volunteer from Western Massachusetts said. Her group was leaving El Salvador after a week's work building a house, a village founded by the local diocese with on-the-ground support from Episcopal Relief and Development. They had just finished an informal worship service in the house they had worked hard building all week; its walls were high now, and its floors level. Another group would be coming in, to put its shoulders to the effort. Wave after wave of Episcopalians visit El Salvador every year, hauling bricks, digging, hammering, all under the direction of skilled local builders, to help reconstruct that tiny nation that has suffered so much.
Hard times are nothing new in El Salvador. From war to hurricanes to devastating earthquakes, the predominantly rural nation has seen the suffering of its people struggle to improve and succeed, only to be knocked back down by things completely beyond their control.
Over the long term, Episcopal Relief and Development has been involved in recovery from all of these human tragedies. Through programs of rebuilding houses, schools, churches and other community buildings; renewing (in some cases, beginning) healthcare services and health education, micro-loans to help poor families start small businesses of their own to sustain them, assistance in protecting sanitary drinking water and safe waste management and in improving agricultural production and marketing.
Many charitable oganizations come in early with promises of help after an earthquake or a hurricane. Not all of them deliver on what they pledge. ERD has stayed for the long haul in El Salvador, helping our Salvadoran neighbors rebuild their lives and giving the Nord Americanos who volunteer with ERD a chance to enter their lives and work in solidarity with them. Having given a week of their busy lives to this work changes the volunteers forever, building enduring relationships between ordinary people in both countries that will ensure that the Church will remain connected to El Salvador for as long as help is needed and longer.
We stood in the house and held hands and prayed...We didn't just work on the houses, but we also saw completed villages and schools --hundred and hundreds of smiling, happy kids that had a future and had hope!
Finish what you start. Stay on when the newspaper and TV reporters have all gone home. Bring your brothers and sisters with you to help. And come back again, in your prayer and in person.
