As the beginning of the Salvadoran school year approaches, craftsmen are putting the final touches on the two classrooms at Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.  Walter uploaded upwards of 500 photos onto the photo site, and is sure to add more once the building is inaugurated and occupied.  I remember visiting this school on a particularly scorching afternoon about 3 years ago, and all that stood in that spot was a large rock.  It wasn’t a very useful rock, as it wasn’t appealing to the eye or good for climbing. Later, as I looked at the pictures of the workmen laboring to create a stable foundation for the new places of learning, a quote came to mind that you might recognize. “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock.”

TLAU and the people of El Salvador thank you for being their rock.  The winter rains will fall again, the winds will rattle their tin roofs, and the earth may even shake as they have done before, but the children of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe are not alone.

I’m not sure why, but this makes me feel like that little kid who spent all December wanting a certain toy, all the while knowing that he wasn’t going to get it.  Then come Christmas morning at 5 AM, he’s squinting at it through tired little eyes, still not really sure it’s there. Now that’s not to say that I didn’t expect the campus ministry students at JSerra to come through with enough money for a classroom: their jeans day event proved them to well versed in the art of fundraising, and from the beginning I noticed a focus and dedication that was sure to accomplish something great.  But the whole affair screams serendipity, or rather Providence: TLAU didn’t ask them to do anything.  One person (campus ministry leader Robyn Gibson) heard about our mission and the needs at Virgen de Guadalupe, and a month later we have enough money for a new classroom.

So check out the photos.  The only thing I would have done different: glowsticks. Lots of glowsticks.

Who knew that high school students wanted to dress down so badly? Oh…that’s right.  I knew.

But campus minstry leader Robyn Gibson says the outpouring of support wasn’t just a fortunate consequence of several hundred cases of senioritis. In fact, after a sluggish start to the jeans day effort, the students found that if they were more vocal about the cause behind their efforts, other students were much more likely to give. So after only the first event of JSerra Catholic High senior campus ministry’s partnership with The Least Among Us, Virgen de Guadalupe already has $1200 to put toward the construction of its classrooms.

I’m thinking about contacting the school administrators to see if we can’t start selling days off or field trips to the beach. Methinks we could build enough classrooms for every child in El Salvador.

Take a look at these photos!

Walter’s powerpoint presentation on Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.  Well done!

Señora de Guadalupe