Reflecting on El Salvador

“I hope that I can bring you here for a week on this trip and it ruins you for life,” states Ron Morgan, professor of Heritage of the Church in El Salvador. Yes! This may seem harsh, but that statement was one of the last things that our professor told us before leaving, and it was very accurate. One cannot simply go to a country and not have any feelings after leaving it. The hope is that you are ruined for a lifetime, so that you will always remember how you feel about the country. It will be almost as if you never left.
By going to El Salvador for a week, you learn so much, not only about the culture, but about yourself, too. El Salvador is considered a “third-world” country; they have citizens living in extreme poverty. In addition, El Salvador has recently survived a civil war, only two decades ago. However, the people of El Salvador don’t let these conditions hold them back. All they need, and have, to hold on to is hope. Hope that the conditions they face will improve, hope that the political party will do all they promised and most importantly, hope that El Salvador will return to the condition it once had. This is where the quote from our professor becomes significant. We have been blessed with an education and a life, in which we can better ourselves, and have opportunities to go to other countries to serve them in any way that we can. Therefore, we need to let our hearts be broken, so we can make a difference, through everything that we have been given.