Charity UMC, Virginia Beach, VA UMVIM Team

Dr. Roger Boe examines a patient in the medical clinic held in Nueva Jerusalén Methodist Evangelical Church, Ahuachapán, El Salvador. Walt Whitehurst, leader of the disaster response/Vacation Bible School/medical team, serves as translator.

Charity United Methodist Church, Virginia Beach, Virginia, sponsored a Volunteers In Mission team January 2-11, 2002 in Ahuachapán, El Salvador. Six persons from Charity Church were joined by ten persons from other churches, divided into three groups:

1) A construction team to build a house for a family whose home was severely damaged by the two earthquakes last year.

Larry Vesey presents a team scrapbook to Angelita, whose new house in Ahuachapán, El Salvador, was built by a Virginia Conference UMVIM team sponsored by Charity United Methodist Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Betty Whitehurst, co-leader of the team, looks on.

All three groups made a significant contribution to the people of Ahuachapán, and especially enjoyed relating to the members of the Methodist Church there.

At Vacation Bible School we used a Polaroid camera to take photos of the children and then paste them on cardboard frames colored by the children. They were so overjoyed at this simple pleasure that they ran to get their friends who had not attended and brought them back for photos. The Bible School leaders took about 80 photos. We had 30 children for the first day, and 130 for the last day.

On several occasions the medical team experienced a combination of spiritual and physical healing. One day a beautiful adolescent girl came with her mother to be seen for a thyroid problem that she had been diagnosed with as a very young child. Although we had no medicine to offer her, we prayed for her, placing our hands on the young woman’s thyroid gland. This experience was representative of much of our work. Although we cannot always offer a cure, we can reach out in love so that the patients are comforted through the presence of the living God.

Here are some words from the construction site: "We have been working very hard, but we can’t come close to keeping up with the workers from El Salvador. Digging trenches was hard work, and mixing cement was even harder. As we worked for a short time and then took a break, they worked right through. We were amazed at the speed at which the landowner carried water from the river, uphill for about one-half mile, in five-gallon jugs to fill two 50-gallon barrels. This was the water we used to mix the cement."

Angelita, the head of the household, could not be there while we built her house because she works as a maid in San Salvador. We were able to have a meal with her in San Salvador the night before we returned home. She expressed her deep gratitude and great joy at our having built a home for her family of three children, who will live with their grandmother in the new house while Angelita works in the capital city.

The above statements from the three groups are an indication of the depth of our life-changing experiences. Thanks to the generosity of Charity United Methodist Church members we were able to send enough money to UMCOR for construction materials for the house we built and for a second house as well. In Christ’s name we also contributed medicines, school supplies, and baby items for use in the Methodist churches of El Salvador.