Facebook

June 2022 – Executive Director’s Reflections & News from El Salvador

June 2022 – Executive Director’s Reflections & News from El Salvador

The House That Generosity Built

Time, Talent, and Treasure

I am surrounded by generosity. From our honorees this year it was generosity of spirit to lend us their names and faces as representatives of all the many volunteers that help connect the COAR children to you. For our hundreds of volunteers, it is generosity of time and talent: to translate letters; to advise our office on efficiency, on finances, and technology; to do the mundane but vital work of filing, organizing, and database maintenance; to do fun things like designing web page and publications and writing and speaking on behalf of COAR. Of course, there is the generosity of gifts given, large and small. IRA gifts are special because they are the generosity from a lifetime of work. And there is always the generosity of prayer and attention and love that comes through all your gifts of time, talent, and treasure. All this generosity, literally, uplifts, surrounds, protects, educates, and heals the COAR children. This is the house that you have built. Thank you.

News from El Salvador

In this small space, we try to give you some idea of the reality in which the COAR staff and the Church in El Salvador serve the poor, including the COAR children. The international news continues to report on renewed criminal violence and especially murders, after a decline over the past few years. To try to counter this President Bukele’s policies have escalated widespread detentions of (usually) young men whose families are left to wonder what happened to them and where they might be held. Yet, President Bukele remains very popular, even among those suffering from these policies. However, the news within the country does not report the same stories. News has been restricted by the government regarding gang-related aspects of the violence. The economy continues to struggle against damage from the pandemic and macro-economic forces that a small country is largely powerless to effect.