Pupusas!

Last week, Elijah, Sharla, and I were invited to our friend Vianka's house to learn the art of pupusa making. It was very fun and hilarious experience (as is everything with Elijah and Sharla!) and it was an honor to be invited into a Salvadoran home to share a meal. Enjoy the pictures!

Our teacher, Vianka, about to demonstrate how to make pupusa masa (dough).

Pupusa masa is made from either rice or corn flour (or both) and water. You have to mix it with your hands to make sure the texture is right.

Here you can see the salsa and slaw (the salvadoran name eludes me right now...) that goes on top.

Cooking pupusas on a traditional comal. In all the pupuserias, they use huge griddles or planchas, but the taste is different and better when they're cooked on this pottery.

Sharla is becoming a master pupusa maker. :)

Elijah, Sharla, and Vianka

Success! They were delicious!

 

Back home

        Tuesday night I returned to my home from my home. :) I had a wonderful visit with my family, my friends, and my church family at Alliance Bible Fellowship in Boone, NC. I was given several opportunities to share about serving and life at Envision Wired and in El Salvador, the work being done here, what God has done in me, and about Broken (if you're reading this and don't know what Broken is about, check out the website: www.brokencampaign.com or on facebook). God richly blessed the time back home and He even answered my prayers for snow - on a couple different occasions!

The Lonas family Christmas picture (yes, we are all wearing long underwear...)

My dad, my brother, Justin, and my niece, Canaan, and I went for a hike in the snow!

Speaking about Broken at First Alliance Church in Franklin, NC.

     Upon arriving at the airport, I was greeted by Vladi who came to pick me up. Then, as we were pulling out of the parking lot, three people (who I later recognized as Nestor, Sharla, and Elijah) came running out of the bushes to greet me! It is so good to be back and be reunited with the people who have become incredibly dear to me. At Wired right now we have jumped into the new year, thankful for what God did last year and we are greatly anticipating what God has in store for the coming one! 

Please pray for:
- my transition back into life here and into language study
- the coming year for Wired and the short-term groups coming down to serve, beginning in Feb.
- Broken: funding (we have almost raised the $30,000 for our first payment on January 30th), and the lives that are and will be touched by it
- a site associate. Currently the only full-time missionary for Envision is the Mullinax family. Join me in praying for another family/couple/single person to come serve in El Salvador.

Thank you all! Happy New Year!

Con mucho amor,
Melissa

Everyday sites #1 - Wired

I thought everyone might enjoy seeing some of the sights around Wired that I see every day.... Enjoy!

My room (complete with clothes air-drying!). I am currently the only inhabitant, but this is where future female interns will live.

El parque right across the street from Wired. This is one of the places that Sharla and I run for exercise. 

This is the office side of Wired. The entrance to the dorms is to the left in the gated area. The windows on the second floor are the apartments where Sharla & Elijah, Nate, Sara & Edwin, and I live.

Looking down the road towards CDA (my church).

Christmas dinner... :)

The front of Wired again. This is the dorm side inside the gate...

The office (where a lot of time is spent this time of year!) That's my desk in the foreground.

My Family: Meet the current Wired Staff

Elijah and Sharla Scheidler
From: Billings, Montana

They arrived in El Salvador in March and are here through September 2013. Elijah is a former youth pastor and now, aside from running groups, he is in charge of discipleship at Wired.

Sharla worked as a registered nurse before coming here. She is still called upon medically sometimes for our illnesses and injuries, but she is mostly in charge of finances and also helps with groups.

They both bless my socks off! It's mind-blowing to contemplate how God brought us to Envision Wired in El Salvador at the same time. So glad He did! That goes for all the staff.

Elijah... 6' 7 1/2" ("It's the 1/2 that makes me look tall!")

Sharla makes everything more fun! Here she is with a mammoth grasshopper.

Nestor Cruz - aka Big Ness
From: El Salvador originally, but lived in

San Francisco most of his life.
Nestor has been in El Salvador for 3 years and
has worked at Wired for the past year.
This man has led a crazy life - his whole life a
testimony of God's sovereignty.
Ness is in charge of construction and is the
manager of the Wired building.

One of my favorite people in the whole world!

Nathan Hare
From: Berlin, Connecticut

Nate arrived 2 days after me this past May and is here for 2 years.
This is his 3rd time serving at Wired. I met him last summer
when I came with the ABF youth.
Nate is our resident bird man raising 4 chickens and 8 quail
that live outside the Wired facility.
He is currently in Montana helping Richard during his tour.
When he returns in October, he will resume his role of
Tech Support in the office and also overseeing interns.

Tony "Excellente" Escalante - El Jefe (while Richard is away)
From: San Salvador
Tony has worked at Wired for almost a year and, before then,
as a volunteer. He is the man in charge during these next months without the Mullinax family here.
On top of being our boss and running things, he manages Premiere Transport (a van rental service).

Sara Ortiz
From: Santa Ana, El Salvador
Sara has been at Wired since 2011. She is currently working on becoming
bilingual, like Sharla, Elijah, Nate, and I, just from the opposite direction!
Sara is in charge of many things here: setting up all of our partnerships
each year, coordinating food for the groups,  and organizing our evangelism campaigns.

Edwin Ortiz - aka Chicken or Pollo
Here he is with his look-a-like!
From: San Salvador
Edwin helps out a lot with groups that come from the States.
He works as a translator and driver, and then everything in between.
He is an inspiration to me in my language endeavors because
he learned English in only 4 months!

The Ortizes
Sara and Edwin have been married for over a year now.
They live in one the apartments in the upstairs of Wired,
as do all the American staff.

Gloria Sanchez -
From: San Salvador
Without Gloria all of our groups would go hungry!
She has been cooking and working at Wired since 2010.
She and I are about to start exchanging language classes;
I'll teach her English, she'll teach me Spanish.
Gloria is a single mom with 3 kids.

Priscila Rodriguez - aka Priss
From: San Salvador
Priss has worked with Wired for the past two summers
as a volunteer and translator. This past summer, she also
worked as a fill-in secretary in the office.
She is a good friend of all of us here at Wired!

Vlady!
From: El Salvador, but also lived in San Franciso for many years.
Vlady was the one who picked me up at the airport when I arrived
in May and we've been friends ever since!
He works with Nate as our Tech Support.

Saul Canizalez
From: Apopa, El Salvador
Meet my good friend, Saul! He drives the van
for Premiere Transports and constantly is helping me to learn Spanish. We'll be together a lot in the next week as he is going to be my driving instructor, teaching me to drive stick-shift!

Cologne, coffee, and diesel fumes...

Okay, so the title of this post was just to get your attention. :) I was going to title it "Overdue update", which it is, but it sounded a little boring. Instead, you now know 3 very distinct smells of El Salvador!

I know everyone has been wondering about how things are going down here. I procrastinated last weekend and now a whole extra week has gone by. For starters: Thank you! Thank you for your prayers, especially during our staff training last week. It was very intense and physically and emotionally challenging,  but we came out of it as a bonded team! Praise the Lord! I am so thankful to have each of these people by my side as we head into the busy summer. Also, I think it was very good for Richard to see us working together and learning to function as a team, as he and his family prepare to head State-side in about a month for home-assignment and we are all left in charge of Wired. During that week, God answered my prayers and revealed to me the love and support, the family, that He has surrounded me with. He knows our every need!
*I didn't want to overload this update, but if you would like more details about the Wonder Games (aka Staff training), shoot me an email.*

This past week mainly consisted of office work and prep for the 2 groups that got here yesterday. They were scheduled to arrive on Friday, but had several flight cancellations and didn't make it until midday yesterday! This reinforced the constant need for flexibility... Elijah is running this group and he did a great job maneuvering the schedule. You can be praying for the group's ministry to HIV kids at Esperanza y Vida.

Praises:
- I am almost completely back to health now! My cold was pretty bad the whole week of training and it won me the "Snottiest... literally" Award, but after antibiotics I finally started feeling better. God used being sick to teach me a lot!
- Liz, one of the interns, and I moved out of the girls dorm and into our room upstairs.

Other prayer requests:
- Nathan Hare, who is on staff here, heard a few days ago that his brother had been admitted to the ICU after collapsing. They are waiting on tests to determine what is the matter, but the doctors think it is either viral meningitis or lyme disease. He had surgery yesterday to insert a tube to relieve the pressure on his brain. Please pray for healing and pray for Nate. It's really hard for him being away from his family during this time.
- Wisdom and courage as I plan for my first group that is coming in July.
- That more teams could come down to help us finish construction on the Wired building.
- Continued, total trust in the Lord, and a quiet spirit and open eyes to see where He is leading in all circumstances.
- The fiancee of Stef, one of the Salvadoran staff, had a horrible motorcycle accident and has been in critical condition for almost 2 weeks. Pray for healing.

I love you and miss you all! Thank you for your faithfulness in prayer.

Below I've added some photos for your viewing pleasure.

Dios te bendiga (God bless you),
Melissa

**Coming Soon: Introductions of all my co-workers, so that when I name them in updates you'll know who I'm talking about!

**Coming Soon: A video tour of the Wired building!

For your viewing pleasure...

 Heading to the school in Quezaltepeque to invite kids to VBS.

Musical Chairs!

 This is Gloria, our good friend and wonderful cook.

The first day of the Wonder Games: boat ride to potential "Broken" land where Richard shared with us his passion for their future ministry.  

 There are lots of cows (vacas)on the property. I was really excited about them... I guess!

The 3rd day of the Wonder Games we hiked the volcano, El Boqueron (the little crater in the middle is called El Boqueroncito).

 Lovely Sharla!

 Hiking/sliding down El Boqueron. Yep, it was STEEP!

 Partying at the Mullinax house. You can tell by the chocolate on Raquel's cheeks that she was enjoying Sharla's cookies (galletas).

 Anna with the whole Mullinax family at her farewell party.

 Long story short... Elijah and I went out to do ministry, the diesel van had accidently been filled up with gas, so it broke down 45 minutes away from San Salvador, we waited for a long time, and finally were rescued by Tony, Edwin, and a tow truck!

 Anna, Laura, and I went on a shopping spree for Tia Ana and the 14 beautiful kids that live with her. We bought her groceries and clothes for the newest additions to her house. (pictured below)

Alejandro and Carla

"I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge..."

Wow. It's been quite a while since I've posted. Besides this blog, I write updates on the Mullinax blog: www.missionax.com. Check it out, not just to read what I've written, but to get a feel for where and who I'll be with.

The last couple months have been FULL. Decorating for a friends wedding in January, preparing to leave the country in May, working with the youth at my church, teaching a Spanish class twice a week, trying to spend as much time with family and friends, plus many other things... all of it together has kept me busy. During all of the recent happenings, I came to a place of complete brokenness and utter dependence on God. I don't need to go into too much detail right now; just know that God is teaching me great lessons and is putting me in a place where I realize how strong He is and how weak I am. I've had to do a lot of self-examination which is hard and revealing. I've discovered how I love to be the 'strong' one, the one who can help bear others burdens and the one who can be everywhere and help everyone. I discovered that I really like to be in control... God does not call us to live our lives this way, but rather to live humbly, glorifying Him in all we do, laying everything at His feet, trusting in Him. Lately I have seen how God uses every circumstance, whether good or bad to shape us, prepare us for things to come, and to bring glory to His Name. I've been reading through Francis Chan's book Crazy Love with a small group of high school girls and in the last chapter I found this quote: "God has allowed hard things in your life so you can show the world that your God is great and that knowing Him brings peace and joy, even when life is hard". This is a great reminder, one that I really needed.

To give you an update of where I am in the checklist of preparations...
-Support raising: almost 40% of the way there (with many thanks to most of you). In December the Mullinaxes sent me 100lbs of El Salvadoran coffee to sell, almost all of which has already been sold, they're sending another 50lbs. This has been a great way of getting the word out about my trip and giving people a real taste of where I am going!
-Vaccinations: I only have to get a few... this will happen in the next couple of weeks.
-Visa: I don't have to have a visa to get into the country initially, but the tourist visa that you pay for when you arrive only lasts for 90 days, so to avoid having to go in and out of the country every 3 months, I'm working on getting a visa that will be good for the whole 15 months.

That's all for now. Thank you for your prayers and your support.

In Christ,
Melissa