This last week I had the privilege of attending ENLACE's staff training for three days. After the long road of recovering from the shooting, it was healing for me to hear again all that first drew me to work with the amazing team that makes up this ministry. In the trainings we studied various Biblical texts to seek God's heart for the body of Christ, "The Church." Text after text, both Old and New testament, clearly showed us that God has always desired for His people (first with Israel and then with the new testament church) to first love Him, but then to bless all people through actively demonstrating lives redeemed by God and communities living out authentic love for others.
This is not easily done in any context, but in El Salvador it is especially difficult as churches here have been marked by rivalry and division. Furthermore, the injustice in this country continues to tear at the fabric of families and communities. The average Salvadoran is required to expend so much energy to simply survive, that the thought of simply serving one's neighbor for nothing in return seems foolish. Even many of the evangelical churches here see service to their community as good, but not essential. Instead a priority is placed on preaching, church attendance, and numeric growth. Sadly, just like back home, the churches and pastors with the biggest attendance are looked to as leaders simply because of the apparent “success” of their ministries.
So here we at ENLACE work in four communities, serving 10 churches. Compared to similar ministries we are dinky. Yet, all I heard from Ron Bueno, our executive director, was that ENLACE is God’s work. When Ron says this it is not a cliché. I have seen our organization try to be one that simply seeks to hear God and then to respond to Him together. And what God continues to reveal to our team is that He wants nothing more than for His church to fall in love with Him so deeply that we all will love others in the manner that Jesus loves us. God continues to confirm that the reason we focus on the poorest in El Salvador is because they are very close to His heart. He continues to reaffirm that when a body of believers will trust Him together and will seek to transform their communities through love and service, He will be glorified.
As hard as this trial continues to be for me personally, I have to hold on to the hope that God is doing amazing things in His body. He loves us all so much that He will allow us to endure hardship to become the beautiful bride He created us to be. I really encourage you to check out a new series ENLACE has started on its blog explaining “Why the Church..” written by Ron Bueno our Executive Director. You can read them on the website www.enlaceonline.org.