Subversive Cross

We spent the night in a community just outside of San Salvador near Gastapa mountain (sp?). Gastapa mountain was the site of a big massacure during the war. Soldiers surrounded the base of the mountain, while other parachuted onto the top and they sandwiched the people between-- killing and torturing them as they went. This was in my lifetime! In the last three years the government has given some of this land back to refugee resettlement. The people own the title. Many live near where they lost family members or were tortured themselves... in the shadow of the mountain. We worshiped with them and hear their stories. They have such joy intermingled in their suffering. Many of us spent the night with families (it was the first time many had international people in their homes). It was a difficult night for me personally... very hot, and no ventilation in the home... worried about the misquitos and malaria as well as the water and our safety (you think ghost stories make it hard to sleep, try graphic stories of torture and killing). But it was a gift to these families that we stayed and they were a gift to us as well. The day that the Jesuits were killed in 1991, the military also came to look for Bishop Gomez at the National Church of El Salvador. He had been hid in the German embassy. The military took all the foreigners in the church that day and a cross. The cross they took was one that Bishop Gomez had had the people write the sins of the government and people that they were experiencing in their flesh. This cross, sins listed upon it, was placed in the room in which the military tortured many of the Salvadorians. The military thought that it was a way to descerate the cross... however instead it testified to the sins of people and the hope and salvation in Christ. Those tortured looked upon the cross and were comforted that Christ knew what they were experiencing. My time in El Salvador has come to an end for now. I have arrived in Guatemala. Who knows what this leg will bring. I miss you all.