Hablando del Sexo

The Rev. Jim Hagen, Continuing Education Coordinator, moderates the youth panel discussion on sex and sexuality

From August 17 to 22 the Episcopal/Anglican Church of El Salvador was abuzz. Everyone, from clergy to youth to lay leaders was talking about... sex. In a week of continuing education designed to “romper los tabus” (break the taboos) about everything related to human sex and sexuality, over 200 people from around the diocese participated in parish and diocesan gatherings, and the clergy gathered in a special two-day retreat. Topics were discussed in the historic Church of San Juan Evangelista at the diocesan education day which would probably get this website censored! The Rev. Canon Lee Crawford spoke to the group about the goodness of creation, including human sexuality, and of a theology in which Christ’s incarnation leads us to take seriously the dignity of every human being created in God’s image. The Rev. Jim (“Padre Jaime”) Hagen lead a panel of young adults from around the diocese in a discussion of provocative topics, and likened sex to a table full of food: “the food itself is not a sin,” he said, “it would be a sin, for example, if I ate all the food myself and didn’t give you any.” Youth and adults met in groups separated by gender and age to discuss the issues of human sexuality relevant to their lives. In an anonymous question time, leaders received questions ranging from “What should I say to my boyfriend when he pressures me to have sex?” to “What do you think of orgies?” It is clear that our young people are having sexual experiences and facing difficult questions related to sex. In a heavily Roman Catholic culture, the tendency is to simply pretend sex doesn’t exist. This week the Anglican/Episcopal Church opened the doors to an on-going conversation about human sexuality in all its aspects. Youth and adults went away with the message that we can talk about sex positively in the context of church, and hopefully together find ways to face the difficult sexual issues that confront us from a perspective of giftedness and celebration rather than one of prohibition and sin.

Youth Connection- ERD-IAES at Cielo Mar

What do you get when you combine five days at the beach, ten youth from El Salvador and ten from the US, good food, a renovation project, daily prayer, a bonfire, a whistle, a pool, and a soccer ball? Episcopal Youth Connection or Enlace de Jovenes Episcopales was a joint venture between Episcopal Relief and Development and the Episcopal/Anglican Church of El Salvador that endeavored to find out! We spent five days working on renovating (scraping and painting, moving sand, rocks, and cinderblocks, pick-axing and laying cement, etc!) Cielo Mar, the beautiful but severely run-down diocesan retreat center near La Libertad, El Salvador. Cielo Mar provides churches and members of the Anglican/Episcopal Church in El Salvador with a much-needed spot for relaxation and reflection in the midst of their difficult lives and challenging ministries. For Vince and I and ten late teen to early twenties youth and young adults from around the Diocese of El Salvador, Cielo Mar became our home for these five days. We so enjoyed getting to know these remarkable young people better-- they all receive scholarships through the Diocese to study at universities, and they have an incredible vision for this church and for their country. Their lives have all been affected by the civil war that was their childhood, and their families struggle economically today. One bright young man who currently works at a maquiladora (internationally-owned clothing factory) putting stickers on clothes hopes to begin a business raising partridges to sell to five-star restaurants! When I asked about their dreams, I got answers like, "I want to start an orphanage," "I want to build houses for people in the countryside," "I want to help my family to a better situation," and "I want to see the church grow." The group from the US travelled back and forth every day to San Salvador, but during the daytime "connection" definitely happened, through work teams, mixer games, hammock time, bilingual evening worship, and soccer on the beach. We sweated together, ate together, prayed and sang together, and creamed each other at "water soccer." Enlace de Jóvenes Episcopales was a success! +Amy
Members of the Episcopal Church USA and The Anglican Episcopal Church of El Salvador

Colegio San Andrés Apóstol

4th graders take a break on the playground for a picture
(Picture courtesy our companion parish St. Andrew's Marblehead Mass.)


When we came to El Salvador a year ago I had no idea I would be running an Anglican elementary school! My only qualifications for this position are that I attended an Episcopal elementary school (St. Paul´s School in Visalia, California), and fondly remember chapel services and religion classes. The bishop challenged me with turning Colegio Episcopal San Andrés Apóstol into a ¨little Yale,¨ and set me loose.

The school year here runs from January to October, with November and December being vacation months, so I came in at the end of the 2005 school year (landing in the middle of September, Independence Month, which was chock-full of parades, civic acts, food sales, sports days, and science-project judging at the school!). Our 2006 enrollment is 104 students, from pre-k (four-year-olds) to sixth grade. We have two pre-school and kindergarten teachers who teach in a small (5 x 15 meter) house next door which was purchased to house their classes last year. Three elementary grade teachers teach 1st through 6th grades, the lower grades attending in the morning, and the upper grades in the afternoon, because they share classroom spaces tucked around the church. Next year I hope to add seventh grade, but space is at a premium. Students mostly come from the neighborhood immediately surrounding the church, which is working class to working-poor, with pockets of severe urban poverty. Their parents are making an extra effort to send them to a private school, where tuition is twelve dollars a month, and where class sizes are capped at twenty (as opposed to 40 or 50 students to a teacher in the free public schools). We have ten children who receive partial or full tuition scholarships. In 2007 I hope to identify some children from the poorest sectors in the neighborhood, who might not have a chance to study otherwise, and offer them scholarships to the school.

Though I was unprepared to run a school, I quickly developed a passion and a vision for it. I have come to believe that education really is the solution-- both for individuals and for communities, to poverty. Well-educated individuals have a better chance at obtaining higher education and a good job, and are less easily manipulated by politicians and business owners. They also tend to have more time and resources to contribute to improving their community. In a neighborhood and a society where just being young puts your life at risk (because of gang activity and the societal and police backlash), I feel like educating these children in morals and values, helping them know that God loves them, giving them skills in computing and English and helping them develop a passion for music, reading, dance, or art may literally save their lives, in that it may better equip them to resist pressure to join a gang when they are 12-15.

We have made a lot of improvements to the physical plant in the last year, painting the classrooms (this was initiated by last year's graduating 6th grade class, who contributed to the purchase of paint and put in their labor as their gift to the school), refurbishing desks and kindergarten chairs, installing fans, organizing the library, and installing a brand-new computer center. All of this has been accomplished with a great deal of help from friends in the US, people who have visited, and members of the community. The dream which we are currently working toward is to buy some property beside the church, next to the house we currently own, and begin a multi-phased project of constructing a 2-3 story self-sufficient school building, with a classroom for each grade. I realize that a great building is an element of a great education, but not a guarantee of one, so we are also taking steps to improve the quality of the education in other ways-- through teacher trainings, weekly staff meetings, and hopefully bringing on a dedicated director in 2007. Any assistance, advice, or contributions you might wish to make would be more than joyfully and gratefully accepted! The lesson I have learned through all of this is that a little bit goes a long way in El Salvador, like the loaves and the fishes, and that is a tremendous blessing.
+Amy

Visitors

In front of the Kinder class, Bishop of San Diego, The Rt. Rev. James Mathes, and his wife Terri, visit with Amy and a contingency from the Anglican Church of Canada. Left to right with backpacks are Enid Eckstein(St. Martin's, Calgary), Chris Longson ( Christ Church, Calgary), and Lloyd Wilson(Christ Church, Calgary).

We have been blessed with a number of visitors since our arrival to El Salvador. Family, friends, members of companion parishes and dioceses from the US and Canada, North American youth groups, ERD volunteers, and fellow missionaries have all come to share in the experience of the life of the church here in El Salvador. For us it has given us a chance to share our knowledge and experience of El Salvador, in particular of Amatepec and other places where the Anglican church is active, describing the social problems and difficulties, relating the stories and experiences of the people to those that come to visit, since many times because of the language barrier, such vital knowledge may be missed. We also are able to listen to those who are visiting, and help them, if they need it, as they work through their experience here, which can often be an overwhelming one.

El Salvador is an intense place and as one learns about its history and experiences the challenges to one's own Christian faith brought about by hearing about the lives of the Salvadoran martyrs and seeing their relics, encountering the extreme poverty and violence, learning about the destructive and unjust involvement of the U.S. government throughout El Salvador's history and during its Civil War, and meeting fellow Christians who survived the US funded massacres or lost family members to them--in this encounter, with many visitors, a "choque" as they say here, a collision, can happen inside of their psyche involving their faith and their perceptions of their own country and of the world around them. It is a blessed event. Challenges may arise to one's lifestyle and as to who one is in the world. Questions arise: How did I come to my way of life? At whose expense? As they learn about Romero, the UCA Jesuit Priests and their deaths, they may begin to ask, "How is a Christian truly supposed to live? Like an average American? ...or differently? Is the American way of life "just" in the eyes of God? Does it oppress people in other parts of the world? Is the poverty I am witnessing in part a consequence of US intervention and policy? Some become overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness. The American adage of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps becomes irrelevant-- for many here the means to significantly prosper don't exist or are kept out of reach. El Salvador strips away the lie that we are completely self-made people, and maybe as a consequence there is a closeness to God here, especially among the poor. So the American can-do spirit takes a relentless pounding and for those that accept this blessing, they find God moving and doing something amid the violence and poverty that can bring a resurrection within them. In this, a realization can break open that it is not the poor so much who need salvation and a renewel of spirit as it is "those who have much."
It often seems to depend on how open an individual is to God's movement through the experience of El Salvador and how willing they are to let themselves be changed amongst the collision. Changed more to what Christ has called us to be, unified with the poor, fighting the injustices that oppress people, letting people know that Christ shares in, is vibrantly alive in, life in the streets and campos, and hard to find in the houses of the wealthy and satisfied.
-Vince



Youth from the Diocese of New Jersey and San Andrés Apostól talk about what life is like where they live.





Youth and staff from Rock Point School Vermont and the Diocese of El Salvador




The Rev. Hannah Atkins, St. John's Lafayette Square, Washington D.C. and formerly rector of Santísima Trinidad, San Martín, El Salvador welcomes Amy to the order of priests.






Contingent from one of our companion dioceses, the Diocese of Central New York,
join in singing at the San Andrés Apostól youth dinner



Hanging out in El Salvador with friend and fellow Californian
Rev. Rob Fisher

Visitors-

Members of Fundación Cristosal with Amy lt-rt Michael Kingston, The Rt. Rev. Skip Adams-Bishop of Central New York , Rev. Scott Trull- Diocese of New Jersey, and The Rt. Rev. Thomas Ely- Bishop of Vermont.



The Rev. David Starr co-celebrates the Eucharist
at San Andrés Apostól.
Members of the Anglican Church of Canada/ Habitat for Humanity
volunteers from Calgary and Toronto after the eucharist.





Lt: The obispo discusses Shannon's time here in El Salvador.









Rt: Crispaz board member and St Andrew's Marblehead( a companion parish) congregant view the band instruments San Andres bought with money donated from St. Andrew's.







Lt: Rev. Anna Olson from Trinity Episcopal Church, Los Angeles poses with Amy and the past Reina de la Independencia.












Below: Ben Ansbacher, ERD volunteer from North Carolina works on a San Andres computer that was having problems.








Rt: Volunteers Jim
and Ellen O' Hara from
Pennsylvania work in the new
school library at Colegio San Andrés Apostól.



Bilingual instructor, Mary Ann Zuniga,
works with teachers from the various
Anglican schools in the diocese on
developing new teaching techniques






Amy with lt-rt Rev. Matt Calkins-St. Paul's Bridgeport CT., Rev. Lee Crawford- St. Mary's VT, Rev. Jim Hagen-Diocese of New York