Day: December 31, 2011

Dear Friends and Partners,

2011 has been a year of exciting growth and impact. We’re working with 52 churches which have implemented 72 life-changing projects impacting more than 60,000 people! It is obvious that God is at work through the local church in El Salvador.

2011 will be remembered as a year of radical growth and change for ENLACE. And while we are ending the year strong, there are more than 100 churches on a waiting list. The opportunity to permanently change the face of poverty in El Salvador is at our fingertips.

We need your help to maintain the momentum! Make your year-end tax-deductible donation today and help support these two critical areas of funding in 2012.

Church and Community Program: It costs about $5,000 for ENLACE to accompany one church for a whole year. We need to raise at least $30,000 to take on six more churches that are ready to transform their communities.

$100: Sponsor a week of training for a new local church partner
$425: Sponsor one month of training for a new local church partner

Home Gardens: In 2011 more than 1,200 people increased their income and nutritional intake through home gardens. For 2012 we have more than 3,000 people ready and waiting to start their gardens. 

$250: Help feed a family for a lifetime
$50: Help feed one person for a lifetime

Please pray about how you might contribute to these important areas of funding before the close of 2011.

Blessings and thank you again,

Ron Bueno

Executive Director

A New Home for Olga Medrano: “We will come out of this poverty”  

Olga Melani Medrano has lived in conditions of extreme poverty for years while raising her seven children, and the rainy season always came with much stress because their home was leaking and the walls falling apart. However, her conditions are improving now that she and her children have a secure roof over their heads. Olga is very grateful; she knows that her resources would never have been enough to build a new home on her own. The work of the local church has greatly impacted her life.

CREDATEC Helps Local Pastor Seize Opportunity for Growth

Carlos Cruz is both talented and a visionary. A year ago he became the pastor of his local church. Before that he had studied to be a mechanic at the Industrial Technical Institute (ITI) and continues his work with a local co-op of microbuses. Additionally, to supplement his family’s income, he and his wife also raise pigs, chickens, and hens in a small pen behind their house.

Home Gardens in Anemona, San Martin

Anemona is a shanty town located just outside the capital of San Salvador in the municipality of San Martin. Its residents, who have migrated there over the last 25 years (originally due to the civil war in the 1980s and now due to the search for jobs in the capital), are extremely poor and experience gang violence on a daily basis. The makeshift-turned-permanent dwellings (often made of tin, plastic and cardboard) are crammed between the Panamerican highway and old railroad tracks. Nevertheless, a local church and its pastor, Marta Vaquerano, are growing hope in a community more familiar with desperation than tomatoes.

Click here to read the complete blog or click here to see the picture gallery of their home gardens.

Connecting Churches, Changing Lives: ENLACE’s Church Partnership Program

In 2011, ENLACE formally launched its Church Partnership Program and we already have 14 US churches that are committed to transforming entire regions of El Salvador. 

Happy New Year from your friends at ENLACE!