Barriers Don't Have to Be Barriers

My visit to El Salvador gave me so many new opportunities to engage with young Methodists, learn about different expressions of faith, and experience the global Methodist family from different places whilst participating in both the World Methodist Council and the CIEMAL youth conference. The trip challenged me, inspired me, and has helped ground the rest of my youth president year in those experiences and learning opportunities.

The first part of my visit involved me going to the World Methodist Council which took place in San Salvador. Being present at the World Methodist Council allowed me to see just how varied diverse and big the Worldwide Methodist family is. Having so many different communities and cultures in one room worshipping and sharing with each other was such a powerful experience. I got to have conversations and meet Methodist leaders from all over the world finding things in common but also learning new things which help me in my work.

If I had to choose one thing that stuck out for me from this trip it would be the radical hospitality the churches and church families showed not only to us but each other. There was a genuine sense of ‘family’ belonging and community, this was shown to us throughout the trip, but a real highlight was going to a mid-week house group. This didn’t feel like it was put on for us, however it was just a real raw reflection of how they worship. It was described as going to their grandmother’s house and that’s exactly how it felt. The children especially showed me that barriers of language and culture don’t have to be barriers, I couldn’t understand them and they couldn’t understand me and yet we played daft games together, sang together and prayed together. They showed me how to be welcoming even to strangers, how to give what we have and truly share with our Church family.

Another part of my visit was the CIEMAL youth conference. This was an incredible meeting of young people and young adults. I learnt about things that matter in their context, things that were similar and things that were different, how the young people stuck up for their faith and how they made a difference in society and in their church. The leaders at the conference were all young people themselves from different parts of Central America.

They led with confidence and delivered a wonderful program of fun, fellowship, worship and learning about leadership. They showed me what young leadership is, how it can be done well and that it is successful. I got the opportunity to share with them about the young people in the Methodist Church in Britain and the context we come from as I learnt more about the different contexts they all came from. A highlight of this was the cultural night. Every country gave a presentation with food or learning and my favourite was learning the cultural dances. We also got to make the national dish of El Salvador, the Pupusa, and this was an incredible bonding moment between the people there.

There were so many incredible places and people we visited on this trip in different parts of El Salvador. The Methodist school was another highlight. Bishop Juan de Dios who hosted us and took us to new and exciting places was the founder of the Methodist school. The methodist school was initially set up to give young people a sense of direction and belonging that wasn’t to do with the gangs that were heavily present in El Salvador. Now the gangs are less prevalent in society, thanks to the new government, the purpose of the school is shifting into a new purpose whilst maintaining it’s current values. I met students at the school and talked about whether they enjoyed the school and their joys and what is difficult. Which is a similar question I ask to the young people in this country- the answers were similar, however they seemed to like their teachers on average a lot more!

All of this was what made my visit memorable. However, what made this visit incredibly special and poignant were all the people I met, the children and young people that shared their experiences and so many people that showed incredible bravery in sharing their story with me.