San Salvador
Good news continues to come out of San Salvador and we are so proud of the first graduating class of Live School in Central America that came out of a church that sits at the intersection of three different gang territories one of which is the MS 13 gang. San Salvador is the murder capital of the world. The two Live Schools in the prison for boys age 14 to 17 that were previously members of the MS 13 gang continue to amaze us. In 2018 we were able to visit and witness seven of the boys in the Live School class get baptized in the prison and we continue to hear good things. About two weeks ago boys in the class led an inmate not going to Live School to accept the Lord. Live school is making a dent in a huge problem, but it has made great progress in a short period of time. Barbara Rowe and her assistant Veronica Guerrero are responsible for all of the good work going on in San Salvador. Barbara has been a missionary for about 12 years in San Salvador and is a true inspiration to us and everyone around her and she attended the initial introduction of the Spanish version of Live School in Guatemala City where we met her.
Guatemala
Guatemala has five Live Schools and we are fortunate that Bettie Colson, who has been a missionary in Guatemala for about 15 years and served on the team that translated Live School into Spanish, is the dedicated Live School representative there as well. She is the one we rely on to do most of our translating and she conducts the pastor orientations as well as facilitator training in each of the Central American countries we go into. The is a very small, poor school on the outskirts of Guatemala City that Bettie, Jim and Bucky visited during the Live School class and church service where the pastor would not let us leave without giving us $30 to pay for our lunch because they were unable to feed us at the church during our visit.
