Looking ahead

A couple of weeks ago, after we put all our surgery mission folk on the plane home, Kathy Garcia and I hopped in the new CIS pickup with Leslie Schuld to take a long drive to Estanzuelas, the town Leslie proposes for our 2013 mission.  And since our first question is always "and just where can we put the 28 people on our team?" we stopped first in the beautiful hill town of Alegría (the name means "happiness") to visit the Casa de Retiros (retreat house) run by the Pauline Missionaries.  It's a simple, spacious and beautiful retreat house that borders a finca, a coffee plantation, that's also owned by the padres. The town perches among steep hills, was the home of El Salvador's most famous philosopher, Alberto Masferrer, and has many beautiful moments like this shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe.  

We were sold even before we got to Estanzuelas, where we were generously welcomed by Marvin Hernandez, who guides the CIS scholarship program there, and Dra. Jakellyne Jimenez, Director of the Estanzuelas Unidad de Salud (the government health clinic).  Dra. Jimenez invited us to use a portion of the clinic for our medical mission and we accepted most happily. Below, left to right, are Leslie, Dra. Jimenez, Marvin and Kathy.