Here’s our 2017 team (mostly)! 

From left to right, starting with the back row: Joe, Conner, Harry, Norm, Brandon, Colin, Abel, Caleb, Paul and Terry. We’ll be joined by Gareth and Ben in El Salvador as they’re flying from Toronto.

We’ve all been up since 3am so we’re not exactly shining with energetic smiles yet, but soon we will be soon, we promise.

We made it through bag check and security with only a little drama – “…there’s currently a baggage embargo in El Salvador and your second bags will have to travel separately on a later date…”  the teller informed us we might not get half our bags until 7 days after we arrive. After Brandon clarified this would not work she went on to say, “Well, you can choose which bag is more important…” Well, one of those bags are our tools and the other is our clothes. Brandon quickly and keenly deduced in his mind: We’d either be wearing clothes and trying to build with our bare hands or we’d be building with tools and our bare, white, vulnerable Canadian bodies bodies under the El Salvadorian blazing sun… 

After some negotiations and some extra baggage charges we were assured we’d be building with our clothes on! 

Here in the international wing of the YVR airport we have our photo taken in front of an opulent fish aquarium. We’re reminded of the wealth we have in Canada, in contrast to the families in El Salvador we’ll soon be working with. May we begin this trip with a humble thankfulness at the opportunity to share just a tiny bit of what we’ve been so blessed with. 

So now it’s off to Mexico City for a short layover before heading into our final destination this evening!