CITALÁ, CHALATENANGO

🇸🇻EL SALVADOR🇸🇻

Citalá is a small, tight-knit community nestled in the mountains of El Salvador. It is full of stunning views, vibrant wildlife, and warm-hearted and generous people who are always looking out for one another. Citalá is the perfect place for anybody who wants to get away from the rush of everyday life, but this level of isolation offers a unique set of challenges as well. It is a challenge for many children to receive a quality education, resulting in a high percentage of illiteracy in the community. There is also a lack of access to job opportunities, healthy hobbies, and proper healthcare. Our goal is to clearly model Christ's love and desire for the community and therefore be the bridge that may connect them to the hope they have been missing.

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VISION

Restoring relationships with God, oneself, and one another

Mission

We seek the Kingdom of Heaven in rural El Salvador by cultivating spiritual and educational growth, encouraging healthy hobbies and life skills, and opening doors of advancement for current and future generations.

SPORTS MINISTRY

We have found that sports tend to tear down walls and create community in a unique way. The kids in Citalá love playing soccer, basketball and softball, and we love having opportunities to mentor them. We are playin two times a week, the kids after spending time in devotion. We see emotional walls come down during this time as the kids feel free to be themselves and fully express all they are feeling. Twice a year we implement softball clinics and soccer tournaments during a few days of the week, in order to teach the children healthy hobbies, discipline, and further show them the ways of Jesus.

ENGLISH CLASSES

The ability to speak English is a priceless skill to have when it comes to opportunities in El Salvador. Being bilingual opens up so many doors and brings hope for community members and their families. Not only are English classes often expensive in El Salvador, it is incredibly difficult to have this opportunity in a rural area such as Citalá. Fran and Jeicsy Ruano teach weekly English classes at "C.R.E.A | LIFE DEVELOPMENT CENTER" to children and adults. Aside from simply learning a new skill, these classes are the perfect opportunity to spend time with the community, get a glimpse into their lives, and share with them what a life serving Jesus can look like.

C.R.E.A
LIFE DEVELOPMENT CENTEr

“CREA” Creation (Creación), Restoration (Restauración), Hope (Esperanza), Love (Amor) has a double meaning in Spanish. It could be used to mean “create” and it could also be used to mean “believe”. This is a great reflection of what we hope to foster for the community of Citalá. We want this to be a space where people can feel God’s love, and freedom to create something great for themselves and their community.

The space is being used to provide one on one tutoring for children who are struggling to learn how to read and write. Many of them belong to parents who are also illiterate and therefore are unable to help teach their children in this area. While El Salvador currently does not have a "reading culture" we hope to change that in Citalá. We want to work with the local schools and welcome individual classes to the library once a week. It is then that we will give lessons on how reading can not only be beneficial but fun as well

Workshops

During the year we have different workshops such as Art, Painting, Crafts, Gardening and more. We believe that the workshops are a great opportunity to develop the lives of children and the community where they live.

We currently have two workshops that run for 8 months:

The first is a reading and writing workshop where children who already know how to read have the opportunity to improve their reading by using books and learning new words through exercises and games. We believe that this workshop will also help them create a reading habit, where books can also be part of their lives.

The second workshop is for children who are in kindergarten. This workshop is called "I learn, playing." Our goal is for children to improve their reading and writing skills, but the most exciting thing about this is that they do it while they are playing.

BIBLE STUDY

In March of this year we started a Bible study with adults (Growth Group), we shared the word of God with the mothers of some children and we are talking about topics such as: the gospel of Jesus, the life of Jesus, the meaning of being parents , what are our wishes for our children in the future, the importance of prayer.

The goal of this group is to disciple adults so that they can be future leaders in their family and community. We want them to be able to enjoy and learn about Jesus by talking, praying, having a coffee or sometimes doing workshops that teach them to develop their gifts and talents.