In 1998, in the wake of a series of devastating hurricane-generated floods and earthquakes in Central America, Guillermo Gonzalez, a native of El Salvador and a member of the St. Andrew congregation, approached the Church to ask if it could provide financial assistance to support the construction of housing for residents of a small village in that country, named Buenos Aires.  Buenos Aires is a village of close to 1,000 people -- over half of them under 18, and badly in need of many basic necessities.  It is located in the hills, up a badly rutted road. midway between Sonsonate and the country's capital city of San Salvador.

The church and its members generously contributed over $35,000 to that initial effort, and the funds were used to pay for medicine and supplies and to construct 54 dwelling units for the village.  These homes, using concrete blocks and sheet metal, are primitive by our standards, but met the needs of villagers who had seen their previous dwellings leveled or badly damaged by the catastrophes.

Since that initial work, Gonzalez and Rev. Richard Gantenbein have collectively made four additional trips to El Salvador to meet with villagers of Buenos Aires and with representatives of Agape, a church-based organization located in the nearby town of Sonsonate, which has dedicated its work to helping area villagers. 

The return trips were undertaken to explore, with the villagers and with Agape, what additional steps St. Andrew might take to help.  From that work has emerged the next phase of St. Andrew's El Salvador mission work - a plan to transport and construct a pre-fabricated 60-foot long metal building which will be used by the village as a combination school and community center.

Read the details of the second Mission Trip to El Salvador and the steps that were taken for El Salvador 2002.

Mission Trip 2004