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Almost 50 years ago, a man named John Bueno had a dream and a plan to build a school to help children in San Salvador. Over the years, the school has taught thousands of children, many of whom would not receive a quality education without this school. Today, the school has grown to over 1,400 students at all grade levels.
 As the school continues to grow, new classrooms are needed. We had the opportunity to partner with Evangel A/G in Wichita, Kansas and Bob Bueno (John's son) in San Salvador to work on new classrooms. Since the school is now landlocked, two one-story classrooms were torn out (before our arrival) to be replaced by four classes in two-stories.
On the Tuesday during our project, one of the team members had a birthday. He was surprised to find a student with a large poster board saying "Happy Birthday!" In talking with the student, the team member asked how close to the school the student lives. The student replied, "It depends." The obvious question was asked, "Depends on what?" The team member was thinking it might depend on if the student walked home, took a cab or caught a bus. The student replied that it depends on where they decide to spend the night because he (and some others) don't have a home to go to every night.
We met another student who studies hard and heard his story. He was attending a local public school with his brothers. His older brother was told to join a local gang by fellow students who are members of the gang. The brother repeatedly choose to not join the gang even after being threatened. In the end, the gang killed the oldest brother. This young man felt equally as threatened but didn't know what to do or where to go. Fortunately, this school in San Salvador is able to take him in and hundreds of others who get a high quality education they would otherwise never receive.
 We worked hard to provide new classrooms. Our goal was to lay the block for the two classrooms on the bottom floor. During our time, we were able to build walls for the lower floor rooms, pour the columns for the rooms and put up most of the walls needed for the stairwell. The students, faculty and others involved were amazed at how much progress we made.
While we were building the classrooms, we noticed some other building projects were going on as classrooms were being transformed. Turned out, the students were putting together their projects for the science fair. We took a few minutes on the last day to see what the students had worked on. Some classes focused on medical issues and covered different aspects of the human body and its functions. Other students created all kinds of mechanical systems as their projects. We saw and automatic coffee maker that ground beans, put the beans in a cup, delivered the cup along a conveyor belt and dropped the coffee into the filter where water was added. The coffee was delicious. Students built a video projector, a laser based counter system, an automatic water delivery system for water tanks located on top of home and much more. We got to see the education at work through the fair.
We got to attend two school assemblies. The first assembly was a big welcome to our team with elementary classes taking part in the program by singing and dancing in traditional El Salvador style. The second assembly was a celebration of the work completed and our time together. The older students sang and danced and celebrated.
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