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Help exchanged between Catholic sister parishes

Contributed photo Children from El Salvador give a musical performance to visitors from St. Henry Catholic Church in Marshalltown.

Four visitors traveled miles to learn about the education available in Marshalltown and the charitable nature of its residents. Their goal is to take their knowledge back to their home of San Diego de Maria in El Salvador to improve ways of life. Father Pablo Hernandez, Nery Irhtea, Roberto Iglesias and Isabel Acosta arrived in Marshalltown on Tuesday, Oct. 1 for a week-long stay courtesy of St. Henry Catholic Church.

The church the visitors belong to — San Martin — is a sister parish of St. Henry.

“They help us and we help them,” said Mark Mack, committee chairman of the Parish Twinning Program of the Americas. “There are three main legs we help each other with — spiritual, cultural and pastoral. We work together to decide what needs to be done and work together on projects.”

Some of the projects that are being worked on is exposing the youth of Marshalltown to the lives of youth in other parts of the world.

“They have been showing our youth what they have compared to the youth of El Salvador, and how hard those youth have to work just to survive,” Mack said. “We want our youth to think about what they are doing with their lives and the things they have been given; instead of just getting more, maybe they can share with others.”

Mack said the youth in El Salvador will work during half the day and attend school during the last half. At work, the youth will earn $200 to $300 per month to put food on their families’ tables. Here, Mack said the youth can make that in a week with a part-time job.

One youth impacted by the information was Aida Almanza, 17, a Marshalltown High School senior. After the group visited for the first time in 2018, Almanza became interested in their story and lives. She thought about what she was doing with hers and ended up serving as the translator during the Marshalltown visit.

“I fell in love with their stories,” Almanza said. “Now I am interpreting and I couldn’t be more grateful.”

Iglesias thanked God for Almanza’s help.

Influencing the education system in El Salvador is one thing the sister parishes are hoping to accomplish.

“Education is a powerful thing and the United States does not understand how important it really is,” Mack said. “They are trying in El Salvador to get the government to provide education to the youth. Father Pablo is working hard on that.”

Hernandez said one of the schools in El Salvador was without working bathrooms. Thanks to the money raised through the sister parishes, they were able to provide a bathroom for the 30 students at the school. Another project that is being worked on is a school for the arts, which is an aspect of education not offered in El Salvador.

Hernandez also said they are trying to build a tilapia farm. El Salvador, he said, was heavily dependent on coffee. When other countries in the world began growing coffee, El Salvador had too much competition so prices of coffee dropped dramatically.

“People abandoned the business,” Hernandez said. “Small farms started packing the coffee to sell it and obtain money. Other countries have been producing coffee and have caused the people to lose profits. Coffee is like petroleum.”

Iglesias said one example would be the countries of China and Vietnam making many of the products available. Before, those products were produced in other locations. However, Iglesias added that they brought fresh coffee from El Salvador and it is for sale at the St. Henry Catholic Church.

Yet other projects are a bakery, chicken incubator and community gardens to teach people in the community how to raise their own food and even sell some of it.

“We started with one chicken incubator which would hold 45 chicks for 28 days,” Hernandez said. “Now we can hold 280 eggs. We want to help more people. The parish also bought a used oven and we have youth learning to become bakers, so they are learning an occupation.”

For anyone who wants to help with any of the projects in El Salvador or volunteer, contact the St. Henry Catholic Church.

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