Let's Walk2gether

Hello, my name is Henry Flores, director of the communications center in El Salvador. For the past two years, I have been helping guide Daniel (read more about Daniel) in his dream to become a journalist. Praise God, he finished his first college semester and passed all subjects, with an 85 percent as his lowest grade. Recently I gave Daniel the assignment to cover the first solidarity walk of the CFCA Project Santa Ana, El Salvador, and I think he did a great job interviewing and taking pictures, below is his final article, which was translated from Spanish to English.

For many people, walking is a way to exercise; for many others, walking is a necessity, and there are millions of people around the world who must walk to school, to work, to get water from the river, to see a doctor. In this spirit, CFCA tells the world, let’s “Walk2gether.”

CFCA President and Co-founder Bob Hentzen will embark on a 16-month walk from Guatemala to Chile beginning Dec. 29, 2009. Hentzen, 73, will walk an estimated 8,140 miles through 12 countries in Central and South America.

CFCA Project Santa Ana, in El Salvador, recently celebrated an eight-mile solidarity walk, which inaugurates the project’s activities in connection to Walk2gether.

“The idea of this solidarity walk is to give the initial kick off to the project´s activities in relation to Bob´s pilgrimage. Short solidarity walks are being organized among all our CFCA families in the country,” said Yesenia Alfaro, Santa Ana project coordinator.

The staff members of Project Santa Ana felt supported when they saw sponsored families cheering for them along the walk route.

“To see the families, along our eight-mile solidarity walk, was very gratifying. It was exciting to see how they took time out of their daily lives to come greet us as we arrived at our destination in the community of San Luis La Planta. It was a great moment because, for us, to walk is to tell them that they are not alone and their welcoming was their way to tell us, you are not walking alone either,” Yesenia said.

For those who are not accustomed to walking, it may look like fun in the beginning, but later, one discovers that it is not easy; it is then, when you connect with all sponsored families around the world who walk every day.

“Today we walked about eight miles and, in many moments, we felt very tired,” said Yesenia. “This helped us to connect and understand the sponsored families and their daily burdens.”
The mission of CFCA calls us to be pilgrims, to be connected as a community.

“I hope that this solidarity walk will instill in all of us that all our future steps in CFCA must be focused in the support, the learning and offering our work for our sponsored families.” Yesenia said.

Written by Daniel, CFCA sponsored youth and scholarship holder, in collaboration with Henry Flores, director of the communications center in El Salvador.