Horse Play in El Salvador!

Last week, our global(x) equestrian team helped kick off La Casa de mi Padre’s summer serving season. The team spent the week partnering with the Therapeutic Riding Program, just one of the fun and impactful programs La Casa offers their children. 

La Casa’s riding program teaches the children responsibility, confidence, motor skills, and serves as an emotional outlet. Learning to trust after a traumatic event is not easy, and many of the children form special bonds with the horses before ever trusting an adult again. Riding is also a great all-body exercise that helps reduce stress.

The days were sunny and well into the upper 80s by 10:00 a.m., yet this team poured their energy and hearts into removing sand from the stalls, putting down rubber mats, and refilling the stalls with wood shavings. Not an easy task in the hot and humid weather! The horses and those who work in the barn really appreciated the team’s efforts.

While the team’s hard work was beneficial and served the efforts of our partner, the relationships they formed with the staff and children will last forever. They helped with riding lessons during the week, had lunch and playtime with the children each day, and hosted a fun horse rally where the children played different games, many of them on horses.

The team also learned about Salvadoran culture and visited with La Casa’s neighbors. Social issues in any culture are complex with no magic wand to fix everything, but care and compassion reach beyond boundaries and bring people together.

The team had an incredible week full of new experiences, new relationships, and greater understanding. La Casa de mi Padre was especially grateful for this team’s heart, along with all the planning, time, effort, and energy it took for them to serve alongside their staff.

If you’ve never been on a global(x) journey, gallop on over to globalx.org to see why we serve, where we serve, and how you can make a world of difference!