EL SALVADOR Mission keeps deputy going back

The local deputy's calling is helping El Salvador's needy.
By MARALINE KUBIK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- When a friend asked Stephen Szekely Jr., 31, if he'd be interested in going to El Salvador to help missionaries a few years ago, the Mahoning County deputy sheriff agreed to make the trip without much thought.
An advanced emergency medical technician, Szekely, of Struthers, knew he could help in the mission clinic and expected he and two friends, whose church organized the trip, would have an experience of a lifetime.
He didn't expect to build personal relationships with the people there that would keep him returning again and again.
Szekely's first two trips were in conjunction with relief efforts organized by Victory Assembly of God, Coitsville, and New Life Assembly of God, Poland.
The most recent trip -- Szekely's third -- was one he made alone.
Third trip: After learning about a major earthquake in January that devastated much of El Salvador, Szekely knew the friends he'd made there needed all the help they could get. He was determined to provide all he could.
So after soliciting sponsors to help pay for his trip -- the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 141 was a major support -- and gathering medical supplies donated by Rural/Metro Ambulance, Szekely took two weeks' vacation and went to help in whatever way he could.
One day he went to a refugee camp in the mountains near San Salvador to assist a physician who hoped to tend to the needs of about 400 families displaced by the earthquake.
It was a long and arduous journey. Carrying all of their supplies, they made the hourlong trip, set up a makeshift clinic and began seeing patients.
Many seek help: More than 250 children streamed through the clinic in six hours, most suffering from respiratory problems. Although the missionary's assistants had hoped to see everyone who needed care, Szekely said, "We just couldn't see everybody who lives on that mountain."
Another day, Szekely helped dismantle a church so damaged by the earthquake that allowing it to remain standing would have been a hazard. "That was intense physical labor," he noted.
Counting pills, sorting medications and helping in the clinic at the church camp, Castillo del Rey in San Salvador, also consumed much of his time. There is a lot to do in a place where most people are unemployed, live in tin-roofed shacks with dirt floors, have no water, electricity or windows and rely on a village well and vegetable gardens for sustenance, he observed.
Making a difference: Even volunteers who don't possess specialty skills in health care or construction make a big difference lending a helping hand.
Happily, Szekely said, the friends he'd made during his earlier visits all survived the earthquake without serious injury but many other residents in the area weren't as lucky.
"The saddest thing I saw was a 15-year-old boy named Moses, who lives about half a mile from our camp," Szekely said. The earthquake shook a huge boulder loose from the rocky mountainside. As it rolled toward the tiny shack where Moses' family lived, the boy dashed inside and carried his younger sister and brother to safety. Had he not rescued them, they surely would have been killed, Szekely said.
Unfortunately, Moses did not escape the bolder unscathed. It rolled over him, crushing his spine and rendering him a quadriplegic.
Although he'd like to visit other missions in different parts of the world, Szekely said it is difficult to consider missing an opportunity to revisit the mission in El Salvador. "I want to see the progress they're making," he explained. He plans to return in December.