When Ashley Siferd of Lenoir City recently returned from a yearlong trip to El Salvador, serving youth at the Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos children’s home, the experience was like trading one family for another, as she had become close with numerous residents and staff members of the center that sits just outside the nation’s second largest city of Santa Ana.

“It was extremely hard to leave,” Siferd, who is also a member of St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church, said. “I know I left a part of myself behind. ... I can safely say I have 300 more brothers and sisters.”

Although many church mission trips to Central and South America are more temporary and feature construction projects or other service-oriented, short-term objectives, Siferd’s goal was to build more longterm relationships with residents of the children’s home, many of whom came to the center because their parents were unable or unwilling to care for them.


The NPH center in El Salvador houses more than 300 children and youth who receive personal care, food, shelter, schooling and spiritual counseling as part of Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos International, which has nine homes in Latin America.

Siferd, who said she took more than 4,000 photographs while on mission in El Salvador, relished the local culture and the relationships she was able to build while at the NPH home.

“When I moved down there, it’s like I moved to a new home,” Siferd said.

Jan and Stu McFadden, of Lenoir City and members of St. Thomas, serve as sponsors for NPH children Katie and Flor. Jan described Siferd as “just something really special” for her willingness and ability to serve for a year in the nation.

Jan said the ultimate goal of NPH was to assist the children and youth in becoming functioning members of their own society as a way to bolster the nation.

“We are so impressed with her as a wonderful Christian young woman who wants to help others and her dedication to those children,” Jan said. “She just loves it there and being with them and seeing the opportunity that those kids have, and we feel that places like NPH are the answer to the problems in Latin and South America to bring up kids who will be leaders in their own country — not burden them here — but to stay in their country and help improve it.”

As part of her time in El Salvador, Siferd got to participate in Latin American Holy Week activities, including a live performance of the Station of the Cross, and visit with children and youth from other NPH centers during the seventh annual NPH International Soccer Tournament.

“It was awesome to experience that week a different way,” Siferd said about the Holy Week festivities in El Salvador.

St. Thomas will hold a reception for Siferd after the 9 a.m. mass Aug. 17. Churchgoers will be able to view a video from her trip and hear about her experiences working with the children at the NPH center.

The McFaddens, along with Theresa and George Beyer and other members of St. Thomas, have been supporting the center through NPH adoptions, and the couple traveled to El Salvador in November 2013.

“It’s extremely important,” Jan said about NPH’s mission work. “What they do makes a big difference because you’re not just adopting a child and bringing it here, you’re sponsoring a child to improve their own country.”

Siferd said she plans to return to El Salvador in November or March 2015, with a goal of serving at the center on a more longterm basis.

“I’m happy to be back in East Tennessee, but it’s really truly hard and painstaking to leave because those kids are my family too,” Siferd said.