The Lord's Day

The Lord's Day is a day of rest and celebration. In Mexico for us today that was a welcome day!  I'm sure we all would have energy enough to continue working through today if we needed to but it was a welcome break. Certainly there was lots of little areas to serve and help with today but it was most exciting to worship with the Arbol de Vida congregation.

Our day started with a little bit of a sleep in and then helping to set up for the morning worship service. Chairs were set up in the main room where we have been eating our meals (their church is laid out a little different than ours). There was also a part of our team that helped out with setting up  for the children's church.

Then at about 11 am their worship service begins. It is quite unique in the fact that it starts off with about 30 people in attendance. Then over the next half an hour suddenly the church is full. Mexico time is certainly more relaxed than Canadian time!  By about half way through the worship/singing time the church was full and over flowing with about 150 people. It is a slightly more laid back service but certainly had all the same elements common on our Sunday mornings. Greg had warned us that the service is longer and will go to about 1 pm. Today it went to 1:20 pm but honestly did not feel long in any way. With lunch commonly being around 2pm or later most of you can relax and stop worrying about your roast beef, it won't be burnt!  They just operate under a different schedule than we are used to but I can say it wouldn't take me long to get used to a Sunday schedule like this.

As far as interesting elements that I noted during the service here are a few thoughts from my perspective. Other team members may have viewed it differently. First and most obviously it was in Spanish. I noticed a lot of their worship songs were different than ours, but as Crystelle made note of, what a blessing and unique opportunity to sing along in English during 'Blessed be the name of the Lord' as they sang in Spanish. Just think about how big our God is as He hears the praise from hundreds of countries around the world at the same time, all in their native tongues. It is so beautiful to know that we are praising the same God, and He hears us all individually!  It was also awesome to see a girl, about Terrace's age, praising God with the upbeat worship and smiling over at Terrace across the aisle. Even though we cannot communicate well with them in 'word' it is beautiful to see how we all can communicate in 'deeds' both with smiles or even building a wall or selling clothes. What a feeling of unity within the service.  We were also blessed to be able to participate in communion as well as celebrating all the birthdays of the last month with a song.  Finally we were honored to have Jack Vogt speak on Exodus and the Passover and communion. This portion of the service was preached in English by him for our benefit and interpreted, line for line, into Spanish for the rest of the congregation. Normally this would just be in Spanish as Jack speaks it fluently. So we feel honored for the efforts they made on our behalf to include us.

As a team we provided the special music by singing 'Once Again' in English for them!  It was sweet to be able to look at all their faces while we sang and see all the warm smiles. What an amazing God we serve!

After the service we helped pack up some chairs and tables and headed out to the 'camp' for a church BBQ. Here it was called 'Carne Asada' which I believe means BBQ meat!  What could be better than that?  Well, I guess BBQ beef all chopped up and then served on flour or corn tortias (I think) with guacamole, lettuce, hot salsa (picante!!), plus more fresh fixings!  Wow, what a spread of food!  It was a wonderful time to sit and relax and interact with everyone. Many just visited and ate food but there was also opportunity to play basketball and soccer. It was great to interact with the kids all the way to the more elderly. I even had a chance to try and talk a bit with a man who joined us for the day. It was only his third time at the church and he lives very close by in the shanty town and is often seen walking by the church in a stupor from sniffing solvents. God is touching so many people here through the ministry of Arbol de Vida!

Tonight we had a relaxing evening as a team on our own here at the church.   If only you could of heard the noise from the 'Uno' table with new rules making it a much wilder game than I've ever seen before. It is the times like these where I see how God is bringing our team even closer together with a unique bond! I feel blessed to have our kids here with us to experience this together as a family. Watching them participate in games and work with our team and the local team shows me how special they are.  I think the best is yet to come for them as we begin to work at the orphange on Tuesday. Tonight it was good that everyone was able to relax a little in their own way because tomorrow we have a big day!  We are going to the Beach!  Greg and Shelly consider Monday their family day so it works out to be a good day for the team to be guided by the Hildebrand's to the Beach. We will get the work boots and gloves back on for Tuesday as we have a lot more work to get done this week!

Pedro!!