Worship in Puebla

Today was easily one of my favorite days of the trip.  It's interesting because we weren't "technically" working except for when some of the group left the service for VBS during Adrian's sermon ... but this day was definitely a big highlight for me.  Although we couldn't understand a lot of what was being said, sung, or prayed, we all were praising our One True God, together.  The language barrier didn't matter ... we were all brothers and sisters in Christ, praising Him together.  It was beautiful.

We sang "Lord I Lift Your Name On High" together first ... they sang in Spanish, us in English ... it was kind of like a round but with 2 different languages.  So very moving.

Yesterday, Rudy asked us to sing 2-3 songs for the congregation during the service.  LOL.  None of us have ever sung together and I think it's safe to say that most of us are not singers.  Yikes!  We embraced the opportunity to praise God in this way though, and we picked "Blessed Be Your Name" and "Open The Eyes Of My Heart."  They were both songs all of us felt we could sing easily.  (Interestingly, Fork also sang "Open The Eyes Of My Heart" today too!)  I handed my camera over to Adrian to capture a few moments, and he went a little snap happy, LOL.  Thank you 2nd shooter!!

During the service, several families and individuals came up to the front to sing "specialities" (I think) ... solos in front of the congregation.  I so wish I knew what they were singing!

Rudy and his family sang 2 songs together (which I videoed, but I figured I wouldn't bore you with too many videos on the blog).  After that, the whole congregation got up and sang too - I did put that one below ... I just love their adoration as they praise God.  They don't need a church building or even a place without lots of distractions around ... they can praise God anywhere.  I tried to video the whole area while they were singing so you can get a feel for the atmosphere.  In the background, there are people running businesses, cars passing by, trucks backfiring, stray dogs running around and barking, chickens crossing the road (that seriously did happen), bunnies doing their business in the cages behind us, and just general noise of a busy street.  If you have ADHD (or even if you don't), you can easily see it can be sensory overload.  It does not matter here though, they showed me that people of God can gather anywhere to praise Him ... no fancy church building required.

Adrian delivered the sermon and a nice woman who helps with the church came over to translate for us.  We were able to get the general idea of the message, which was really great because we didn't think we'd be able to understand what he was saying.  During this time, about half of our group took the kids into the church building for VBS.  I don't have any pictures of that, although I'm sure there are many floating around out there!

After church, the congregation served a prepared pot luck meal and we all sat around and fellowshipped.  The language barrier just flat out didn't matter.  This again, was one of my favorite parts of our trip.  Just being with other believers in another country with another language ... seriously, it was awesome.  The guitar player from the church service is 13 years old and he totally rocks.  He and Barb played guitar together during lunch ... I could have listened all day!

Here are two videos from that time also - "Open The Eyes Of My Heart" and "Lord I Lift Your Name On High," both in Spanish.  Coolness.  It is noisy in the background and yes, those are bunnies behind him, so you do have to concentrate to listen :-)