Sunday Night

What an amazing time getting to worship with our brothers and sisters at Luz Divina! Craig, Dave, Zoraya, Nathan, Judy and Magalie visited, learned from, and worked with the musicians and children of Luz Divina earlier in the day while the rest of the team visited the construction site where we'll be working tomorrow. That evening at 6pm, we all reconvened at the church for the Sunday service. The current church facility is little more than a plain tin roof attached to the the back of a building, with a cement floor and some drapes hung on the thin walls, but it's a place filled with a lot of joy, fervent prayer, and family love.
Translator, trip assistant, blogger, recent college graduate, and future Emmy-winning filmmaker Gia learned to play music by one of her favorite groups (Twenty One Pilots) with Dave and a touchscreen piano.

 

At the site of the new church building. The walls you see to the sides are from the adjoining property, also under construction. The holes dug in the ground are in preparation for the work that begins tomorrow pouring concrete and tying rebar to lay the foundation.

Stella greeted the congregation at the opening of worship.

Larry greeted the congregation and introduces the team… in Spanish! He was determined to try his best, and after writing out what he would say and having two people read over it to check, he delivered, he was understood, and he even recovered well when he lost a page.

After Larry introduced the team, Dave and Craig collaborated with the worship band of Luz Divina children of the church singing “Cuán Grande Es Dios (How Great Is Our God)”—a song popular in their country and in ours.

Pastor Mede (with Magalie translating for us) gave the sermon, mostly in Creole, a little in Spanish, and even a bit of English at one point. It was truly a tri-lingual worship service! He preached on the last chapter of 2 Samuel, in which David takes responsibility for his sin in (ordering a census rather than trusting in the Lord), and God commands David to build an altar on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. Araunah offers to give David the land and an extravagant compliment of cattle and goods for a burnt offering. The verse Pastor Mede focused upon was the next: “…the king [David] said to Araunah, ‘No, but I will buy them from you for a price; I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.’ So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.” David would not make an offering to God unless it was costly to him. We too (both his congregation and our mission team, and those who came before us and will come after us) are called to build a temple to the Lord, a place for worship, prayer, community, and comfort, and we are called to work hard and sacrifice to do so. He wanted his congregation to understand that it is costly to do God’s work, but worth the cost.

All the kids at Luz Divina (church) wanted to meet los títeres (the puppets) after worship. We introduced the puppets as part of introducing our team… good thing Zoraya can improvise puppet dialogue in Spanish! Nathan’s puppet is a little bit tímido (shy), but he can really rock on his electric guitar!