Sunday seemed to be more or less a day of rest (I may have read somewhere that someone planned it like that). We began the day with a short period of worship. I will admit that when we first got here, I felt a little “funny” having worship in the living room just sitting around in a circle. After all, someone might be able to actually HEAR me sing (OH NO!) that way. These days, I am a veteran…and the truth is it is a great way to worship; a little more intimate and it seems God can concentrate on you a little better. I am thinking we should begin to have a short period of praise and worship before small group. Hope our small group members don’t mind! THIS morning was a little more special as we would be completing an assignment from Saturday after Hora Feliz.
Our assignment was to first read Psalm 105 and 106, then WRITE our own Psalm recalling the blessings God had given us. At first this seemed very difficult….but then once I got to writing, it was pretty easy. I whipped it out in just under an hour.
So, after singing some praise to God, we pulled out our Psalms, and each of us read one verse of ours, working our way around the room. The first thing that struck me was there was barely a dry eye in the room. The emotion was a physical thing – apparently WRITING down your blessings is fairly benign, but READING THEM OUT LOUD TO THE GROUP is a bit more powerful. The second thing that struck me was how a random group of people, writing random blessings about themselves, WITHOUT comparing notes could, reading them one at a time, write a passage that seemed as though it were written by one person with intention. SO, I will confess: I believe that our Psalm was “God breathed”, that is was in fact written by one being with intention…I would compile it, write it down and share it, but I seriously doubt it would be as meaningful to anyone but those of us sitting in the room when it was read. I believe we were being directly and purposefully shown the spirit of God among us, and it was truly a blessing. Praise God!
Afterward, we departed for a church service at the meeting place in Berazetegui (yes, I can hardly say it either). There is a picture below of me standing in front of the building. The sign above the door says “Iglesias de la Esparanza”. Service here is slightly different, and far more interactive. One interesting note, the leader does not instruct us to “Greet 2 people you haven’t spoken to” as we are leaving. The simple reason for that is because it would be a waste of breath…everyone has greeted (with a kiss) everyone else before the service began! There is NO ONE in the building that each person has not spoken to. It seems a little hectic to the untrained observer, but after spending some time thinking about it, it seems quite beautiful. The service lasted about two hours (and the service did NOT go over). I would relate something about the message, but it was in Spanish, and of course I had no clue. Actually, Nate gave the message, and I know it was about why we pray, since he spoke of that with us several days ago (in English). Part of the service was to seperate into small groups of between 4 and 10, and to pray for one another. It was quite interesting, and moving as we were each on a group of people speaking Spanish. While I could not understand their prayers, I could feel the spirit of God moving among us. Oh, and interestingly some people shared Mate DURING the service…how cool!
Afterward, we headed over to Steve Bailey’s house for Asado. Steve and his wife WIlma were excellent hosts, and the Asado was AMAZING. (There are two pics of the grill below…YUM) We spent several hours there between eating and sitting around visiting and it was just a great time. I must say it was really great to meet Steve and his family as well as Gary McCaman and his wife Linda. What a great group of people, I pray I will have an opportunity to return and visit them again.
In the evening we attended another service near Steve’s home (again, no need to “greet two people…”) Butch and I spoke briefly about our trip, our connection to the La Plata team and what we had been doing since arrival. There was another very interactive service which lasted abut 2 hours. The speaker was visiting from another church, and had been brought to Christ by a visiting Missionary. It seemed to be a touching service, and to illustrate what we could not understand verbally, the speaker tore up a newspaper throughout the service. I believe he was talking about our sinfulness, and the brokenness of our hearts while he did so. He told the congregation that Jesus (I am paraphrasing based o the body language since I really know very little Spanish) will not only mend our hearts, but make them WHOLE again. He then unfolded the torn up newspaper to present a whole newspaper with several pages intact. Pretty great illustration.
All in all it was a glorious (long) day. It is so wonderful, and such a privilege to be hee worshiping with our church family in Argentina. It is very easy to SAY we know God is everywhere, but it is another thing to be here and to see how God is working answering the prayers of our church family in Chesapeake Beach. It struck me the other day…just in a very real way…the God we pray to here is the SAME God we pray to at home. ANd hte same God our brothers in Argentina pray too as well. God is awesome, and powerful and loving and EVERYWHERE, all the time.
Sorry for the late post, but we did not get home last night till midnight, and we were in Buenos Aries all day today. By the time you finish reading this, I will most likely have published todays post!
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