Sunday, August 27, 2017:  The Holy Spirit is very strong in Colombia.  We arose bright and cheerful as we looked forward to worshiping with our sister church congregation.  As usual, two cars arrived to transport our group of six to church.  We arrived at 10:00 am during their Bible study that preceded the church service.  The actual service began at 10:30 and we enjoyed the lively music provided by the band's keyboard and drums.  The choir consisted of three young people who sang many praise songs.  It was a special Sunday service, not only because we were visiting, but also new members were joining and the 57thbirthday of the church was being celebrated.  New members each gave testimonies about their faith and their desire to join the congregation.  Germ án Steffanell, Alexander's brother, was among the new members joining that Sunday.  Many different members of the congregation participated in leading parts of the service.  We noticed that Pastor Luis had a small part and Gina Zabala had a large part.  

 

 

Lawrence Bartel gave the sermon in English and Johana Nu ñez translated.  Everyone applauded Lawrence's sermon.  People came forward to give their offerings.  "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" was sung with great gusto.  We had Bulletins to follow along during the service. There were no Hymnals, but the words to all of the hymns were projected on a screen at the right front corner of the church.  During the Passing of the Peace, we received many hugs and kisses from everyone there. Our group presented the church with a beautiful Banner made by Karen Shearer.  And they presented us with a beautiful banner as well.  Then we passed out handmade bookmarks and pocket crosses as symbols of our partnership.  The pocket crosses were made by Nancy Moeckel and Carol Burkhalter and included a poem.

     The service ended after two hours.  Afterwards there was a lot of picture taking.  Many people wanted their pictures taken with us. Karen, Carol, and I were given bouquets of flowers.  There was ice cream and cake to celebrate the church's 57thbirthday.  We met Johana's younger brother who was in the new member class and also the drum player in the band.  We met Johana's mother, Astrid Olaciregovi, who also led the Biblestudy.  We met Johana's father and he was very friendly.  Then we met the mother and father of Germ án and Alexander Steffanell as well as a third brother.

         Afterwards, we went to a restaurant that served American food for lunch.  We met Gina's husband Omar who we had seen on the previous Friday night leading the crowd in praise songs by waving his arms high in the air and swaying back and forth with the music.  We noticed men loitering around the street parking areas.  While parking on the street is free, our drivers paid these men a small sum to watch over the cars while we were in the restaurant eating. We returned to our hotel for a rest before being picked up again and taken to a nearby shopping mall.  It was a very modern mall with many different modern stores and places to buy food.  We found it most interesting to walk through the grocery store and look at the produce and packaged goods.  

         After this very stimulating day, it was a relief to go back to our hotel for a good night's sleep.  Our rooms were air conditioned, which we greatly appreciated.

Each month the Mission and Outreach committee plans to share information about the people and their groups that we, meaning you, our church, support.  We are starting with our PC(USA) World Mission Partners. 

"Transformational Mission A Message from World Mission: Presbyterians do mission in partnership. We believe that doing mission in partnership broadens our awareness of how interconnectional God's mission is at the local, national and global levels. The one table around which we gather is God's table and the one mission to which we are called is God's mission. Jose Luis Casal, Director World Mission"

 

To learn more than these brief introductions and for an overview of  

Mission Connections visit: presbyterianmission.org/ministries/world-mission. Here you can search for past information from our partners and catch up with their current projects. You will also find their contact information and can sign up for their newsletters.

 

We support each of these 4 missionary teams/individuals with $1000.00 a year.