Although we cannot express our excitement in words, the nervous eager energy is obvious among everyone (as this is our first night we meet the people we will be working for the next 2 weeks). Our squad leader Stephanie Fisk began conversing in Spanish with Pastor Noe Nunez. She looks at us and explains he wants one of us to preach. Although 3 on the squad were prepared to give testimonies, we were quite unsure about preaching. One of us volunteered.
We take our seats along with the locals, as Pastor Noe and another man go up front and strap there guitars to there chests. This church is poor, but they do have amplifiers and speakers…..big ones. An explosion of Mexican worship music bursts forth. Immediately the congregation of locals begin clapping with great vigor. The expression of worship to the Lord is inspiring.
It is an odd feeling worshipping God to music were the words are unknown to you and everyone around you is screaming the lyrics with spiratic “Alleluia!” and “Gloria Dios!!” and “Gracias Senor Cristo!!” They played for about 45 minutes. I want to express the difficulty to worship and sing if you don’t 1. know the words 2. can’t speak the language. My hands began to sting by this time from clapping to the music. I guess the locals can handle it as the do this often. When the music ceased ,Pastor Noe un-strapped his guitar, his face red, his shirt soaked with sweat from praising the Lord so passionately. He began to speak rapidly in his language. I can pick up on a word here and there. I realized he was saying we were about to pray. He closed his eyes and began speaking loudly to God. Then everyone started yelling. In America when the pastor prays, we bow our heads and politely listen and pray silently along. This is not how Mexicans do it. They all cry out their prayers together. It boggles my mind how God can hear 50 different people crying out prayers in 2 languages and hears each one fully! This went on for about 5 minutes. My white friends and I quickly ran out of words after about 30 seconds, (maybe we were self conscience and just unsure about the concept).
The prayer time ended. Then 3 of my friends shared their testimonies and one preached. The messages wers short. It take twice as much time to speak because the translator has to repeat. Then we sang again. The service lasted close to 3 hours. At one point I thought the service was over because the locals were shaking our hands, saying something in Spanish. So I said “Mucho Gusto” to all of them…that means nice to meet you. After they stopped shaking our hands my team member, Sara whispered to me, “Ali, they aren’t coming around to meet us, there are saying, “Peace be with you.” Ooops!
After the service did end, they fed us tamlamles and orange sodas, Which was so humbling! We are here to work for them and help them, and the fed us!
