As the sun was setting on our first night in San Juan, our team decided to go for a walk. We started to walk just around the neighbor hood that we are living in. We enjoyed a stunning sun set as we walked toward it for as long as we could. We decided to turn back before it got too dark as we weren’t positive how to get back to the house, and we weren’t sure if the streets would be lit. We started back and our attention was drawn to music coming from a church. A few of us were curious about the music, but were uncertain about what was appropriate. As we hesitated in our walk past the church I saw a woman who was holding a baby outside the door, she gently waved us to come in, then I looked at my team unsure and looked back, and she was waving more convincingly, so I started to walk that way and signaled my team to join.
We tried to stay just outside the door and just look in, but we were waved in the doors. Then we tried to stay in the back of the church standing and just watching but we were waved into seats… and we couldn’t refuse as what was before our eyes was a Dominican mime… yes mime acting out a dance/mime act to a sermon put to music…amazing, God is awesome! Then three acoustic guitar players went up on stage, and we looked at each other and said God is awesome. Then a guy got up and started to sing worship and we were able to worship with them, so cool. As the service ended we tried to exit, as it is now officially dark, and we still don’t know how to get back. But the same woman who waved us in stopped us and invited to her house, but we told them that we couldn’t, but they were not going to let us off that easy, they waved us downstairs where they force fed us cornbread, cake and coke on ice…. did I mention that God is awesome! In our broken Spanish we thanked them and the woman, Johanny, gave us her phone number and address to meet with her again. We are so excited to get the chance to spend more time with them this month starting with dinner tomorrow night!
Another cool connection from that night, is the band that lead worship is a part of the same ministry as our translator for the month. So we are greatful to have the Lord affirm the places that he took us on our first night. Thank you God for welcoming us to San Juan and introducing us to this community to take part in this month!
