Day 2: Church

Sunday morning we went to church in La Pinada with Pastor Hilmar. The church service was awesome and just seeing the faces of the people as they worshiped was amazing to me. They are so in love with God and have such a hunger for Him. The church is a small building with 3 rooms. We packed that place full. It was so eye opening. We had no sound equipment, no microphones, no flashing lights or pews or A/C. We sat on small pews, windows and doors open, children walking around through us, and dogs walking in and out. And yet, we were still focused on worshiping God and bringing glory to Him. It was amazing.

During the service there was this one little boy, Jose, that sat in my lap the entire time. If we stood up to sing and would jump off my lap and turn around and hug my waist really tight. I could barely move! He was so sweet and precious. Yanci, a little girl around 8 years old, sat next to me and she was so sweet! She had her Bible with her and when whoever was speaking would say a new passage she would look up at me with her big eyes and push her Bible towards me. I was able to find all the verses we read from for her and each time I would find them and show them to her I could hear her reading them.

We spent some time with the people from La Pinada for a little while after church. They were all so welcoming and gave us a ton of hugs and were so thankful to have us visit their church. They were so proud of their church and it was such a great time being with them.

To get to the village there, you have to walk down a really, really steep hill. It is literally so steep that it almost hurts your toes in your shoes because they slide to the very end of your shoe. And since walking down is the only way there...walking back up was the only way out. It was so steep going back up. But, we made it. On the way we saw a few of the kids from the village and their houses. A few of the kids even walked all the way up with us and hung out with us at the bus before we left. They did not want us to leave at all!

Being in that church was so peaceful. It was amazing to serve and worship God in two totally different languages. To sing and pray in English and Spanish and know that God heard it all the same. It showed how great and how big my God is. The mountains that surrounded us were huge and so beautiful. God made them all and to just be surrounded by His creations in the quiteness of a mountain village was so refreshing. It wasn't busy and loud like it is here. We were truly able to just sit in His creations and appreciate the beauty of it all.