Day 32 – Church

The team spent all morning cleaning up the warehouse in order to get ready for the first ever service at the new building. What an amazing service!!! There were about 50 attendees and most all of them were from Juan Pablo. As Jorge ran the service, I actually served as the translator which was a blessing for me to be a part of it all. At the end of the service, Jorge invited the eleven men from the Celebration team on stage to sing some worship songs and believe it or not, they were amazing! Individually, I’m not sure any of them could carry a note on their back, but collectively, in the warehouse they had just finished renovating into a church, their voices carried like a choir of testerone-filled angels… During our worship time this evening, Jorge said that though they had painted and cleaned and poured cement and pray-walked, the most impactful thing that they did over the past three days was get up on that stage and worship in front of all the children in the community.

You see, out of the 50 attendees this morning, only about three were fathers. The rest were women and children. Which begs the question: Where have all the real men gone? Are we, as men, not called to be the Spiritual head of our households?

Today, the eleven men from Jacksonville stood up and showed this community how real men are supposed to behave. These big, strong gringos finished pouring concrete and building cement walls and then sang praises to God with bass in their voices. In a culture full of “machismo” that finds having a wife and a girlfriend acceptable, this behavior is unheard of. “But, God…”