Shannon Costello

The church building was built, apparently as a Methodist church building in 1928.  I did not see any evidence of missionary work…meaning that it looked like a self-sustaining church.  It was fairly large- I think over a hundred people were in the service. 

Everything here is quite different from the US, the church service was a different sort from the kind I usually attend, and yet I wanted to cry because it was all about the same faith.  I was glad to be there. 

In Spanish there is a verb form of the noun enthusiasm.  The woman next to me se entusiasmó.  Mucho.  I smiled when she sat down in the pew where I was and she immediately came and gave me a very strong hug.  She danced through all the music, and I don´t mean that she bobbed about to the music.  She leaped (both feet in the air), she twirled, she had a white handkerchief which she waved about, she shouted, etc.  Another woman was in the very front and dancing.  She wore a long white dress with sleeves whose cuffs hung down about 8 inches.  She brought her own flags to dance with.  Later she exchanged them for a larger piece of material.   Different people prepare for church in different ways.  I don´t suppose dancing before the Lord is necessarily any better or worse than, say, taking sermon notes.  It´s just that I don´t dance.  (Nor do I raise my hands or clap, as we were invited to…if I did, I´d be doing it for all the wrong reasons.) 

I did not know any of the songs, and the words were difficult to pick up because the background music was so loud.  But what I got was good….God´s love shines in the darkness…God, you are good…God, you are King. 

The pastor spoke about Joshua, Paul & Silas, the efficacy of prayer…

The first passage that was read was a Psalm that talked about fallen gates and fences.  That was interesting because there are so many bars and gates here that seem to be genuinely necessary for security…in comparison, the ones around Columbia are merely decorative.  I would go on to make a deep spiritual comparison here, but I honestly do not remember the context, so I will say no more except that I like seeing passages in a different light.