Sunday morning we headed out for our last service at Los Sureños. We have enjoyed the opportunity to minister in this church throughout this last week. Several team members were sad that this was our last service as we have been able to make some new friends here as we have ministered with them.

The church service started with some congregational singing and the church started to fill up. We brought in a couple of more pews to be able to make more room. As we like to sit in back to allow their people to sit more in front, we moved back a couple times to create empty rows in front of us. Right as we were being invited to come up for our part of the service, one of the pews in front of where we had been seated split in half scaring those everyone but especially those seated on it. No one was hurt, the pew was removed, a new one was brought in, and the service continued. We take so many things for granted in the States even how sturdy and comfortable our pews are.

We sang several songs as part of our presentation and Sonya was able to share her testimony. She was very nervous as Spanish is difficult for her. She had invested many hours learning how to pronounce the Spanish words to be able to communicate it. God many times calls us to leave our comfort zone but He also promises to always give us the strength to do what He calls us to do. The message dealt with how we are to rest in God's strength based on several passages in Ephesians and then illustrated with the life of Elijah.

After the message, since this was their anniversary Sunday, they had Debbie and I come forward to sing "Happy Birthday" with them to the church and then blow out the candles on a special cake. After we had done that, they had Leah come forward, relit the candles, and sang Happy Birthday to her since it was her 18th birthday. As we concluded the service, we sang a couple more songs before having the opportunity to greet the many people that were in the church that day.

On person that we met was Jonatan. He had received a tract from one of our team members at the market the previous Friday and remembered that there had been a group that had come to his school the year before with the same message that the tract described. On Saturday, when the pastor's wife had gone to the market, he asked her some questions about the group and she invited him to the church for the Sunday service. I had the privilege of praying with him after the service to accept Christ as his Savior. We were able to give him a Bible, introduce him to a couple of other young people in the church and invite him to continue attending the church to grow in the Lord.

We spent most of the afternoon with the pastor's family as they had invited us to stay for lunch. Afterwards we stopped by the beach for 15 minutes on the way to our next service at La Pascana. As we got started with the service, there were not too many people there but as is common here, the people began to arrive during the congregational singing time. We sang several songs and skits and then spoke on the Holiness of God as reflected in the first three commandments of the 10 Commandments.

After the service, we had a good time of fellowship with the pastor and a few other members of the church as we went over to the pastor's house for dinner before returning home to get some rest.