As I sit to work on our Directorio Iglesia Bautista de El Hatillo I see the faces that are becoming familiar. “Ah, he is also a Gómez, and she was a Carbajal, I didn’t know they were related…” My keyboard doesn’t have the Spanish accent marks so I have to cheat with a copy and paste system.
Perhaps it’s good that it’s taken a while to round up photos of everyone. Over the past few months I’ve begun to remember names and as I pray through the e-mailed prayer list I am also learning their stories. “Ah they are the family who lack only two rows of blocks for a completed house, she is the one whose husband we are praying for, this was the little one who came to Sunday school with chicken pox last week…”
Next month there will be a mass wedding for between 5 and 10 couples. Most have been together for a while, and some have even had a civil ceremony that grants them the paperwork to be married, but somehow actually having a wedding ceremony with their church family makes it a more formal commitment in their mind and they want people to know that they are making a commitment before God. We will listen to all types of music, from typical latino mariachi to our church’s version of the Hallelujah chorus in Spanish. And everyone will bring food as their gift so that we can celebrate the wedding feast without it costing the couples one of their children to pay for it.
Our church is truely a mix, with several wealthy or politically connected families and others who work as maids and carpenters. Some cannot read, and others (like me) cannot speak (deaf). Yet as I sat last week and we sang “Estare en la viña, trabajando en la viña del Senor…” I was happy to be a part of this congregation. Jubilee sang “estare in la niña…” as we walked home and I laughed, though I contemplated that her song is also true. We are working in the vinyard of the Lord and He is working in her as well.
Thanking Him for the songs in english and español, for girls who went to school in pajamas for their special day, for a day spent at the clinic making progress to healthy tonsils,for being able to wave to familiar faces as we drove down, for struggling through conversation with Toni our driver but understanding much, for pizza night today….