This weekend, like most...

What's a typical weekend look like here at the church? Well, Saturday for us started out with a birthday party. Now, we don't always have a b-day party on Saturdays, but celebrations are pretty frequent here, along with the customary tres leches cake. Arnulfo turned 61 on Saturday, thus the celebration. Martin and Laura were also there. Arnulfo and Fabiola, and daughter Alejandra have been Christians now for about 2 years. They have been going through some challenging times lately, but things are looking up. Ale will wed her boyfriend and father of their little girl Elena hopefully next week, with a church wedding following sometime later.

We headed home to finish preparing for Sunday. Mayra taught Sunday school yesterday, and always impresses me with how much time she invests in her class (and how many illustrations I have to print out on our printer!). I taught the last in a short series of 6 Sundays talking about preparation for ministry. Yesterday was a study from Nehemiah, a brief overview on setting goals and being faithful to complete them. Here's the outline:

Cómo Hacer la Obra de Dios con eficacía
Lecciones de Nehemías

I. Tener un corazón sensible a la voluntad de Dios Nehemías 1:4-11
II. Tener un plan bien pensado Nehemías 2:1-8
III. Trabajar duramente Nehemías 2:17-18; 6:15
IV. Trabajar en equipo Nehemías 3:1-32
V. Estar preparado por la oposición Nehemías 4:1-3
VI. Ser flexible en el cumplimento de tu misión Nehemías 4:15-18
VII. Estar enfocado en el trabajo (no distraerse) Nehemías 6:1-3
VIII. Celebrar las victorias, dándole gracias a Dios. Nehemías 8:10-11

Later on Saturday, at 5 p.m., around 7 of us have music practice for Sunday. Usually we start with a 30 minute devotional/prayer time, then 90 minutes of playing. Jim Cottrill was in charge of organizing our worship for yesterday. We sang 6 songs, interspersed with scripture reading.

Sunday starts, for us, with music rehearsal again at 9 a.m. Then the teaching time I referred to earlier at 10 a.m., then our Sunday worship service from around 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Yesterday Hernan Cortez spoke, visiting us from Torre Fuerte Bible Church, Puebla. Hernan and wife Paz are friends that I met a long time ago, back in 1993, when they were ministering in Uruapan, Michoacan.

After the service, we were all invited to another b-day party, this one for Cecilia, daughter of Martin and Laura. Practically the entire church went. After an afternoon of fun and food, we finally went home, with David Gomez, and played a couple games of Settlers of Catan. I won't tell you who won; you might be able to guess though.

The following is a video of our son Daniel, at a school presentation this past Friday.