Day 6

Day 6 - Sun 6/12/22 (Gigi)

Hello beautiful people!

Today is the second to last day of ministry. We woke up to a pleasant surprise --- the weather! It's finally not freezing in the morning and the sun's rays were lovely. Up on today's menu, we've got pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, pineapple, watermelon, yogurt, juice, and coffee. This morning was the only meal so far where we sat alone without any of the staff (not even Evan)! Honestly, I was very grateful because sometimes we just want some quiet time during breakfast. 

After brekkie, we all changed into our fancy church clothes. We were headed to the church today since it's Sunday. But before we leave, we had to attend Morning Session first. Each morning we open our mailbox; today we received the most mail we've ever gotten this entire week! During our sessions today, we played a game called Hunter, Bear, Lady. This is basically rock paper scissors but with a fun twist. Gigi (me hehe) made it to the finals and earned us second place. After the fun game, we split into our small groups for devotions. Today's scripture was on 1 Thessalonians 5:12-24, talking about how we should live our lives in Christ, even when life is not always rainbows and unicorns. 

The church we attended is Torre de Salvacion. It was about a forty-minute drive from YWAM Base and we arrived at 11 AM. Before service started at 11:30, we meet some of the staff of the church. The main paster's name is Karry (the lady in a red dress, next to auntie Sherry and behind Jodie); to her right is the co-pastor's wife (next to Elaine).  

Worship started shortly after we took a group photo in front of the church. Both the praise team and the congregation did not have lyrics to the songs; they memorized them and truly are worshipping from the heart. I was so amazed at how passionate and devoted and just how wholehearted they were willing to surrender. After a few worship songs, three amazing testimonies were shared from our team: Lisa, Grace, and James. We are so proud of them to have the heart to share their testimonies in front of so many people. Of course, we're also thankful that our translators (Busta and Evan) were able to go with us to help everyone understand. At this time, half of our team went outside to share our Kids' Story with the children there and played with them after. Back in the main sanctuary, we worshipped again right before Rachel (the staff!) spoke about Exodus. In all honesty, it was quite difficult to stay focused because at this time; we'd already been at church for two hours and everyone was a little hungry! After the sermon, we had a third round of worship; this time, some people stepped under the podium and started praying. The amazing worship session ended, Karry talked about her prayer requests and everyone in the congregation stood up to pray for them.  

During all of this, our children's team went out side and painted nails, made ballons, drew with chalk, jumped rope, and blew bubbles~~~

Atlas, at 2:30, our service ended. At this point, everyone was a little hangry as it was way past our usual lunchtime. We didn't have too much time left for our touristy visit to downtown Ensenada; we all made and ate our usual sandwiches on the bus. 

Upon arriving, all of us either grabbed froyo (it was only 3-4 dollars and it was delicious) or churros (they all had filling inside and it's freshly made!). After the quick snacks, we talked around town while we took some touristy photos and bought souvenirs. Praise the Lord for the sunny weather! All the photos turned out AMAZING (I mean just look at them!). I couldn't decide which ones to post so I included all of them ;D

We returned to base around 5 o'clock and we all purchased matching YWAM shirts! A matching-shirt-reveal is scheduled for Tuesday :] Some of us also bought some handmade bracelets from the seller on base. It was at this time when James unleashed his inner ajumma and wanted to bargain for a bracelet he's been eyeing. Disappointingly, he did not end up buying anything because he was too shy. We quickly changed to eat dinner at 5:30. Today we invited DK, the youth paster from Sunnyvale, to sit with us. We made animated conversations with DK and I pray that we can get a big brother paster like him soon too! 

After we ate dinner, we had one hour to shower and get ready for the evening session at 7:00 PM. We kicked off the night with a game called Wheelbarrow Blind. The two representatives from our team were Jodie and Grace (our two dancers). We ended up second (again) but they definitely deserved first place. Today's session was about idolatry and today's passage was from Isaiah 58. One of the key take away was the phrase “When you turn something good into something ultimate, then it becomes an idol”. Later Luke spoke about five main steps to change our idolatry behavior. Examen our imagination, examine our internal, examine our prayer life, examine our emotions, and examine our past/future. At the end of his (I personally believe) touching message, paster Luke made us write our idols on fake plaster idols (dolls) and smash them to crush them. If you zoom in on the photos below (the blueish one) you can see all the broken clay dolls we threw (it’s the little shattered pieces of stuff right below the stage). We ended off the awesome session with some songs of worship. I can really feel how everyone grew from this rewarding journey from how each one of us sang praise. 

Tonight, we all were craving for some tacos (especially uncle Gary!). So after the sermon, our team (minus the aunties, plus Liv, Judah, and Evan). 

As our mission adventures are coming to a close, I pray that tomorrow will be another fulfilling day with tons of blessings and that the people we serve will feel the love of Christ through us. 

God Bless!

Gigi :} 

(sorry for the delayed update hehe)