Sunday

Our schedule has been so busy, it's been tough to blog during the trip. So here I am in the Phoenix airport on a long layover catching up. Danae Wolf did an amazing job with the daily FB posts, so I'm sure a lot of you were seeing those scroll by.

 Sunday morning began with some tragic news. The pastor of one of the local Grace churches, Herland, passed away, so that put a big question mark on everything that had been planned for the day (multiple church services, Cumbre sessions and the unified church service planned for the evening). The local pastors and mission leadership ended up deciding to continue with the ministry events with the realization that many folks would be grieving and maybe stay away to mourn with their families. , our team split up; Adam and Danae went to the Emmanuel church. He was able to do some troubleshooting with them re. their sound reinforcement system. Jeff and I went out to the La Guardia Grace church. Their Sunday morning service is actually Sunday School. What a great time! We had about 15-20 minutes of worship music followed by some announcements; then the kids went off to their classes and Guillermo Choquebarra, the pastor, taught the adults there in the sanctuary. Then, all the adults moved to the left half of the room and the kids filed in by classes. A leader went up front and cited the statistics for the morning for each class: # of kids, # of Bibles brought, # of visitors, tithe, and then had each class recite their memory verse. It was an orderly, joyful morning. We were all edified! After church we went to a local barbecue place where some of the culinary delights of Bolivia were spread before us: keperi, churrasco, arroz con queso and of course, jugo de maracuya.

That afternoon we were back at the Jesucristo Vive (Jesus Christ Lives) church for 2 Cumbre sessions. Adam spoke first on worship theology while Frosty translated. Adam presented a great balance of biblical underpinnings of worship and practical insights. Adam and I hosted a Q&A between sessions 1 and 2. Those always introduce the risk of questions that take a hard left turn; we did have a couple of those, but honestly enjoyed the challenge of "being prepared in season and out of season" as it were. Overall, the Q&A times were well worth doing since it provided a chance for conference attendees to ask practical questions germaine to their individual minsitries/churches. 

We set up the second afternoon session as an interview where Jeff Johnson was able to share his insights, stories and techniques involved in playing Guitar 2 in a worship band. I hosted the interview and also translated for Jeff. Partway through the interview, we moved up onto the platform to model a few of the techniques Jeff had presented. It was great fun for all. 

Once session 2 wrapped up, we quickly made our way over to the Km 6 church for the culto unido, which doubled as both a closing service for the Cumbre: Ministerio de Adoración as well as an all-Grace-church unified worship service. They had a worship team made up of leaders and musicians from the 10 area grace churches. I had the privilege of taking the pulpit for the evening.