Trinity Sunday, May 30

Colossians 3:14-17

The primary activity of the day was attending worship at the Methodist Church in Mexico City - Gante. This church is the oldest Methodist Church in Mexico and this is where Bobby will be working upon our completion of language school at the end of June. The service was an interesting experience. First of all, we knew the service would be long - like 2 hours!!!! Not many people in the group knew what to expect. Since it started at 11:30 AM, we all wanted to take a snack - just in case! Also we knew that we needed our headsets since the service would be in Spanish. Edgar (our classmate from Mexico) would be translating into English for us since Dr. Colon (our faculty leader) was preaching.

So, the service started. It didn't look like it would take a "real long" time from what was listed in the bulletin, just more music than what we're used to in our services. I should probably back up and mention a few other things about the church itself. This worship space, which you see pictured above (with Miranda, Sonia, and me) had been a Franciscan Monastery long ago, so where we were seated in the sanctuary was very old and looked like an open gathering space that could have been used for worship at that time. The organ appeared to be electronic and sounded magnificently as it was played. The choir was strong musically and I enjoyed hearing their voices throughout the service.

Because I was a little unsure about the language barrier we would experience in the service, I wasn't as excited as some of my classmates. However, as soon as the organ began to play the second hymn, I was into it. I knew that one - Standing on the Promises of God. In the Methodist Church of Mexico, hymns are very popular and in many cases, they have the same tunes as we have in our churches in the U.S.

It was at that moment that I realized we are all one body worshipping the same God. Despite the language barrier, we came together through music and worship. Just as the Apostle Paul told the Colossians to sing psalms and hymns to God, we did just that - singing hymns of praise to God with our Mexican brothers and sisters. It was a great experience!