Birthday times two!

Friends and Family,
This week was a bumper crop of birthdays in the church! Seriously, there was like six of them, including mine, Patty (the music director) and the pastor. So, after church on Sunday there was a big potluck dinner for all in celebration of Pastor Sergio’s B-day. What can I say about that? The food was good, the people were fun, and Nicolle and I discovered how we are going to get back under budget with our food bill. Seriously, we were invited to have lunch after church with three or four different families inside of fifteen minutes. Seriously, if we keep this up, we may never need to cook again!
Some of you may be wondering what I did for my birthday. Well, Nicolle surprised me with a picnic in the park, exploring, and led me home to a surprise birthday party. There you have it! See the blog for more details.
In other news, I just found out that Pastor Sergio is actually the pastor of two churches! It is not really a secret, he has the permission of the elders, but conducts himself in such a way that people would not know that he is dividing his time between two churches. What can I say, he is very devoted to both and manages time well. Well, to make a long story boring, I was invited by Pastor Sergio to visit this other mission that he was involved in. When we got to this church I realized that he was going to preach, guest preach I thought. But half way through his sermon a friend of mine told me that he does this every week (that is to say, preach at the church I am involved in, eat lunch, drive an hour, and preach in the evening at this other church)! Apparently this Church started as a small group that the pastor was involved in. Well, it grew…a lot! They are searching for a full time pastor at this time and I hope for Sergio’s sake that they find one soon, because I think he is feeling the strain. So, I got to enjoy two potluck dinners and cake at two churches!
One last thing; when I first arrived I noticed that the bass guitar they had was pretty nice and I let the pastor know my thoughts on the matter. He asked me if I wanted to play it and I said yes, thinking that after the service I would get a chance to play it by myself. Well, that was not what Pastor Sergio was thinking because as he was wrapping up his sermon he asked the music director if they were going to play one last song. When he answered in the affirmative, Pastor Sergio asked if I could play with them! At this point the whole Church started clapping and getting all excited about the visiting white guy playing bass, so, I didn’t really think that I could turn them down. Well, let me put it this way, they are all really good musicians and play without music, which was not exactly good for me because I didn’t know the song! Also, I was standing right next to the drums and couldn’t hear a thing, so, needless to say, it was not the cleanest I have ever played, but it was a lot of fun to help lead worship in an impromptu manner. Praise God!
Oh, yeah, I forgot to say that one of the people that lives in the same apartment complex as me gave me a birthday present from him and his wife. My very own MAN-bag! I have never had one before, never thought I was quite trendy enough (Nicolle still doesn’t think I am). Well, I like it, and apparently his wife made it! Super cool!

Please pray for: My school load, for getting home work done; for our ministry with our core kids and our plans to change the direction of our ministry, for our continued relationships and out reach with the youth or our colonia, and for the men’s retreat that we are planning.
—Shalom.