Iglesia de Jesucristo Betania

Today was our first Sunday attending the churches we will be spending our ministry weekends with. The church my Impact group attends is called "Iglesia de Jesucristo Betania", or "Bethany church of Jesus Christ". The service this morning was very interesting for me, as I come from a baptist church and this church was extremely charismatic. I have always wondered why people within the church seem to make a lot of comments about Baptist churches being withdrawn and calm when my church isn't really like that, but even though my home church may be fairly charismatic for a Baptist church, Iglesia de Jesucristo Betania is definitely far more charismatic.

The church service started before the church was even half full, but by the time the opening prayer finished, the church was packed. During worship, the voices of the people soared as they sung and cried out to God, thanking Him and praising Him. Some people danced, a lot of people cried, and everyone seemed to be overwhelmed with the Spirit of God moving within the place. I didn't know most of the songs that were sung, but I was able to pick up on what some of them were saying and sometimes was even able to sing a long a little bit.

After the worship time ended, our group was brought up front and introduced to the church, as we will be returning for the next three weeks to attend church with them and help out wherever they can use assistance. After our introduction, we were brought upstairs where we were given the choice of going to help with Sunday School for different age groups. There we split off and went to watch how things were run in the church. I spent the morning helping a class of about 8-10 year old girls who were working on cross stitching projects that pertained to an ongoing lesson they had been learning the past couple weeks. The young girls were very eager to question me about everything they could think of once they discovered I spoke a little Spanish. I'm not sure if I made it clear to them that I will be returning or not, but I do look forward to being able to speak with them more next time. It seems everywhere I go I have more and more incentive to better my Spanish skills.