Santa Cena

This weekend, my team had the blessing of attending our host church's Santa Cena (Holy Supper, or communion). I had been having some thoughts about Communion, as I hadn't heard much about it since our arrival in Guatemala, and I was very curious as to how the Guatemalans held communion, because it varies quite a lot within Canada. Our service started an hour early, and begun with just over two solid hours of worship. The worship was extremely charismatic, and it was a unique experience that I am very grateful for. There were the normal people crying, dancing and praying loudly over the music, but on a much larger scale, and there were also flags of an assortment of colours, some proclaiming messages such as, "Jesus is my Saviour!", "I am Free in Him," and so on. The music was louder, and nearly overwhelming. There were more people dancing in the center than usual as well.

One thing I found particularly interesting was there were women in uniforms of sorts, who would gather around some of the ladies who were dancing, one a a time, and form a circle around the lady, holding her up while she danced until she collapsed. Then they would lower her to the ground, cover her legs with a scarf and then some other ladies in another uniform would step in and make sure no one stepped on them while they rested. At first I was incredibly confused. At my home church in Canada, it is never a good thing if someone collapses. After watching it happen a few times, my concern lessened, because seeing how the women were prepared for this told me it was a common occurrence, and that it wasn't a medical emergency that was being neglected. After the service ended, several hours later, I asked around to see if I could make sense of what had happened and why these ladies were collapsing. It turns out, the collapsing is in response to being "slain by the Spirit", which was certainly something I had not heard much about, nor ever experienced.

The church service included a "First Fruits" offering, which was another aspect I found interesting, as the church was taking Deuteronomy 26:2 literally. The verse states, "You shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall place it in a basket, and you shall go to the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name to dwell there." This is exactly what the congregation did, complete with the basket at the front of the sanctuary. Shortly after the offering, the freshmen students in my group went upstairs to do Sunday School with the children. We were upstairs until the call for communion was made, then we made our way downstairs to join the congregation in partaking. The congregation had spent nearly an hour taking about communion prior to partaking, or so I was told. The service ended shortly after we partook, totaling around four hours in length, give or take. It was likely the longest service I have attended, but I didn't notice the time. It was a wonderful experience, and I will hold the memories in my heart, as partaking with my Guatemalan brothers and sisters was very much a blessing on my week.