La Paz En La Tormenta

Many of you have met Pastor Omar personally. We have had the privilege of working together with him and his wife over the past couple of years and they have become my adopted Mexican parents. They even gave me a key to their house if ever I need to get away for a bit and they are not home! They are the pastor couple that we built a house for this past spring. It has been awesome to see not only their pastoral heart, but also the heart of their church for their community.

Over the course of the last couple of months, they as a church, have adopted a Christian rehabilitation center that takes people in for a period of several months who battle with drug and alcohol addictions. Once a week, members of the church put on a service with worship and a teaching and yesterday I had the privilege of joining them. The service began with a time of worship as we sang along to some videos with words followed by a time of teaching. What a powerful reminder of God's grace and hope it was seeing these men and woman pouring out their hearts in worship! There was one song in particular, a favorite of theirs, called La Paz En La Tormenta, Peace in the Storm. There's no doubt that many of them had faced and perhaps were facing some pretty serious storms in their lives but they were passionately claiming that peace that only God can bring, no matter what our circumstances are! Following a time of teaching we spent some time also praying for those who had some specific needs. It's always inspiring seeing the heart that so many of the churches here have for their communities, for the people around them!

On a side note, for those of you who know Pastor Omar and his wife Cristina, Cristina fell and broke her foot a few weeks back and has been confined to bed rest ever since, never an easy task for anyone, much less her who is always up and about, visiting people. Her spirits were up yesterday but at times I think she's been somewhat discouraged as one could imagine! Pray for her when you think of her!