Church anniversary: Half Church, Half Party, All Fun

Cooking lunchSunday was the second anniversary of the Heavenly Zion church here in Santa Cruz. This is the church where I attend on Sunday mornings. Although this was the second anniversary of the church the roots of the church go back 4 or 5 years when the pastor, Rubén Perez, decided that he wanted to do something for the kids in his neighborhood.
Singing in the rain

The Sunday School kids share their special music

Making limonada, always a favorite drinkPastor Vicente, national president, brought the messageSo he began a Good News Club, literally Happy Hour in Spanish. Every Saturday afternoon a group of 20 to 30 kids meet in Rubén's yard for a time of learning from the Bible. Eventually Rubén decided that something should be done to try to reach the parents of these kids. So the idea of beginning a church, after much prayer with his family (Rubén lives a home with his parents) was decided on. The church holds services in the patio of Rubén's home. On a given Sunday there will be 15-20 kids, a small handful of teenagers and 12-15 adults. But other churches were invited to

attend the anniversary celebration so yesterday was a full house, actually I should say a full patio. It began to rain early Sunday morning and so the entire group of around 100 people had to be scrunched up under the patio roof instead of sitting out on the lawn. The celebration itself consisted of music, LOTS of LOUD music.Then there was a quizzing game in which I won a prize. More music and finally the message. A special treat for the church was that the national church president happened to be here. So he gave an excellent message from Daniel 3. Following the message there was more music followed by words of encouragement from whoever wanted to talk. And finally, to end the service there was (surprise!) more LOUD music. Following the service dinner was served to everyone present, a really good plate of saice, rice, potato and chuño with a meat sauce on top. While eating we were treated to, you guessed it, more music. By the time church was over the rain had ended and the sun was back out so folks had spread out onto the lawn to eat. All in all a very fun Sunday morning.celebrating what the Lord has done for the church in its second year of life.
Good food!
The BandShould your church ever plan an anniversary celebration give me a call. I have all kinds of great ideas. We'll start with some really LOUD music.

Plea for help!!!!!!!!
As you can see, I cannot get the photos to line up nicely and let me arrange the text around them. If you know anything that can help me, please let me know by leaving a comment with this article. Thanks.