Goodbye Dan, Part I

I've been attending a church that has an English language service after the Spanish one.  This past Sunday was The minister, Dan's, last day there and we had a special combined service that was primarily in Spanish but the Dan preached the sermon and he would do a chunk of it in Spanish and then the same thing in English and go back and forth that way.  Since his native language is German, I was very impressed with how great both his Spanish and English are.

Dan's sermons are never short and of course on this day it was a bit longer because he was giving it in two languages.  We didn't have the sermon right away but I wanted you to see a picture of Dan right up front.

We started the service with music and the bands we heard were amazing!  This is the first one and they did two or three songs.  We all sang along in Spanish, following the words on the wall behind them.  The young man on keyboard is probably in his early- to mid-teens and I was a bit surprised to see his face made up the way it is but I found out later why it was.

These men are so very talented on their Andean flutes.  The man on the right is currently shaking a percussion "thingy" (a technical term) made from shells from some kind of nut.  In addition to the flutes in several different keys, he also plays a single flute, again several of them in what I assume are different keys.  I loved the blend of indigenous music with more modern Ecuadorian sounds.

We generally only have 6-12 people in the English service so this was a pretty big crowd for us.  There are three other English speakers in the congregation but the ones in the college are sitting in the row with the tall, thin woman.  Next to her, sitting down, is Sheiran, and next to her are Pam and Terry.  I'm taking the photos so you won't see me in my chair to the left (facing on) of Dawn.

 The youth group did a mime presentation about the devil and Jesus and how the Bible shares that.  I think this young man makes a far-too-handsome Satan.  He does look pretty devious, though, doesn't he?

 Here he has all these people on his marionette strings, pulling them around however he wants.

 These two little demons are pretty darned cute!

...energetic, too.   They've been giving the people on their marionette strings things like alcohol, gambling paraphernalia, and drugs.

The guy in white is Jesus and he takes all their desires for bad things away and invites them to become Christians.

These are the two oldest mimes.  Aren't they just beautiful?  Everyone did a fabulous job with their acting.  It was very impressive.

Now, lest you get so tired of this that you just can't stand it, I'm going to quit for now and do a part 2 post very soon--maybe tomorrow, maybe later.  I have so much information to put in here this week that it's hard to know what to do next.  You'll just have to be as surprised as I will be.