Costa Rica Mission, 2005

Ciudad de Dios Church, June 26, 2005!

Our group performing the powerful Agnus Dei, a drama praising the work of Christ non-verbally.
This drama captured the hearts of this congregation. There was spontaneous applause throughout the performance, and handkerchiefs were actually passed out when it was over.
We had a short meeting with the Ganar group, sort of like our Timothy Team, about upcoming logistics. We were told we are part of the church and that they will do anything for us that they can while we are here. Here Josh is translating for the pastora, the pastor's wife.
Our kids joined their praise dancers in lifting praise to God!
This shot was taken from the stage when the entire ministry of Jesus for all Nations was being introduced by Pastora Ana Alvarado.

On the way to perform Agnus Dei at the evening service of Ciudad de Dios, a gathered crowd prevented our bus from moving forward. A fight had broken out in a bad neighborhood. The police arrived on the scene and things were under control, but the crowd lingered. We saw an opportunity for our first public outreach. We prayed, and after our bus passed, we got some people from the church, and walked back to the scene of the crowd. It was a bad neighborhood and we all felt the compounded evil of a place filled with drugs and all their attendant evils. But we prayed for God's protection as we walked to the intersection where we performed. The corner house played the music for the dramas as we had no sound system with us. The crowd was much more disrespectful than the appreciative church had been in the morning, but many children and adults were in rapt attention. Michael followed the two dramas we did with a powerful message, and then we passed out copies of the gospel of John to those who would take them. We then returned to the church confidant that we had brought some love and hope to a very outwardly hopeless barrio.