Sunday Service and Birthday Culture

Yesterday we attended the Sunday morning service at our church in the capital and there were nine new people in attendance! I talked to a lady name Myra for a while after the service. She is probably in her late 30's or early 40's, and I felt like she is very sincerely interested becoming a part of our church family. She told me that she is tired of going to churches that don't preach against sin. A young man in his early twenties named Luis has been meeting with Pastor Walter for the last week or two and prayed to get saved on Saturday night. Yesterday he told me that he wants to start taking the baptismal study course so that he can get baptized. God is working in our church in the city, but the Devil is working too! I can't go into details, but we are facing a some very real spiritual battles there and desperately need God's help. Please help us pray for the Barrio Mexico congregation.

Rolando and Carmen invited us to Paraiso last Wednesday to celebrate my 27th birthday. Carmen and Missy made me a special birthday cake, but Costa Ricans have this little cultural custom that makes eating a simple birthday cake a good deal more complicated. The birthday person has to take a bite directly out of the cake before it is cut, and the goal is to smash the birthday person's face into the cake (hopefully the birthday person doesn't have a runny nose). We first learned about this cultural tidbit when they tried to do it to Missy with her birthday cake. So I was smart and quickly took my bite of the cake in the process of blowing out the candles, catching everyone by surprise and thus avoiding any smashage. At least they didn't try their other cultural birthday custom: smashing raw eggs on the birthday person's head.