Sunday July 14, 2013

Sunday July 14, 2013

Hola hermanos and hermanas en Christo,
Today I was fortunate enough to be able to spend my 15th birthday with the kind and loving people of Florida Norte.  I had my doubts about spending my birthday in Bolivia but the surprises that they had for me showed no disappointment.  I woke up and came downstairs to find that Mateo had put up a happy birthday sign on the cabinets in the dining area.  I wasn't completely awake when I first came down but when I came to my senses I saw that it was the work of Mateo.  We went to church and went through the normal service when Pastor Jaime asked me to stand in front of the congregation.  I was a little unsure about what was going to happen because I had heard many rumors from James.  He began to talk and Evelyn brought out a cake and placed it on a table in front of me.  Then she held it up to me and told me to take a bite out of it.  Just with my mouth, no fork.  So I went in for it and she pushed the cake back into my face.  After that we had a couple of other birthdays that were around this same time including Mateo's birthday and Micah's birthday.  The whole congregation came through the line and gave us all hugs and congratulated us on our birthdays.  Then Pastor Jaime came through and individually prayed for all of us.  After church we went to a Brazilian style steakhouse which was amazingly good and it was basically all you can eat, which is my kind of restaurant.  I had no idea that there were so many edible parts of a cow.  After the steakhouse, we came home and I played soccer for a good two hours with Micah, James, Ivan, and Marcos.  We didn't eat dinner because we had eaten such a late lunch, but went straight back to church after soccer.  The service also went as normal but at the end they gave us really good tea for the weather and really good cake again in celebration of my birthday.  Overall it was a really great day and I finally get to sleep in a bit tomorrow.  Gracious Dios!  I cannot wait to see all of you this week and tell you about our wonderful trip.

-Noah