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| This is a photograph of Ana Gabriela with her 88 year old grandmother, and her grandfather is 100 years old. |
I had been invited to a New Year's Eve Celebration,
the day before, and so I arrived at the Lopez Lopez home the next day at the
agreed time of 7pm. Again, I was greeted with full hugs by everyone, even
friends and the women often turn their heads to get a kiss on the cheek. Which
I don’t mind doing. Then I was informed that it would be a couple more hours
before we would actually leave for the house where the celebration would take
place. That was fine by me. The women worked in the kitchen on food, Gabriela
iron his clothes and some took showers while Ana Gabriela sat with me and
talked. She is 21 years old and is a new student at a university and has four
more years to get her degree, and her major is in Business Administration. She
speaks English quite well and she is so beautiful, and so are her friends—the
whole family is. She’s also an artist and showed me some of her paintings and
drawings, and they were very very good. The whole family was raised Catholic. But,
then her parents became Christians about four years ago, her brothers two years
and she less than five months. And now she loves God, singing and reading her
Bible. She also helps work in an orphanage with her brother. However, they all
agreed, by raising their hand quickly, that they wanted to know God better when
I asked them that question. Wow! I said I would do whatever I could to help
them along.
While
she took her shower, I got to look through a family album and talk with other.
When they where all ready and it was time for us to leave for the party.
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| Arantza getting her hair done by a friend at the party |
When
we arrived, we were all greeted with hugs. It was a very nice house and quit
large as you can see in the phonographs. The people were so friendly as we
walked through the house to get to their mostly covered backyard where there
were more tables and chairs for people to sit and eat. But the atmosphere was
so different from other New Years Eve parties I’ve been too. There was praise
and worship music playing over a great sound system and a projector showing recorded
live worship on the wall with the words to sing along. They also had a couple
standing microphones for anyone who wanted to sing Karaoke style and hold the
microphone in their hand.
After
a while I noticed on the laptop, the song “You raised be up,” by Josh Groben and
so they played it for me. I enjoyed hearing it again, but it didn’t do much for
them and it did for me, because it was in English. But it’s the message they
need to know.
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| Angelieta with Arantza |
Then
they started serving food, chicken, mash potatoes and gravy, beans, a large
while rolls with a soup and desserts. I started off with the soup that looked really
good, it had lots of hominy and other vegetables, plus some meat, which I
didn’t, recognized the taste or texture. So I asked Arantza who was sitting
next to me, what it was. She said it was beef. I said what part of cow. She
then pointed to her stomach and said, “cow stomach.” That explain why I didn’t
recognize it. I ate most of my soup, but I saw a couple others who put the meat
to the side or left it at the bottom of the bowl.
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| Ana Gaberiela singing with her brother and her father listening |
After
the dinner we continued to sing praise and worship songs and even dance and I
mean dance. There were over thirty people there of all ages and half of them were
up dancing as they sang until midnight.
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| Me sitting with my new family and friends, the man in the lower right is Angelieta's brother and it is his house we are celebrating at and plan to be a home pastor there. |
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Singing and dancing in worship to our God and Heavenly Father
Then some young people lit firework and
firecrackers. After the display and noise everyone went around and hugged and kissed each other and to
my surprise no one avoided me even the young children who were still up. Some
also had heard that I was a prophet from the night before, but I didn’t mention
it that night and they all accepted me. Even writing this I get overwhelmed by
the love I felt that night, and many want to have their picture take with me,
especially the children. I can’t describe the love and joy I felt in seeing
this kind of worship, it reminded me of the Longview days in Sheldon’s meetings.
Such healing was flowing over me and I even prophesied over some as we held
each other at mid-night. Then we continue to sing and worship until 1:30am and
only a few had left. Some of the young people where going to another place and
I was invited, but I passed on the offer, yet it was nice of them to ask.
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| Some fo the ladies at the celerbration |
As
we drove back, I sat in the back with two you boys, eight and twelve, one on
each side of me with our arms around each other. Wow, what a change God had
brought into my life. They Lopez invited me to sleep in their house when we got
there, but I chose to sleep in my van parked in front of their house while others
in the neighborhood still partied. I was an awesome night, and one I will never
forget. It is obvious to me that God was getting ready to do something special
in this area of Mexico. I feel like I’m sitting on a box of dynamite waiting to
be lit.
The
next morning, I went back to where the celebration was, because I had left my
laptop there. Just down the street from the house, there was a New Years Day
party going on with lots of young people in the early twenties all dressed up
and drinking lots of beer. I walked into the crowd to touch more lives for the
Kingdom of God.
These young people need to know God too. They are the future of Mexico
and the children of God, who need to know is His love and grace and mercy.
