El Coral

We arrived in Nueva Guinea, Nicaragua on Sunday afternoon, and that evening we went to church in a little town called El Coral. The name of the town refers to the coral snake. There is even a statue of a coral snake in the town's park. I guess they are famous for having a lot of coral snakes in their area. Not anything I would particularly want to proclaim to the world. But then, I also know of a town called Dirty Water. Caldwell, Idaho, where John grew up, was originally known as Bugtown, for its adundance of bedbugs, but I am getting sidetracked.

We got to church just a few minutes before the service was to begin. The pastor turned out to be a young man that had been in a meeting where John had spoken last year. He also turned out to be the recipient of one of the bicycles that we had had the privilege of providing through the kindness of someone we don't know. (At one point last year, we were handed some money. "This is for bicycles for pastors." We in turn had given the money to the leadership of the churches in that part of Nicaragua. "This is money for bicycles for pastors." Since there were quite a few pastors that could have made really good use of a bicycle, they had put the names of all the potential bicycle-needers in a hat, and this pastor's name was one of those drawn.)He was very proud of how well he has taken care of his bike.

We arrived just a few minutes before church started. It was obvious that this was one of those churches where men sit on one side and women on the other. I glanced at John and then headed into the back row on the ladies side, next to the pastor's wife. John sat in the front row with the pastor.

The service was led by a group of young people. They had obviously put a lot of effort into planning and preparing the music. Everyone sang with a lot of enthusiasm and I enjoyed it immensely (especially since I sat in the back away from the squeaky loudspeaker. I noticed that John was trying to plug one ear.). I didn't recognize all the songs, but a lot of them were the very traditional choruses that I remember singing when we were new to Central America and just learning Spanish. Brought back a lot of memories.

One older lady (probably about my age, but oh well) sang a special number. She sang with much joy. I leaned forward, trying to catch the words (which also reminded me of when we were new in Central America and I was just learning Spanish). Most of the words were lost in a combination of the drum and keyboard accompaniment and the squeaky loudspeaker, but I got the last line. It impressed me so much that I looked around for something to write on. The only thing that I could find was my son Luke's business card that I had tucked into my Bible. There was a little space under I John 1:11-12 which was written on the back of the card, so I wrote the phrase from the song there: "Que nada en el mundo me aparte de ti" (That nothing in the world turn me from you.")