Happenings in Morelia: 5 year Anniversary

Iglesia Río de Vida celebrated it's 5 year anniversary this past May! It's officially been five years since we started our first cell groups. Much has happened since the week of May 10, 2003. We've seen many people come and a few leave, but overall, the Lord has been amazingly good to us as a team and then later on as a church and it was so wonderful to be able to celebrate that.
To help us celebrate, we invited several people from the States who have played a vital role in the work here to come and join us. We were thrilled to host my parents, Ron and Marilyn Holland, the missions minister from RHCC and his wife, Duane and Debbie Jenks, one of the elders from RHCC, Don Box, along with missions committee members, Carol Maples and Phyllis Needham. Norm Myers, the current head of the missions ministry, also came down on Monday after most of the festivities were done.

The weekend was filled with so many wonderful memories. We started off with some sight-seeing around Michoacán on Friday morning and then Friday evening had a prayer night at the office to give our U.S. visitors a chance to get to know some of our members. Ron, my dad, spoke that evening and I had the joy of getting to translate for him. : ) On Saturday morning, we met with the leaders of the church and gave them a chance to share their testimonies and say thank you to Richland Hills for all the support they have given this church through the years. It was an incredibly sweet time of sharing that truly allowed those from Texas to see the amazing hearts of the people that the Lord is lifting up to move this church forward. We then asked our visitors to prayer over these leaders and it was so evident that the Lord was there and moving among us during that time! We followed that by lunch together. That evening, we toured some of beautiful downtown Morelia and finished it off with an amazing dinner on the terrace of one of the restaurants downtown where we were able to enjoy the weekly fireworks show in front of the main cathedral. The entire day was spectacular! And we still had one more day to go!
Sunday turned out to be amazing as well. We had a large crowd show up to hear Duane share with us from the Word. We were even able to witness two baptisms! Mayté and her son Julio were baptized during our celebration time. After we finished up, everyone stayed around for lunch. We even had a mariachi band show up, in true Mexican style! After lunch, we watched a slide show of the highlights from the past five years and gave people from church, along with our visitors, a chance to share their testimonies of what this church means to them. Everyone left incredibly blessed and excited, not only about what God has done, but what he has in store for the next 5, 15 and 25 years of this church!

I realize that there a bunch of pictures, but there were so many good ones taken throughout the weekend that it was hard to narrow them down! I hope you enjoy them and rejoice with us over all that the Lord has done and will continue to do here in Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico.

Prayer night on Friday evening

Enjoying fellowship time with some of our members. From L to R: Jeovel, Don Box, Ron Holland, Mamá Brisa, me (Sara), Brisa, Phyllis Needham

Touring some Purépecha ruins about 30 min. outside of Morelia

Sharing time with the leaders

Ron, Duane, and Debbie praying over our national cell leaders (Aldo, Sandy, Larisa, José Luis, Adriana, and Rosa)

The group with the main cathedral in the background

They do this every week!

Sunday morning praise team. As you may notice, Summer and her husband came in for the celebration and Sam invited Summer to sing with them. It was good to see her up there again! She is on the far left.