Day 3: Church Service

Hello again, yesterday was a great and very productive day for us here at M.A.S.H. After breakfast and devotion we all headed to the church down the hill for Sunday service. My friends, if you have never been to a Jamaican church service then I encourage you to do so before this life is over; it is truly a powerful and amazing experience that all American churches could truly learn from. We started the service with the song “Yes Lord,” which I thought was incredibly fitting since our battle cry for this week is “Yes Jesus, yes!” After a few more songs that were equally as powerful, the director of Teen Challenge, Anthony Richards, spoke a few words to the congregation. He then introduced Pastor John, who spoke to the church about our parternship with Teen Challenge and our goals for the week. Pastor John then called Phil, Adam, and Vonnie up to each give a testiomony. One of the things that really stuck out was Adam's description of a Jamaican service as he put it "the worship and passion is just so real and raw". It is that exact reason why I implore anyone who has the chance to attend one of these services to do so; their passion for God is incredibly humbling. After the testimonies, we sang a few more praise songs till we were instructed to go around the church and greet at least ten people. This in itself was an awesome time as we all got to mix with the locals as one body of Christ.

Soon after the message began, and if I was to say a message it would be an understatement. Delivered by the senior pastor’s daughter Lorraine Chisolm, the message was from John 8 where the Pharisees bring the adulterous woman to Jesus in an attempt to trip Him up. I’m sure we all know the story in which Jesus says, “Any who are without sin, let them cast the first stone.” This was the story, but in a new light. She instead painted a picture for us, telling the tale from the eyes of the woman as she was being dragged against her will into the midst of people who hated her for what she had done. Pastor Lorraine challenged us to put ourselves in that situation, but to then imagine Jesus standing there with us waiting to pardon our sins just like he had done with the woman. She went on to say that despite how bad a situation in our life may look we will always have Jesus standing with us in the midst of it all.