![\"Church](\"https:\/\/cottrillcompass.com\/images\/church-rubble.jpg\")
<\/a><\/center>\nYou may know if you’ve been in our photo gallery that there has been some construction going on in the building where our church meets. Basically they knocked out a room so they could expand the main meeting area. At the moment, there’s quite a mess, and part of the roof is gone.<\/p>\n
I thought we wouldn’t be meeting there on Sunday. That’s what I thought I was told. But I was asked to come early (8am) with the van to move instruments.<\/p>\n
I got to the church and some people were there cleaning. Surely, we’re not going to meet here<\/i>, I thought. But I went with Miguel to go and pick up the instruments and sound system.<\/p>\n
Sure enough, we were<\/i> going to meet at the church. We carried the speakers to the door, Miguel first, but he came back and said something along the lines of,"Ummmm… I think we won’t take these in yet."<\/p>\n
I peeked in the door, and decided to agree with Miguel. Water was pouring from everywhere. It was cascading down the steps. It was pouring through the light fixture in the ceiling. It was dripping from various parts of the ceiling. And it was, of course, all over the floor, flooded.<\/p>\n
A building half in construction, with rubble everywhere, dirt, and now a flood, isn’t the best place for sound equipment. "I know everything is possible in Mexico," I told Miguel,"but I’m starting to lose faith that we’ll have our service here!" I was joking. Mostly.<\/p>\n
What had happened was that people were trying to clean upstairs. Because it’s basically a construction zone now, they just took a hose to it – a lot of water —- !<\/p>\n
Miguel quickly checked to make sure the electricity was turned off. I was dressed in a nice suit, because I knew I wouldn’t have time to change all day. But I grabbed a broom and started sweeping the water out. Of course, the floor was sloped away from the door, so everytime you swept it toward the door, it came back.<\/p>\n
Music Practice<\/h3>\n
Eventually, although the floor was of course still wet upstairs, we had it dry enough to bring up the equipment. But needless to say, we were a little late starting our music practice.<\/p>\n
Music practice went fine, although there were several songs I didn’t know, so it was pretty short for me. But we were already running 20 minutes into what was supposed to be a drama practice.<\/p>\n
Drama Practice<\/h3>\n
I got everyone together for the drama practice, only to realize almost half the cast was missing. So we talked about possible practice times for the following week, and then I got them started going over some scenes as well as I could.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, I had the van, and I had to pick up Shari, Hannah and Nathanael after the practice and before the service (since I was playing keyboard in the service). So I had to leave the drama practice early, pick up everyone, and get back in time to play. I was technically late for the service, but the service was late too, so no problem there.<\/p>\n
Sunday Service<\/h3>\n
The new setup of the meeting room resulted in a session of musical chairs at the beginning, but everything got straightened out eventually. I played as well as I could (9 fingers – one was sore for some reason), and right after worship Shari and I headed out (a family from the church was watching our kids for the afternoon and evening).<\/p>\n
![\"Serving](\"https:\/\/cottrillcompass.com\/images\/serving-ponche.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Speaker](\"https:\/\/cottrillcompass.com\/images\/mauricio-perez.jpg\")
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