Sundays with Silas

Sometimes I pause and reflect on what an uncommon experience Silas has had when it comes to Sundays and more specifically, church on Sundays. In his short five years of life, he has run the gamut of different circumstances. 

He arrived to our modest 70-person Iglesia Bautista Misionera in Iquique as a newborn, spending Sunday services first in arms and then in a bedroom-turned-sala cuna with two or three other children through his entry into toddlerhood. At 19 months old, he transitioned to the United States and visited multiple churches on furlough before spending most of his time in the 2's and 3's class at Grace Baptist Church in Lancaster, PA where he fully enjoyed the spacious room with its toddler-sized chairs and tables and lots of little friends each week.

At 2 1/2 years old, he returned to Chile and the Iglesia Bautista de Fe church plant where he soon found himself dividing his Sunday mornings between Bible lessons and crafts at a folding table in the front patio of a community center, and the playground just across the street with a handful of MKs and few Spanish-speaking peers. It was here that the trio of "Sergio, Santiago and Silas" was born as he met two Venezuelan boys that continue to be his great buddies.

And then at 4 years and 4 months old, the world upturned when COVID-19 hit and suddenly Sunday in-person services were no more. Instead, we began "attending" English church by way of Vimeo and YouTube and truthfully it was initially refreshing to experience family worship in this way. But time went by, lockdown dragged on, and fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ was fragmented by the inability to meet. 

It became clear that something needed to change for the health of this fledgling body of believers. So Zoom church began on Sunday mornings, and now 5-year old Silas was adrift while his parents and siblings were busy with music and ministry online. Hence the picture of him on an exercise ball taken last Sunday! He literally bounces between the living room, schoolroom (our Zoom filming location) and back patio while the rest of us try to focus on our responsibilities.

Eventually, a "Spot Infantil" was added to the Zoom service so that each week the children received a short Biblical object lesson geared towards their level of development. But the longer sermon time was still lost on Silas, until recently when we discovered an English children's church online that he can watch simultaneously on the television while the rest of us focus on cell phones and laptops. Not ideal, but at least it's something. 

With the exception of two short weeks at the end of 2020, in Iquique we spent an entire year and a half unable to gather in person on the Lord's Day. Finally we are again able to do so but with such strict limitations on location and number that even our little group of 20-30 believers cannot meet indoors. So following the example of missionary friends in similar straits, the beach became our gathering place! Yet another new Sunday tradition for Silas, but one which he undoubtedly enjoys.

At present we continue to have a shortened Zoom service in the morning at 11 AM, followed by our in-person gathering at Playa Brava around 3:30 PM. It must be admitted that the children gain little Bible teaching at this time because the distractions of sand and surf are just too great! But hopefully they are seeing the importance of fellowship - so important, in fact, that the discomforts of lugging chairs and supplies and braving bitter cold winds in this season are secondary to singing songs of praise and worshipping God together.

It will certainly be interesting someday to hear Silas' recollections of this season in his young life, if he remembers it at all. For now, I am trying not to worry about the next season coming soon. In mid-2022, our family should return to the US for a year and I am a little nervous about how this free-spirited, very active, abundantly-verbal-with-limited-filter, third-culture kid is going to react in the churches we visit!

But if there's one thing I know for sure, he will keep us laughing. 

All of these pictures were taken on the same day  (last Sunday) and reflect the busy, bubbly personality of this fun-loving, youngest-of-six child. From bouncing on the ball in the morning, to working up a sweat on the coldest of Iquique winter afternoons with his buddies, to finally clean and cute in his recycled jammies at bedtime ... Sundays with Silas are always memorable!