The Capricho “All-nighter”

Here in Ecuador, local churches will regularly hold a church vigil, which is an all-night worship vigil. There will usually be worship songs, prayers, and at least one sermon. The little country church which we are regularly attending was invited to a neighboring town’s vigil. This was our first experince at a Quichua-run vigil. There was some reluctance to attend. Most of the congregation are farmers who are already hard at work by first light, and with this vigil being on Saturday night until Sunday morning with Lord’s Day services starting after morning chores, the idea of attending this “all-nighter” was not terribly appealing, but after I oftered to do the driving, most agreed to attend. (And, Yes, a “vigil” here in Ecuador is an all-nighter that lasts until 4 in the morning!)

We crammed 14 adults in my 12-passenger van and followed two other cars loaded with people and instruments to the Capricho church. “Capricho” in Spanish means “caprice”, or “a whim”, or “a quirk”, and that sounded like a very strange name for a church, but I didn’t want to say anything for fear of offending someone. Upon arriving, I realized that the church was located in the town of Capricho and the church, itself goes by a different name, but as with several of the little farm-town assemblies in this area, they are more known by their location than by their “name”. Our little assembly is simply know as “fourteen”, because the building is located 14 kilometers outside of the nearest major town, Puyo.

After some singing and a sermon, it was a time of open sharing, which included songs, devotionals, scripture reading, prayers, etc. An older brother from our church, who is very talented at music, prepared several worship songs with Levi on the banjo and Daniel on the violin. Due to the large building of the church at Capricho, we had to use mics even for Levi to be clearly heard. This was only the second time that Daniel played with a mic, so we all gained some experience in what to do for next time. Our congregation sang a song with the guitar, banjo, and violin as accompanyment, and we all recited John 13:34 together – mostly in unison. 😉 I gave a brief message over the verse.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another;

as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

John 13:34

The idea was that we, as followers of Jesus Christ are united in love as a family is united. We are family, and family is special, even if we look different and come from different backgrounds and have different jobs, etc. How much more special it is that we are united under His banner of love.

Around 11pm the older members of our assembly started drifting off and were struggling to stay awake. I had promised to return when that happened. Though some of them commented at how wonderful it was, I could also tell that they were tired and thinking about waking up to tend the cattle the next morning. I’m sure in their younger days they could go all night and still be ready bright and early for the Lord’s Day services!

On the 40-min drive back, I focused on the winding road and listened to the passengers chatting. I misjudged at couple of speed bumps and sent my passengers flying out of their seats, but they were good sports and laughed it off.

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A few days after the vigil, I asked my boys to give me their thoughts on it. Here is what Levi wrote:

It was encouraging to see all of those different churches in one location. As the evening wore on, the pastor of the church in Capricho shared a message, and then opened the time for the other churches to share music and devotionals. I feel that many people were blessed and drawn closer to Christ that evening as they saw each church in turn get up and share some songs. I personally was blessed by the diversity of music there. That night, we sang old hymns, and new hymns, along with other Uplifting Christian songs. I thank the Lord that I was able to have been a part of blessing the other christians who were present.

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Here is the link to them playing Quiero Cantar Una Linda Cancion: https://youtu.be/-D2_F69zRD0 .