Kicking off the First Day of celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, MOSAIC, a university-sponsored student organization, hosted Friday’s chapel. MOSAIC is rooted in the celebration of cultural diversity within the PBA student body – diversity that is fearfully and wonderfully designed by God. Following MOSAIC’s values, this special edition of chapel was appropriately themed “We are One in Christ.” Chapel began with warm greetings and invitations to upcoming events from MOSAIC ambassadors, and it was followed by praise and worship in both Spanish and English, a truly beautiful blend of cultures. After a prayer and scripture reading in Spanish, Pastor Bernie Cueto, Vice President of Spiritual Development at PBA, took the stage.
Pastor Bernie shared his own experiences as a person of Cuban descent. He told of the trials his relatives endured as Cuban refugees coming to America, and the growing divide he began to experience between his family and members of different cultures. Pastor Bernie shared from Ephesians 2, and he used these scriptures to urge students to first and foremost embrace Christ – not only their cultural and ethnic distinctions. Pastor Bernie likened the diversity within PBA’s student body to the diversity found within the instruments of an orchestra: in the same way that an orchestra’s members synergistically produce a harmonious sound, the fellowship among cultures and ethnicities produces genuine community, compassion and fellowship. Pastor Bernie closed by further emphasizing the chapel’s theme, stating that “when it comes to our spiritual life, we are one.” He reiterated the words of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2:19, which tells us that we are “no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of his household.”
