The Familia de Dios Pentecostal church held its annual Caminata Evangelistica on Main Street last Sunday.
A crowd showed up to spread the word of “Christ for Riverhead,” complete with dancing, uniformed chaplains, music and preaching.
The sound of a shofar, an ancient instrument made from a ram’s horn and significant to Jewish holidays, including Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, called the town to prayer.
Familia de Dios Pastor Daniel Orellana marched and prayed with the crowd and preached the gospel.
The church, founded in Riverhead in 1999, has held the prayer march since 2010. The vision for the march came from Orellana’s wife and co-pastor Maria Luisa Orellana in a dream she had about two years before the first Caminata.
“I dreamt the whole church was walking in Riverhead, and the police was there too, and I realized it was a purpose God had given me and we had to do it,” the co-pastor told RiverheadLOCAL in 2018.
The march has no political purpose, the pastor said in an interview at that time. The sole message of the Caminata Evangelistica is to tell people that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation.
Iglesia Pentecostal Familia de Dios is currently headquartered in rented space at 400 West Main Street. In February it purchased the site of the Wildwood bowling alley on Lake Avenue in Northampton.
RiverheadLOCAL photos by Emil Breitenbach Jr.
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