Church

I have a neighbor literally next door that I discovered goes to the same church I do. So I called him Sunday morning and asked if he'd like to walk to church together. He's 31 and owns a small shop down the street from our compound. His name is Antony Ndungu. But I call him Dumo. As we walked to church he said hello to literally everyone. They all had to comment about his white friend, even though they see me all the time.

We got to church a few minutes after the service had started so Praise and Worship were in full swing. Now you have to understand that large groups of Kenyans don't sing with any particular pitch, but believe me when I tell you they can raise the rafters! And it's a Presbyterian Church! Even though there is a lot of procedure in this church, just like at home, there is none of the reserved Presbyterian worship style I've grown up with. This is a purely African service!

Before the children head off to church school they amass in front of the congregation. There were probably 150 kids up there this week. They sing a couple of songs and say memory versus. These little tiny people in front of a congregation of hundreds, speaking clearly into the microphone memory versus longer than I can remember! They worship leader asks for volunteers and hands fly up! That in and of itself is miraculous!

I've talked about the Enchorro Emuny Presbyterian Church Choir before - they are AMAZING! I'm going to a wedding this weekend that they will be performing at...so will try to record for your listening pleasure! This Sunday the second song had a bit of a rocky start so the conductor stopped the choir and had them start again. The second time they nailed it! It makes me shiver even to write about it now. I'm thinking of auditioning. Only problem is I don't read music and they only sing songs in English every once-in-a-while and I've noticed that sometimes it's hard to sing in other languages.

Before the presentation time ended, they called up a man from the congregation. He very humbly told the story of how the past Tuesday he'd been awakened very early in the morning by a voice and he'd answered the voice. Then he woke up his wife and told her he had accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. She started crying and told him she had been praying for him. He said her had attended a funeral that week also and the parish pastor had said that if there were people there who were not saved, they were just as dead as the person in the casket. "I started thinking about living life as a dead man," he said. "And then Jesus spoke to me. And I said yes Lord, I believe. And I gave my life to Him." Then all the pastors and elders who sit on the stage came down to congratulate him and the evangelist prayed for him and the music leader started singing... it was really moving!

The evangelist preached because the parish pastor was away on presbytery business. He preached on empowering the church for mission. This is already a very mission-minded church, but he was challenging individuals. "Has Christ been heard in the places where you've been this week?" The scripture was Ezekiel 47:1-12 which talks about the water getting progressively deeper until you have to swim to cross the river. "God wants us to swim," he said.

I went to the farm Sunday afternoon to have a business meeting with Grace and John. We talked for more than three hours...setting priorities, making to-do lists, assigning tasks...the next two weeks will be busy beyond words!

Can't wait to start swimming!