Church on Sunday

After a late night working logistical stuff and blogging, Sam and I awoke in time to get ourselves to a 7am breakfast meeting. So I skipped showering and shaving. When asking where everyone else was, we were informed that we were 30 minutes early!  Just enough time to eat and go change clothes for church--the days run together and it's easy to get lost in the week if you don't think about it. 

We met pastor Joyce and her husband Anthony. We went to both the "sparse" and "formal" first service as well as the more lively and crowded second service. 

The truth is that the second service packed 2,000 people into a room you would expect by American standards to hold maybe 800. 

Mike H gave a message about working for The Lord from John 5:17. 

Sam boldly decided to go to second service Sunday school when the other kids were excused from second service for that.  He reports that while it was his first Sunday school in Kenya, and that it was in Swahili or accented English, he didn't understand much.  He did do some talking though.  

Then, after church we met at a hotel restaraunt across the street, and Sam met Flossie's son Agape, who is 10.  They hit it off and Sam stayed after with him on the bounce-house.

Today we had planned to visit the site of the property for a prison half-way house that Grace Church donated money to help purchase.  As you may be aware, when word got out that the project was serious, excitement was raised and the local government volunteered to donate some land for the purpose.  However, that apparently is hung up between a decision over two properties; and sometime after that is settled, the Grace money will be used to help build the new facility.

While Sam and Agape hung out with Martha and Flossie at the bounce house, Jeff, Amy, Hazel and I went with Mike on the way back to the hotel to the rock carving stand, and again I experienced the high pressure street vendor sales.  Ugh.  I hope that we can get all this rock home on the plane!  :)

It's nice to enjoy Sunday afternoon without any remaining agenda.  We eat in  40 minutes, and then pull out tomorrow morning for our next stop.

I've had a request to introduce folks I've mentioned.  I don't think I'll do it all in one entry, but here are a few.

Jeff is the senior pastor of Grace E-Free church in Longmont.  Sam and I attend there.  Grace's missions board supports Heart of Africa missions all over Africa.  Jeff, Sam, and I are here getting a first-hand look at the projects on-going here and will report back to Grace Church upon our return.

Mike Henderson is the director of Heart of Africa, whom I've been mentioning throughout.  He's also my father-in-law of 18 years.  Mike has African blood, as he has spent nearly 50 years involved in African projects.  He's the reason I'm here, as half of my family (more than half, numerically) has African connections, and I finally got a chance to come over with him.

More later!