Howdy yall!
I am back online for a few days. Our whole squad is once again united, and we are currently in the city of Elderet, Kenya for our squad debrief. It is good to be united with everyone once again! I will try to post several blogs in the next couple days in efforts to play catch up before heading to Uganda.
Our last week in Lodwar was interesting. We returned from the youth camp on a Saturday, and rested, and then on Sunday we were told that we were getting split up to go and spend 3 days with local pastors in the bush! I was with teammates Ben, Dennis, and Carly. We went to a village about 20 minutes away, where we preached, did hut to hut evangelism, and did open air crusades every night. It was an interesting 3 days…we prayed over a lot of people, saw others come to the Lord and were able to encourage the pastors and local believers. We returned to Lodwar on Christmas Eve, where we then went to a local church. (In Kenya, the Christmas tradition is to go to a Christmas Eve watch, where the church gathers and worships all night long.) We stayed til about midnight and then returned to our house. On Christmas morning we got up early and our missionary contact took us to a river for a church baptism service! It was really awesome to witness! The sun was just rising over the river…making for a breathtaking sight! We actually hiked up our pants/skirts and waded out into the middle of the river with the rest of the church to witness believers getting baptized!
Getting to experience this was a blessing for me. I was really missing home, and it was so neat to see how this church in Lodwar celebrates Christmas! Here are a group of people that gather on Christmas to celebrate baptism, to usher their brothers and sisters into the Kingdom! For this church, Christmas was all about Jesus, and it was refreshing to witness!
Then, teams Dunamis and Quake celebrated Christmas by doing a gift exchange and a white elephant exchange…it was a lot of fun!
