Today was Sunday.
- woke up in a tent around 7 because my team and I decided to camp out last night to look at the stars? (there were soooo many! I haven’t seen that many besides in a planetarium before!)
- Got ready for the day and headed down to the main gate of our compound where Liz, Julie, Caleb, Jess, and myself were waiting to get picked up by our host David. (We were all asked to serve at a different church than the local one we had been going to.) Liz, Julie, and I would be doing children’s ministry and Jess and Caleb were going to lead worship.
- When David (our host) pulled up to pick us up, he told us that we were allowed to change out of our long skirts if we wanted to, and we could wear jeans to church! That was the most exciting news ever, as we are usually not allowed outside of our compound with pants (we are only allowed to wear skirts as a respect to the culture here)
- So us girls sprinted up changed into jeans (yahoooo) and headed off to church (this church was a bunch of missionaries so the service was in English)
- When we arrived we got there around 8:45 and the service didn’t start till 9:30 so we helped them set up
- During this time we meet with the woman who typically runs Sunday school and she gave us her lesson plans and just let us take over. She was so excited to finally be able to sit in the service, but we were definitely more excited to be serving her and the kids
- 9:45 rolled around and the service finally began (African time is a real thing y’all)
- We then headed to the Sunday School room where we taught about David and Bathesba to about 10 kids. When we first found out we were teaching this lesson we where like “ummmm… ok” but it ended up going really well and the message really came through that even when we mess up (even as serious as committing adultery and murder) God still loves us and he will still forgive us, we just have to ask him for that. (The story is found in ASK JULIE!!)
- After church we headed to a country club where I paid $5 for an entire meal (I got chicken sntichell, I wanted to try ox liver but nobody would split it with me)
- Then, David had to pay his rent so we went to do that. Where he had to hand in his money there was a large grocery story, so since only half of our team was there (Liz, Julie, and I) we decided to get something for each of our teammates. We got Madaline pickles (cuz she hasn’t stopped talking about them since we left the states) and then we got candy bars for Lil and Sophie.
- After that, we saw a man hobling across the street. He had one leg and he was using two sticks as crutches, he has close to having no clothes on, and wore a ruler tied to a string around his neck. He sat down next to a trash can and started going through it. As soon as I saw him I knew I needed to go talk to him.
- Caleb, Liz, and I walked over and I handed him some food I had bought from the store and Julie’s leftover pizza from lunch. We tried to ask him his name and tell him ours, but he couldn’t quite understand. To sum up the whole conversation (because it was a long one) He had only gone to school through the fourth grade, so the reason we couldn’t understand him was because he was speaking how a fourth grader does. He had also been in some sort of a car accident and we think it may have messed with his brain. He kept saying the words strength, conquer, and cooking oil.
- We shared some truths with him, that Jesus could make him strong and he will always love him, but I’m not sure how much of it he understood. But we aren’t called to save people or change their hearts or make them understand, we are only called to share God’s love and truth, so we had to be satisfied in that.
- Through all of the craziness of trying to understand him two things happened
- GOD ANSWERED PRAYER!! We had asked to pray with him towards the beginning of our conversation and during that Liz and Caleb specifically prayed for a translator, and God answered that prayer so quickly! A young man came over, and Caleb asked him if he knew Jesus and the teenager said he just came from church! We told him we were trying to tell this other man about Jesus and the young man immediately was like, “do you want me to translate?” That is where we found out about the accident and some other odd pieces of information, but praise God for answering prayers
- This verse really came to life for me today. “So be happy when you are insulted for being a Christian, for then the glorious Spirit of God rests upon you.” FIND REFERENCE As we where talking to this man we were sitting on the curb and people were passing by on the sidewalk. A couple of people gave us disapproving looks, others laughter at us, but there was one woman who literally stopped on the sidewalk and started at us with an extremely judgmental look for a hot minute (like 15 seconds or so) as I saw that I tried to say hello so she would move on, because I certainly didn’t want our friend to feel like we shouldn’t be talking to him, or that he wasn’t worthy of love and attention. So the women moved along and I realized that that judgment that I felt from her was nothing close to what Jesus felt when he was here on earth doing ministry.
- After this wild adventure we headed back to the compound
- We found out that our team and one other team will be LIVING AND WORKING ON A FARM for the next week!!! How cool is that!!!! We didn’t even know about it, but my whole team is super pumped!!
- We packed up
- Had dinner, had a special treat of breakfast burritos (because the treasurers did such an awesome job of budgeting this month!)
- Then we went to bed around 9! We leave tomorrow at 8 for the farm! I’m so excited!!!!
