I am absolutely loving Cornerstone ministries and what they
are about. They are constantly striving to keep Jesus as the Head. Budaka, once
a city governed by evil forces in the unseen world is becoming a city of God!
God blew me away yesterday morning at church. Before church we were asked to
help with communion which I was immediately excited for. I started thinking and
out of all the African church services I’ve been too (quite a few) I don’t know
if I’ve ever taken communion at one. The service started off as any other
African service. A long prayer then a worship time accompanied with plenty of
dancing! Pastor Laurie brought a good word about who the church is (as in body
of Christ). We had a time of sharing testimonies and then Pastor Laurie brought
another great word about celebration.
Seems like a long church service huh? Too us Americans,
African church services typically are long. They are usually a minimum of three
hours and there are many different segments to the service. Typically an
African service looks like prayer, singing, singing, teaching, singing,
testimonies, singing, preaching, and probably more prayer at the end. Although
sometimes I get don’t know what’s going on I supremely admire their desire to
gather before the Lord and not worry about time. This Sunday morning I was not
the slightest bit bored. The place was Spirit filled and the Lord was moving
just as mightily as He had been all week long.
So Pastor Laurie began talking about all the celebrations
that took place in the Old Testament. They basically celebrated about
everything. She was saying that this was a service and time of celebration
because we had seen 290 people come to know the Lord the previous week; we had
seen people instantly healed (spiritually and physically), and we had just come
out of a military battle (against the devil) VICTORIOUSLY! So there was a
Spirit of celebration in the place as we went into the communion segment of the
service. My teammates and I were summoned up front to prepare “communion� while
Pastor Rodgers began reading about the Last Supper, about Jesus’ Body and
Blood. At this point I was so curious as to what African communion would look
like. We poured small pieces of bread onto trays and I thought, “Okay, this is
not so different.� Then Pastor Laurie and my teammate Chad began filling
plastic cups with Coca-Cola. Yes, you read right, the one and only Coca-Cola. That’s
when I said to myself “TIA� (this is Africa). I was overjoyed as I saw this.
Partly because I love breaking tradition and it doesn’t really matter what we
drink while taking the Lord’s Supper as long as our hearts are right. I was just
so humbled and so blessed to be a part of this. They didn’t care if it looked
fancy, they weren’t worried about petty details, they just wanted to honor the
Lord and celebrate what God had done in the last week and what He will continue
to do in the city of Budaka and in Uganda.
