A few days ago my team leader Andrea said All Saints was asking two of us to preach on Sunday morning. One person for the English service, and one person to preach in the Runyankore service with a translator. Andrea said she would preach in the larger, second service, but no one had volunteered for the English service. So yesterday when I mentioned to her that I felt like God was asking me to preach, I was immediately signed up. I can't get away with hearing from God and not doing anything about it while I'm on this team!
Ok, I told myself, I can do this. It's not too difficult to hear a word from God and put it in an outline and tell it to people. Easy! Right?
Not so much after I skipped out on a couple of prime times to work on it.
And Saturday our team invited over some of the pastoral staff from All Saints that we've been walking all over town with in the process of doing door to door ministry. We've got plenty of inside jokes going on with them and it was a lot of fun to have them over for supper. The group included our ministry contact Reverend Enoch, the venerable Archdeacon Elisha, Reverend Curator Benson, Layreader Justus, our wonderful housekeeper Appophia, and our endlessly cheerful night guard Jack.
(Benson and Scott)
Everyone ate entirely too much of the Mexican meal cooked primerally by Emily and Drew. Then there were several speaches given by various people about how we've enjoyed our time together and how sorry we are that we will be leaving soon. We sang some songs and prayed together and all in all had a great time.
(Justus and Drew)
Then the clean up was started and Andrea and I began to work on our sermons. I spent a long time just in worship and focusing on God and what He had to say so I would be sure to only say what He wanted me to say.
But the time flew and by 11pm Andrea and I were both bushed so we went to bed with the promise to get up early and finnish before church.
The sun rises at about 6:30 here so when my alarm went off at 5:30 it was still very dark. I drug myself out of my mosquito net and into the living room so I wouldn't wake Emily and Sarah with my light.
Surprisingly enough my brain was clear and I was wide awake and finnished my sermon in plenty of time to eat breakfast and take a shower before heading to the church with Emily.
We were greeted by the Archdeacon thanking us for the wonderful time the night before. He told us how much he enjoyed himself and how much he liked the guacamole. Except that he jokingly called it guacamundo.
When the service started I was directed to process up to the stage and sit up there along with Elisha, Benson, and Justus. As we proceded down the aisle and marched up onto the stage I wondered when God had begun turning my world upside down. Because it was certainly not a part of my normal to be joking with my friends who are archdeacons and layreaders and preaching in front of a few hundred people in a cathedral in Uganda. And I hadn't thought twice about how incredibly strange this whole situation is.
(Elisha)
I can honestly say that although I had some nerves while sitting in front of the chuch during the singing and announcements, once I got up to the pulpit I was fine. All I was thinking about was how to communicate to these people the words on my heart.
In case you were wondering, God does do miracles every day. Some are thought of as big like healing someone instantly. Some are big to me like giving me the words to say to a church full of people who, for some reason, care what I have to say.
In case you were wondering, people said I did a good job.
Support Update!
I still need just over $1,000 to reach my next deadline. Please consider helping me reach my goal and be able to stay on the mission field for the next 9 months.
Thank you for your prayers. There's no way this could be my normal right now without them.
Please be praying for us as we head out for Rwanda on Tuesday.
