Sunday Entertainment

Sorry, no photo for this one. But keep reading because I think you'll be entertained :)

A few weeks ago I went to church where a lot of our kids from our Jos Care Center go. Alheri Church is a 5 min walk from where they live and has about 300 in the congregation. So I took Kirsten, a gal here for the summer, to the church since the boys were going to sing a 'special number', as they call them here. The boys were precious and the lead singer, Augustine (age 12), even dropped to his knees as he sang. Very cute. Then a guest speaker got up to preach about mathematics. Yep, math from the pulpit. It was pretty farfetched and I was kinda embarrassed because Kirsten was with me. The guy meant well, trying to tie in Scripture to explain how we can honor God in math. Or something like that. Sigh.

Well, I heard that our boys were going to sing again for the church today. I love to hear them sing, so I thought I would try Alheri again, this time taking a new gal, Lauryn, who is here for 10 weeks. Once again, the kids did a great job. Part of the service includes welcoming visitors, so Lauryn stood up and said she is here to serve with Gidan Bege. And then the pastor asked if she is married and she just looked over at me and I smiled and told her to sit down. So then the pastor changed the subject. Smart man. However, his sermon was on prayer. And he was doing a good job encouraging us in the necessity of prayer and using Jesus' prayers on earth as an example. I was relieved that this sermon was legit and so I relaxed. But, at the end, he said it was now time for the congregation to pray for one another. And he said that we need to pray for 'our sisters here from Gidan Bege' (Lauryn and me), that God will bring us our 'life partners' and that we will follow God's will so that we can get married. Well.
THEN he asked anyone to stand who wanted prayer for their life partner and Lauryn and I stayed seated. It was like there was a silent understanding that if we stand, we are putting ourself on the market. So finally the service ended and we walked back to the Care Center. Lauryn laughed and said " I wondered if they were going to start the bidding right there!" We just laughed and laughed and the kids joined in with us. I thought to myself that Alheri Church had earned a spot on my blog. So, there you have it.

We may not get solid spiritual food in church, but perhaps we can get a life partner. :)

Part of missionary life is the constant good-byes. Last week we said good-bye to Tim Schmidt, who may come back long-term at some point. Sure, saying bye is not always fun. BUT, there are definite perks, such as when they sell the things they no longer want or cannot take on the plane with them - like this bag of Starbuck's! Tim had a great stash of stuff and I bought alot of it - ranch dressing, starburst, flavored tea, crystal light packets, candles, hot chocolate...

So, while the mission family is sad when folks leave... we also line up to buy all their goodies they are leaving behind :)