Sunday, March 22, 2009

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Sunday, March 22, 2009
Our first whole Sunday (to include a Church service) in Tanzania!
Rod preached at Maji Ya Chai, and most of the group went with him, except Brad who preached at another little church closer to Arusha. We left at 8 am, like usual.
Before church Maddie, Lauren, Rod and I made lion puppets for the kids, and Pam went to visit a lady she had studied with. Church started at 10:15 am.
It was held outdoors, like everything else, except we began the kids class indoors. We did Daniel and the Lion's again--this time with a translator!--Lauren read the story. We handed out pictures for all the kids to color and a puppet for all of them. Then we took them outside and sang and played games. Lauren had brought fruit loops and tootsie rolls, so we made little cups of treats for the kids, who loved them!There were 42 kids.
It was so hard telling them good bye!!!
Rod preached on the authority of the Bible and it is the only source of Truth. It was a lesson everyone needed to hear. Well, like I said Church started at 10:15, when class was over we had a 5 or 10 minute break, and then the preaching kept on until 1:45!!!! You think your preacher preaches a long time......
But everyone loved it, although the heat was scorching and we were sitting on very uncomfortable backless cushion-less pews or plastic chairs! I got a song book and sang with them in Swahili! It was great! There were over 100 people there, in a church that generally has about 20 members! There were so many that they ran out of communion and had to get more. After Church was over, we had 2 more people baptized, and more people who wanted to study!

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Photos

Cutting out lions for Daniel and the Lions Den.
Do you notice Rod's face? He's telling a lion story. In English--the kid's can't understand it. But every so often he'll ROAR and that scares them out of their wits!

Sunday morning
Spoons to give to our cooks