It's been a long time!

Before I left for Kenya, I had invisioned that I would be living in a decent hotel, eating decent food and given decent service.  My first day in Kenya, I found out that my vision was just that. Reality was, my dad and I would be staying with the Pastor and his family in a small town out in the boonies.  Only once did we stay in a hotel that had internet connections and that was not a great connection at all. I was glad for the experince of living as a Kenyan, but I sure did miss staying in contact with all my friends and family. 

So now I will start where I left off on my journey:

On my last post I mentioned that dad and I were both sent to a different church to preach.  We both had something in mind to speak about and had prepared the message the day before. 

Very early Sunday morning, I was awaken at about 3:30 in the morning with a different message that had been weighing on my heart, so I wrote it down and prayed that God would give me the ability to speak (I have never done well speaking to an audience I don't know).  I was very nervous. 

Chruch was great.  About an hour of our time was spent in singing praise and worship songs to Jesus. Some songs brought tears and weeping to the people, while other songs brought joy and dancing to the people.  I only wished I could understand the words to the songs. 

Another hour was dedicated to anyone who wanted to either share a song or a testimony and then the offering was taken up ending with another song of celebration.

The sermon is an hour long message.  When I was told I needed to speak for an hour, I paniced.  I did not have an hours worth of words written in my journal!  When my time came to speak, I tried to speak slowly, but no matter how slow I spoke, I could not turn it into an hour.  Thankfully the real pastor was able to fill in the gap.  Praise God for that! 

I basically spoke on 2 verses:  Matthew 28:19-20 and Acts 1:8 and shared my testimony of how God moved me from being a Sunday school teacher to going on Mission With God. 

As pastor Samuel began to fill in the time that was left, he began telling the congregation that this message was a great follow up message to last weeks sermon where he told his people that it was a new year and it was time to "get on board with Christ and His works and to separate themselves from the world."  God is so amazing!  I am so glad that I listened to God at 3:30 that morning instead of rolling over and going back to sleep.

After church, dad and I sat and chatted about our time preaching.  Come to find out, at the last minute, just before dad got up to preach, God had given him a new message.  He changed his already planned message and preached on these verses instead: John 3:16, Matthew 28:19-20 and Acts 1:8.  We talked on the same subject!  God has a plan for these people!

I have since been demoted as pastor.....but I continued for the rest of the month to share this same message to the ladies that I met durning my stay in Kenya. 

The next day we rested up because on Tuesday would be leaving for Nakuru for our first conference. 

(this verse is on the front wall inside the church)

" Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I comanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."  Matthew 28:19-20

"but you shall recieve power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea ad Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth."   Acts 1:8