Church

We are very close to the Equator, so unsurprisingly we have 12 hour days here. The sun goes down quite quickly at about 6pm and then rises quickly at 6am.

It is difficult to sleep beyond about 6:30am - and anyway, there is so much to do. 

We all dressed and ate breakfast and briefly reviewed what we were doing for the morning, then drove into town to the AIC Town Church. 

It was 8:00am and walking into the church, we walked past some of the many young children that would be attending the Sunday School. They stared at us as we entered. 

After greeting all of the teachers and technicians, we waited as all of the kids piled into the building. There would have been about 200 children by 8:30am and they kept coming in. 

We introduced ourselves and then did our prepared games and acted out our play describing how the gospel came to NZ. It was well received by the children, who laughed in all the right places. Rodney was awesome in his roles as Māori chieftains Te Pehi and Ruatara.

At 9am, some of the group left to introduce themselves to the Youth Group, while others of us stayed to watch the certification ceremony for the Grade 8 children who had graduated from Sunday School to Youth Group. There were a lot of children and the teachers were under a lot of pressure to get through all of the names before church started at 9:30am!

Kenyan church is a lot like MWCC, in that there are not many people there at the start of the service. After greeting the Pastors and Elders, we took our seats and the church slowly started filling up. 

The church service is very structured, and we sung a lot of hymns. Also, as it was the first service in the new year, the programme was very full. I enjoyed the practice of inviting visitors or people returning from holiday to bring greetings from where they had come from. 

We had the fortune of witnessing the baptisms of about 20 people - most from AIC Town Church, but also a couple from a small neighbouring AIC church. It was very exciting for them, and later in the service I had the fortune of being called forward - as an Elder from NZ - to hand out the baptism certificates and pray for them. What an honour!

Max, and Pastor Gideon his translator, did a great job with the sermon - which was really well received by the 400 strong congregation. 

The service finished at about 1pm, and then we greeted and mingled with people in the congregation before going for lunch at Taidy's café with Mama Nina. 

We have not had any issues with language, until today, when trying to order food for Logan. There was a complete miscommunication and his meal came with bread. ('No toast, hapana toast, hapana mandazi, hapana chipati - it will make him sick' {with actions}). Max kindly gave him some of his mashed potato until he could get home and eat something. 

Notwithstanding this, it was a great day, and we returned home at about 4pm.

There were games played and everyone relaxed until dinner - spaghetti bolognese with gluten free pasta. 

Following devotions, I went to bed.