Worship

“I will take Your name to every nation, spread the good news of salvation, baptizing them in the name of the Father.”

Today, we worshiped at The Baptist Chapel, the church Pastor Wambua pastors in Lucky Summer.  It was an amazing experience!  It was so eye opening to see these beautiful people that have so little worshiping our God!  They have so little yet worship so much.  We have so much yet worship so little.  There are no words to describe the experience I had today.  People from different nations were worshiping the living God together.  It was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard.  Two different races, with two different languages, worshiping one great God.  In other words, we had the privilege of practicing for Heaven today!  Never have I felt so close to home and I know that God was glorified in that place today.

The Baptist Chapel is right down the road from the Korogocho slums, where we had held the VBS earlier in the week.  My heart was broken.  Oh how I miss those precious children!  They are so beautiful!  No words or pictures can do them justice.  The Lucky Summer community, while not the slums, is not an affluent neighborhood to say the least.  These people struggle do not have very much at all materially, but they have so much in Christ!  God gave me His eyes for just a glimpse and showed me that even though in America, we say we are blessed, are we really?  We rely on stuff to get us through and hardly ever do we depend on God as we should, or give Him the glory He deserves.  They rely on God for everything and give Him the glory whether they get what they want or not.  Could it be that they are truly the blessed ones?  Could it be that all of the stuff that we consider blessings actually act as a curse when it comes to our spiritual lives?

The day we left the slums, it felt like I was being ripped from my family and closest friends but right as we were getting on the van, a 13 year old girl came up to me and said, “Why are you crying? This isn’t goodbye.  You will be back.  I promise!”  I believe that God may have used that girl to show me this is where I am going to serve Him later… possibly for all my life.  Whether that’s the case or not, I’m confident that He used that girl to show me that He has called me into missions.  We serve a mighty God!

Though it was been about 4 days since we left the slums, my heart is still there and God has broken me away from all of my prideful habits and most of my selfish ways.  I am so glad I came on this journey and it’s not going to end when I get home!  My heart will forever stay with these people and I ask you to join me in constant prayer for these precious children that one day we would be able to see them in Heaven and also that their hope would stay in Christ.  Thanks for all of the encouragement and comments!  They mean so much!  Love you all!  

Mungu Akubariki (God bless you)!

Anna

It was an amazing day at The Baptist Chapel!  To say that the worship style at this church is different than what we’re used to would be an understatement.  Dancing, shouting, crying, everyone praying out loud at one time, are just some of the characteristics of the Kenyan style of worship.  It makes for a very energetic and exciting worship experience.  Our entire team enjoyed the experience very much.  Tonight at our team meeting we discussed our reactions to the service.  Our initial reaction tended to be along the lines of “this is what worship is supposed to be”.  However, the more we talked, the more we realized that may not be the case.  While we definitely believe that our church could benefit from a freer expression of worship, we also remembered that true worship isn’t determined by any external expression, but only by the heart.  Someone who is more reserved in their worship style may be worshipping fully and faithfully while someone else who is very emotional and expressive may not be worshipping Christ at all, and vice versa.  All that matters is that Jesus is exalted, that His Word is not violated, that the Spirit is obeyed, and that God is on center stage instead of man.  In the end, we concluded that we were all thankful to have had the experience of worshipping with our brothers and sisters in Christ at The Baptist Chapel and we are all more committed to worshipping our Lord “in Spirit and in truth”, however that may display itself.

After worship, the Wambua family had our whole team over for dinner and Momma Joe (Pastor Wambua’s wife, Jane) fixed us a wonderful meal.  We all crammed into their living room, almost sitting on top of each other, and enjoyed a great time of fellowship as we ate with Pastor, Momma Joe, Joe, Jeff, & Jane.  Their hospitality, friendship, and partnership in the Gospel are a wonderful blessing, for which we praise the Lord.  What a great family!  Afterwards, we were excited to go see the new house that they are building.  This home which is under construction, down the road, is a much larger 3 bedroom home in the same community.  It will be such a blessing to them and they are so deserving.  They’re already looking into how they can add space above the home to use as a guest house for ministry purposes.  The US based, Mission Link International’s Equip Kenya program, for which Pastor Wambua serves as the National Director, has handled the fundraising for this project and they only lack around $1,500 to be able to fully fund the remaining construction.  Though Pastor Wambua didn’t ask for it, please pray that those funds would come in and let Daryl know if you would like to know how you can contribute.

We’re off to Maasai Mara tomorrow for safari and are so excited about seeing God’s glory on display in the wonderful works of His creation.  Pray we’ll continue to be on mission even on safari!  

Press on!

Daryl