Congo Church

Today I was able to go to church in a town 3 Kilomiters away from the country of Congo. We went with Karen and Lisa. They have been spending time working with this church. Karen helping preach and Lisa teaching the kids. The songs were really vibrant. The worship leader stopped durring worship and said that if you do not have joy from the Lord you will worship like this. It was very still and only clapping. Then he said if you DO have the joy of the Lord you would worship like this. He started dancing and singing even louder. So we started singing and it was a ton of fun. Obviously I do not know the language so I just clapped and did a line dance type of dancing. (Cause that is what the little boy was doing right next to me.) We came into the service and they put us right in front of everyone facing them. In the back they had a drum and a tamberin. So after singing and right before the sermon a baby was crying in the back and the mother called for the baby and sent it up front. She just started breast feeding the baby right there in the front row. If the singing, the heat and the different language didn't make me realize I was in a different country the breast feeding put me over the top. They asked us to introduce ourselves and give a blessing to the congregation. I introduced myself then Karen translated into french and then the worship leader translated it into the tribal language.

During the sermon the kids were dismissed and I went with them. They went down the road about 50 feet to the market place (which was unoccupide) and she taught them the same message that Karen taught the adults. The story today was the 10 plagues that God called down onto the Egyptions. The thing that stood out to me was the emphasis on the Magitians and Moses. The part where Moses put down his staff and it turned into a snake and how the Magitians did it also but Moses' snake ate the other snakes. In these tribes the people that are sick will either go to the miracle (witch doctor) worker or to the doctors here where we are working. Usually do not find help with the miracle worker (surprise, surprise) and go to the doctor. The tribes are learning that our God is bigger than magic or scorcery. Lisa did a great job at teaching the students with little help and a long story to teach. She had 50 students from toddler to 5th grade from what I could tell.

After church we talked to the people in the church and found out that the Congo Boarder was about kilomiter away from the church. (Which is 6/10ths of a mile.) We walked over to the boarder patrol and showed them our passports and they let us through. A boarder patrol looks like a guy sitting in a t-shirt and shorts, at a table and he copys down our passport by hand and said we could go. Well the walk ended up being probably 3 kilomiters not 1. We went down to the river and took pictures but then Karen came after counseling some church members and drove us over and into the next town. We got to meet the next town members and they asked us if we were coming to evangilize the town. We had to go but it was good for the missionaries to see the need for this other town. We went into the old church and prayed with three members of the town. Karen wasn't sure about this church. Pray for them. That is the picture of the house.