Random Thoughts.

More Joel.

• Preached a few mornings ago in a village in Yara. 2 hours or so of preparation on a new sermon: 1 Corinthians 12 on the Body. I preached it, and it was simultaneously translated. More accurately the language was embroidered by Embee’s translation into Krio - he was much more dynamic and emphatic than I. As part of the worship service, folks in the congregation added their comments and what they heard. One man's words of reception of the message, especially what it said ot him wrt black and white, really hit home for me. It was like the message came alive in the responses to it. The chief o fthe village, present there, echoed these comments. It was a lesson to me in how God’s Spirit works (especially in compariston to my usual sermon preparation.) We're finding that a lot around here. When I am weak, then I am strong. It helped that the Prayer for illumination, in Krio, had a wonderful phrase that made me smile: The prayer asked that what I said would “make plenty sense”.
• Went to a village called Bongbongto where we were greeted by pretty much the whole town. It was at the end of the line, up until a couple years ago you couldn’t get there by car. The road is rough still. As Ron Geerlings put it, “It may not be the end of the world; but you can see it from here.”
• We are so often followed by cliques of children, wanted to say hello, to touch us and they often as us: “Snap me!” Meaning, take my picture. The video camera with a reversible display screen so kids can see themselves ‘on TV’ is a real hit. Picture the antics people go to in order to get on the Jumbotron at a game.
• Dave, after enduring the rough roads from Kabala to the outlying villages which make Hwy 16 running through Smithers look like a highway to heaven: “A guy with D-9 or a grader would be a real hero around here.”
• “It feels like we’re driving through a National Geographic magazine.”
• Sunday Service: Worship service began when we finally arrived from visiting the chief (more about that a different day: it seems every village we go to, we have to pay respects to the sitting chief, head chief, section chief or paramount chief). Everyone else was already there, singing. Our arrival marked the ‘start’ of Sunday School. For about 2.5 hours we worshipped together. Sid preached a fine sermon on Jacob at Bethel which was so incredibly translated by Karifa. Karifa imitated (and sometimes enhanced) Sid’s gestures, pitch, tone and enthusiasm. I wandered around and got quite a bit of video footage - icluding footage of numerous Sunday Shcools from visiting churches leading various songs and then giving a pitch for donations. There were 300 plus people from as many as 21 outlying villages present. We also had a meeting with the leaders, explaining the conference in Kabala, which is coming up later this week (Thursday, Friday).