Sunday English Service

Sunday English Service Feb 20

It’s almost time to go to church for the early service where it is entirely in English.  Which means I get up before 7am and get ready.  I know what you’re thinking, but wait a minute let me explain.  This house is a little loud in the late evening, and dinner isn’t eaten until 9-9:30pm (I know late). So after dinner Alice goes over money with the two that sell the chips and yogurt. So something is going on in the house until 11 or 11:30pm. And then I can get to sleep.  So getting up a little before 7am is acceptable in my eyes.

So I’ll be leaving in a little bit to go to church.  Last week the attendance wasn’t really high, but Pastor Kibet was happy with the turnout.  Today I don’t know if I’ll stay for the Swahili service or not.  Edna wants me to stay, but I’m not sure if I will. What I’d really like to do is go into town and hit the coffee shop and have a brownie. I hear they are heavenly.

Right now, I’m sitting at the dinning table drinking my coffee. Edna has come by several times telling me I need to eat, and frankly bread and jam just doesn’t cut it for me today. Alice,  Edna, Christie, and Charity will all go to the Swahili service, and Edna wants me to come with them. If I do, then I get absolutely nothing out of the service, well not nothing but very little. So in a minute I’ll be off to church. I hope Sunday is as good for you as it is for me.

Ok went to church. I stayed for the Swahili service. I got to church at 8:30am and I didn’t leave until 12:45pm. 4 hours of church is a lot especially when it’s warm outside and there is no air conditioning inside the church building. Reminds me of Liberia, except Liberia was really humid, and thank the good Lord it’s not humid here in Kitale!!

Later that same day:  Alice tells me we are to go to a woman’s house whose son died about 2 months ago. This is the first I’ve heard about this, so I told her that she didn’t tell me. She said sorry, but we need to go after lunch. So after lunch we walked down to the woman’s house. Esther is her name. I thought it was just going to be me and Alice, but there were a whole slew of women there from the church. They sang songs or praise, in Swahili of course, and prayed. Then a few women gave Esther some encouraging words.  I told Alice that I have something I wanted to tell Esther, so she told another lady who gave me the floor. Basically I told Esther that it’s OK to be mad at God. It’s OK to still be upset and pissed off. I told her that no matter how angry you might get, God can handle it and He expects us to get angry at times. I also told her that no matter what anyone tells you, you don’t have to “get over” her son’s death. It’s OK not to get over it, but you must continue to live and follow Jesus. After that someone prayed a very long prayer and a mini sermon was given again in Swahili, which I wasn’t able to follow. Then we had tea and bread. After that we got in Mary Muttai’s little tiny van, which I call the loaf of bread cause that’s what it looks like, and we came home. 

All in all a good day. I’m glad it’s over and I can now sit back and watch the news, Nairobi news.