Church in Kenya

Today we went to church at Ruiru Bible Baptist Church!! We got up and had breakfast and then headed out to the church. I was speaking in the youth service which started at 9:30 and Scott was speaking in the main church service at 10:30. When we arrived, we went down to the youth building which is a concrete block building with a metal tin roof. It wasn't what we are used to in the States, but it is an awesome thing for them to have their own building! That says a lot about their church's emphasis on the youth. The service started out with some songs and then they opened it up for some of the students to share testimonies about what they had learned over the past couple of weeks or anything that God was showing them in their lives. A couple of them got up and said some things and then we sang an awesome song called "Timbira Jehova". During the chorus you dance and give high tens (two high fives). It was awesome to see this and see the joy in their worship when there was no band or great sound system! Then Scott got up and introduced me and then I spoke on 1 John 2.

When we were done in the youth service, we went up to the main service. They started with singing and continued with singing. Some songs we sang all together and then some they would sing or a group of singers would sing. Many of them were in Swahili, so we didn't know the words; however, they did have hymn books so there were a couple we could sing along with. It made it a lot easier when we knew the beat to the songs because we could actually follow along! After all the singing was done and the offering was taken, Scott got up and preached. His message was about faith and hope. He used a translator which was really cool! Scott had Gentry give her testimony about when she had Lime's disease to illustrate his point and that really brought his message home to us and the Kenyans! It was an awesome message! One in which all of us needed to hear!

We left the church around 1:30 and headed to get lunch. The restaurant we went to was called Carnivore and it is named this for a reason. When you come in and sit down, they tell you that they have a fixed meal of soup, salad, bread, all the meat you can eat, and dessert. We got our soup and then our salad and then came the meat. There was turkey, chicken, beef, lamb, crocodile, pork, and ostrich. I think that was it. But they continue walking around the table and serving you more and more meat until you "surrender". At the table there is a little white flag that you lower when you are done eating. We gave that duty to Jonathan because he outlasted us all in eating. He ate SO much it was crazy! When we were done, we went to the gift shop and hung out for a while and then loaded the bus to come home. We were all stuffed to the brim and wanting a nap SO bad!!

When we got back it was about 6:00. Many of us just hung out and talked and many of us went to sleep for a couple of hours. At 7:00 we had dinner. You can imagine that none of us were really hungry so we didn't eat a whole lot at all. We then stayed up and played Speed Uno and just talked about the safari we were getting ready to go on. We have to be up at 6:30 in the morning to leave by 7:00 so we are going to pack and head to bed. We love you and miss you all!!

I love you Mallory!

- Jameson