I am a blessed child

This is the post for Sunday, just now getting it up because of electricity and internet difficulties.

I think one of my favorite things in Zambia has to be the singing (after the babies at the Haven of course). I love Sundays here because they are FULL of singing. The church service this morning was wonderful, the speaker reminded us to think carefully about the meaning behind the Lord’s Supper. The communion part of their service is filled with singing and scripture readings which are helpful to me in staying focused on what’s truly taking place. Of course I don’t know the words to the songs they sing in Tongan but it doesn’t matter because I know the words are from the heart. Because Mrs.Merrit and her eldest daughter Jennifer are back this Sunday there were lots of kiddos at church from the Havens. Jennifer leads a children’s Bible class in the court yard of the school and it is wonderful! I have some great videos of the children singing Bible school songs in both English and Tongan. Jennifer taught a bible story and then asked if we had any songs we’d like to lead. Four of our group got up and lead Deep and Wide and The Hippo song while the rest of us spread out amongst the kids and demonstrated the hand movements.
We had a smorgashbord of leftovers for lunch and it was all wonderful as usual. Then it was time for the traditional Sunday afternoon nap. I did some reading and dozing before I finally got a good solid 1 hour nap. You wouldn’t believe the noise I woke up to, RAIN!! Yes RAIN! During the dry season! It started off as a quiet tick tick on our tin roof before the bottom dropped out of a full blown thunderstorm! I couldn’t resist sitting on the porch to read and watch the rain come down, the lightening streak the sky and the wind blowing through the tall grass. I just kept waiting for a herd of elephants to come trumpeting across the front yard! Haha Webster the night watchman has assured me that that won’t happen but hey a girl can dream right?!
Church tonight was an awesome experience as well. The singing was spectacular although the speaker was a little harder to understand tonight because of a thick accent, every 7 words or so was about all I could pick out but I did understand that the only way others are going to see Jesus is for us to be Jesus to them. Apparently some of the kids from the secondary school took the lesson to heart and there were about 12 prayer requests and 4 wanting to be baptized after the service. We were dismissed from church to walk over to the Hamby house for the baptisms in the back yard in a small watering trough. I’m pretty sure most every student was there to welcome the new brothers and sisters into Christ’s family.
Philippians 4:4-5 “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.”