Church

We attended our second service at Bethel Baptist Church, the local African church here. The entire service is spoken in both French and Bambara, alternately. We get there around 9:15-9:20 and they sing and pray. They pick songs out of their book and sing - I mean they SING. They sing with everything they have. It is awesome to see them worship. They clap, dance, sway, wave their arms and generally just praise the Lord. Best way to sum it up is that they are unashamed. These believers have chosen to be Christians out of millions and they are excited about praising Him. Even though I can't understand most of what they are saying - it is contagious. I found myself smiling and just watching them worship - they aren't the best singers, but they are loud. They had someone out of the audience today lead a song and he was awesome. By the time he was finished everyone was singing and dancing.

At one point a lady (the women's director) got up to lead a song, but first delivered a scolding to the women of the church. She said (per our supervisor translating the gist of what she was saying) that only a few of the ladies were attending the Wednesday morning Bible study and that the rest of the women were just lazy. Then the Pastor asked for someone to pray for all of the lazy women. Talk about accountability!

The church starts around 9:15 and we finished around 11:45. Kids struggle a little bit, but they are doing great.

Overall the kids are doing well here - they have taught them a game they learned at one of their trainings. It has been fun to see them relate to each other without a common language. The neighborhood kids are very patient.

Thanks again for your love and support. We are having another church service tonight with the other workers here. We are looking forward to that.