Day 8

Sunday’s are always good days, especially when you can attend a Liberian church service. You will no doubt clap, sway or dance a little bit. Even the most conservative Baptist will admit to tapping their leg during the music. Today was no difference for us.

My day started with less sleep due to an upset stomach that started the day before. I recognize my frailty during this and for today, since I was to preach, I prayed that I would feel well enough to be at church. When morning came I was able to eat some breakfast and it tasted good. Renee convinced me to start my Z-Pak course of antibiotics to aid in recovering. After eating I took both my malaria meds and the first dose of the Z-Pak.

After this, we all headed to church for Sunday School. They have 3 classes for the adults broken down by your birth month. Renee and I were in the same one and Leo being on his own with another leader. We all study the same text and today’s was John 15 talking about Christ being the true vine. We had some good discussions during our class.

After Sunday School, we start the morning worship. Today was also Communion Sunday. I’m not sure I’ve been here for that before. It was good to be included with this. To make all the conservative church goers feel better about being so active in a Liberian church, I recorded one verse of a song I’m sure most are familiar with that might lead you to consider visiting Liberia since there wasn’t much dancing for this one. It was great to hear the singing of our Liberian brothers and sisters in Christ. We don’t need to be from the same country to worship the same God.

Although my stomach wasn’t feeling great, I was able to preach without any discomfort. I’m very grateful for that. As I preached from Colossians 3:12-17, I enjoyed unpacking the text to present to the church. As I said it is so good to be from different countries, but believing in the same God.

Following the preaching we moved on to Communion where I had the opportunity to serve. What a great experience to ‘Do this in remembrance of Me’ here in Liberia.

After the service ended (sometime after 1:15 or so), there was much greeting and laughter as pictures were taken by many. Sometimes you didn’t even know who you were getting pictures of, but that didn’t matter. We all wanted to be in them.

We came home (across the road) and I changed to get shorts and T-shirt on. Just as we sat down our other missionary, Pastor Titus Namen and his family came up the stairs to visit. We had a short visit with them before we ate our lunch. They came after their church services to see us and we made plans for next week to go to their church and spend some time with them.

After saying our goodbyes to Titus and family we went upstairs to eat. I ate a little bit and it seemed to be okay for my stomach. Since my night was not so restful I decided to lay down for awhile and after a couple of hours I felt better. When I woke up, Leo was done watering the gardens and Renee had left to go to a concert for Christ Life, a group run by the young people (Philip, the young man who helps with the cooking as well as Blessing, Emmanuel and Wintee’s daughter). Renee came back later and said it was good. Loud, like you’d expect from young people, but God honoring and enjoyable.

While Renee was gone, Leo and I went for a walk. There is beauty in everything if you look for it. Here’s a few pictures I took on our walk today.

Tomorrow we have plans to visit the school and then go into Monrovia to visit their historical museum. I can’t wait.