Today we spent a wonderful time worshipping with the community of believers at the Liberty Christian Ministries church located in Sibanga. Young Timothy Mahindu preached and as always, the children danced to praise music at the beginning and end of the service. Today the boys left the girls in the dust when it came to both style and enthusiasm. I feel like a judge for the first season of Kenya Idol!
After the service ended we went to the home of Grace and Andrew, members of Pastor Isaac Gikonyo’s church. Grace is expecting a baby in the next three weeks and was throwing herself a baby shower. Apparently Kenyan tradition is to wait until after the birth of the child because of all the possible complications but Grace wants to start a new tradition. So women from the church came for food and fellowship, each bearing gifts of food items they purchased for the soon-to-be mama because it will be difficult to get to the marketplace with a newborn baby on her hip! Of course those of you who know Ellen and I understand that we feel quite out of place at festivities of this type but at least they didn’t play any of those embarrassing baby shower games! After we had taken lunch, we moved outside the small home to sit in a circle and sing worship songs. We can tell we are no longer visitors by the fact a Swahili songbook was given to us and we were instructed to “sing Kiswahili”.
After an impromptu teaching by Dawn from Proverbs 31 and some more worship songs, we prayed for Grace and thought we were headed back to the farm when we were met by Pastor Mahindu. He told us the leaders were waiting for us back at the LCM Sibanga church so we made our way back and listened to the end of a teaching by Pastor John and then witnessed a living, breathing example of a community having “all things in common” when members of both the Kitale church and the Sibanga church presented offering money to assist with the completion of a restroom facility for a small piece of land the Sibanga church has recently acquired and to which they are planning to move soon.
Our hostess Mama Zippy, as busy as ever, was finally home this evening long enough to sit down and take dinner with us. It was fun to get caught up on each others lives. Ellen and I learned that we have had milk cows named after us on Zippy’s farm here in Sibanga as well as in Baringo. Hmmmmmmm. We’re not sure if that is supposed to be flattery or something else!
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