Church Outside and Kickball in the Rain

I love Sundays! Today we decided to go to Bethel Church which started at 9am. Instead of being right on campus, Bethel is in the process of building a new church building several hundred feet down the road. I say in the process of because right now all it is is the foundation, support beams and roof. I thought it would be neat worshiping practically outside. At around 8:45, Erika and I started out walking, carrying two heavy-ish wooden chairs (since there aren’t many chairs there yet). We met up with some of our kiddos heading over too, including Paul J. I put Paul right to work and had him carry my water bottle for me so I could more easily handle my chair. He was such a sweetheart.  When we got there, we placed our chairs near the back since some plastic ones were already set up in the front. I could talk for hours about every part of the service but I won’t. Let me just tell you it was so wonderful! Next week I’ll plan on taking videos of the choirs—there were 3 of them: a youth choir, a women’s choir which had all the ladies we teach in it, and a mixed choir. I could listen to them sing all day long! The first portion of the service was the liturgy, 3 Scripture readings with mini explanations following them, and then a good chunk of time, maybe 40 minutes, of the choirs. The second part of the service was the sermon, which was extremely good. Pastor would occasionally switch to Chichewa in the middle of a sentence or thought, but I enjoyed that. The end of the service finished with the offering, prayers, final hymn and then announcements. As people were leaving and doing the traditional greet and meet, the ladies choir sang again. The sermon was on fellowship and I thought it was so fitting. Here we are, the only two white people in church but I truly felt like I was with family—my brothers and sisters in Christ. It was so nice seeing tons of familiar faces in church too, now that we know the wives and a lot of the kids. Church “outside” was great! We had a nice cool breeze blowing on us the whole service and wonderful scenery around us: bright blue skies, white clouds, and a maize field. Sitting in church with great Christian people, I just had an overwhelming feeling of contentment and peace and just felt so extremely blessed to be back in Africa. Tomorrow Erika and I might head back there because they have work day, trying to clean up some of the grounds around the church.

On the way back to the sem campus all our little munchkins followed us back and Elias was such a gentleman, offering to take my chair back the rest of the way. They followed us all the way back into our courtyard, and we just couldn’t tell them to leave J. So they stayed to hang out for a bit and we took some funny pictures of them before sending them home for lunch.

Our lunch consisted of, you guessed it, PB&Js and apples. Then we took our kindles outside to read in the sun for a bit. I definitely succumbed to a wonderful nap in the sun. Next thing we know, two little boys are at our gate: Ndamiwe and Elias. They were returning a wheelbarrow. So we ended up chatting with them for a bit and then noticed lots of other kids gathering around the press building. I couldn’t resist, so we grabbed some shoes and headed over there. It was so fun just hanging out with them and talking. Pretty soon we realized some of the older boys, Dalitso and Given, were arranging a football game. So Erika and I each joined a team and played for a while. It was so fun playing with these boys and their little ball made of rolled up plastic bags. My team won! J I started off more hard core than I finished because some of the little preschoolers like Aubry, Violet, and Emilee kept trying to play with me too. After the football game, Paul said he wanted to play kickball and all the other kids went nuts. They wanted to play too! Usually Saturdays are their days for kickball, but because Dave is gone at Luangwa and we were in town yesterday, they didn’t get to play. So we thought we’d make it up to them and play today. I had to run back and change my shoes and get my water bottle so by the time I got back, the teams were forming.

I don’t think we really played a full inning before the downpour started. At first it was refreshing because we were so hot from playing football, but then it just got cold. We didn’t give up though. We played a full game in the pouring rain. It was like playing under a cold shower. Some of the kids chickened out and went to find shelter under the classroom buildings, but most of the boys just took their shirts and shoes off and got ready to play in the mud. I had my tennis shoes on, and kept them on for a while but then they just became too saturated with mud and water and made me slip and slide every time I ran, so I took my socks and shoes off as well. I felt like a kid again—playing barefoot in the mud and the pouring rain. I’m not sure who won that game because we were so caught up in having fun and sliding in the mud, but I want to say my team did. J Finally we just got too cold so we had to stop. Of course, the rain stopped right as we were ending the game but that’s OK. I wanted to shower and clean up and throw a load of laundry in before heading over to Uncle Ernie and Aunt Margie’s for supper.

Aunt Margie had the most delicious meal prepared! Steak, potatoes, squash, an apple salad and carrots, with a delicious lemon sorbet type thing for dessert. It was so so delicious! I love going over to their house too because we have such good conversation. We talked about family, and Grandpa Wendland and Uncle Ernie’s dissertation and their trip to Israel. We ended up chatting ‘til 9pm. They invited us to stick around and watch some TV, so we agreed. J Who would have thought we’d be watching What Not to Wear on TLC in Zambia? After that show we watched part of a show on National Geographic where this guy was living with the bush people in the Kalahari for a while and would go on hunts with them. It was very interesting. At about 10 we decided to head back so we could get to bed. We’re planning on getting up early so we can go help out at Bethel, and then we’re heading to the Croc farm after that.

Today was just such a great day all around! Have I said I love it here yet, because I do! J