Sunday, May 2, 2010

5/2/2010 Sunday Evening Report

The team had a dinner of tilapia, new potatoes and a vegetable medley with pineapple for dessert. We discussed our impressions of the day just ended. All of us really liked the different flavors of music in the worship service and the incredible harmony of not only the choir, but also that of the congregation as a whole. Communion was an interesting experience, people got up from their pews in no particularly obvious order to form a row behind the communicants already at the altar rail. After about the fourth rail of believers had communed, our Redeemer crew got up and took our spot. It was common cup and a more traditional serving of the wafer, with the Pastor placing the wafer on our tongues. Knowing the high incidence of HIV and the rise of swine flu in Africa, the thought did cross some of our minds about how safe the common cup might be, given our recent experiences with swine flu practices at Redeemer. But we put it in the Lord’s hands and thankfully received the body and the blood.

After dinner, I led a brief devotion based on John 20:19-23, pointing out that Jesus sends us just as the Father sent Him and he breathes the Holy Spirit on us to strengthen and counsel us. Following some discussion of the missional aspects of this scripture, we set about coming up with a good plan for getting the clinic up and running and keeping the flow under control throughout the day. We modified our original layout for the clinic, having gone through three mockups on paper, and with everyone contributing something of value to our solution. We ended up agreeing to most of what was in our fourth pass at it and I crumpled up the other 3 sheets and discarded them. What a great team to work with, Pastor Kevin has dubbed my group the Dream Team, and with good reason. Everyone is committed to making the clinic work for its highest purpose and we all have an easy and good-natured rapport with one another. We all give our best and are all mature Christians who firmly believe that God has a plan for us and however things turn out, so long as we are in His will, it is pleasing to Him and falls in line with his purpose. What a blessing to have each of our faiths sharpening one another’s faith. We are prepared to make some more modifications to the physical setup of the clinic based on how our current plan works out and any affect that weather or the size of the crowds of patients have.

Hitting the sack now, about 9:30 local time. We need to be up around 5:30 and on the road by 6:45am to get an early 7:30am start on setting things up in Kibera and performing the initial training of the local volunteers. Please keep us in your prayers. It will be a very full day.

P.S.  Just to make sure all of you know, to view the reports from all of the previous days, go down to the bottom of the page and click in the lower right hand corner on Older Posts.  You will be taken back a day at a time as you continue to do this.

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