Sunday worship and other happenings... November 16

It continued to drizzle as we helped the other teams load up their footlockers and personal luggage as they headed out into the mission field.  We were the last to depart the Little Daughters of St. Joseph facilities at around 9am.  We had a little extra time, so we swung by Rosa Mystica and dropped off our luggage and claimed our rooms there.  We arrived at the church at 10am, right on time for worship.  With the rainy morning, we were among the first ones there, since rain, puddles and mud makes it difficult to travel in the slum.  It was a blessing, because we got to catch up with our old friends there.  Some of them were Emmanuel, the evangelist tapped to do the sermon, Thomas, the caretaker of the church and Pastor James, who was still suffering with a bad throat and not much voice.  The worship service was wonderful, as usual, with a mix of more traditional hymns, choir music with Tanzanian, Somalian and other African influences and the Liturgy.  Church let out around 1pm, we said some m ore hellos and goodbyes and headed to the Junction for lunch at Java House.  We got a nice surprise, our friend from Kawangware, Mambo, joined us and we found out he would be our driver for the week.  He has helped in previous clinics and will effectively be a 5^th team member for us. 

After lunch, we shopped at the Nakumatt for snacks, water and clinic supplies such as paper towels, toilet paper and hand sanitizer.  All items that don’t make much sense to transport halfway around the world and that are readily available within walking distance of Rosa Mystica.  Our driver for the day, Simon, dropped us off, along with about 14 cases of water and some boxes of Bibles.  We divvied these things up among our three rooms and will dole them out as needed during the clinic.  Since we had such a late lunch we decided not to opt for the dinner at Rosa Mystica.  In fact, unless we order dinner, they won’t have it or charge us for it.  I’m guessing we will be eating out at least 3 times with friends this week, so that works just fine.  While dinner is actually part of our travel package, the food is so good at the mall next door with quite a variety of restaurants that it makes sense to entertain our local friends there when we can. 

I received an email this afternoon from a good friend of mine and Redeemer, Dr. Paul Maier.  He is having some computer issues that are interfering with the final edits on his new book.  I’m working on making contact and seeing if there is anything I can do by remote control, phone or email.  The world is certainly a smaller place these days.  I’m thinking my fee for doing international computer consulting has got to be a personally signed and dedicated copy of his new book.  Pretty cool, huh?  That’s about all for now, the others are starting a game of dominos and threatening to teach me how to be ruthless at it like they are.  If I can get the computer repair handled, I may have to take them up on it.  We’ll call it an early night, we’ll need to be fresh to get the clinic up and running in the morning.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers for an effective mission, both from the human care/medical perspective and from the evangelism point of view.