My First African Sermon

            We had planned on checking out a different church this Sunday, one that one of the other missionary families had told us they attended. They had said that it met under a big tree by the TB village. The TB village is associated with the Baptist Medical Centre, and it is where patients and their families stay as they are finishing 6 months of treatment for tuberculosis. It is about a 10-15 minute walk from our house. We tried to contact the missionary family to meet up with them before going, but we were unable to reach them (we found out later that one of them was not feeling well, so they didn't go this morning). So we decided to try and find the church ourselves.

             Even at 9 AM, it was already in the high 80s to low 90s, but God blessed us with occasional breezes to cool us off as we walked. We arrived at the TB village and were not seeing any gathering of people under a tree. We were about to turn around and go back home when one of the people sitting on the front steps of her small house got our attention and said "church?" in her best English. We nodded and said "yes", and she pointed us towards the direction of a big shea tree where a group of people were starting to gather and set up benches. We said the usual good morning greetings ("Dasuba") and sat down to wait for the pastor to arrive. After a good amount of time, it was apparent that the pastor would not be coming. Shortly after that, a young man who spoke good English came up to the group and confirmed that the pastor would not be coming. He then proceeded to ask me if I was going to preach. After some slight hesitation, I agreed.

            The service started out with some singing accompanied by a djembe. The guy leading the singing was someone we knew from the hospital grounds. He seemed to want to incorporate us in the singing, so he sang a song in English that went like this: Alleluia, 1-2-3-4-5, Alleluia. This repeated over and over again, and sometimes he would sing 6-7-8-9-10. After the singing was over, it was time for the sermon. The young man that had come translated into Mampruli for me. It was probably not the most well organized sermon ever since I did not have any time to prepare, but I talked about trusting God and shared the Gospel.

            So from what was almost a failed search for a church this morning, God turned it into an opportunity to trust Him and share about Christ with some of the local people. Alleluia! 1-2-3-4-5!

 

Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths."