Today, I Got to Preach

We started out horribly late this morning for church, due in large part to the fact that neither of us realized we needed to buy fuel. The gas station is on the way to church but it still takes time to get it.

We reached Ngarama at the time when the service was supposed to begin. I had a Sunday School lesson prepared and we’d brought tea biscuits for the children so I really wanted to have the children’s lesson time. James said to go ahead with it even though all the adults were already sitting and waiting for church to start. (Many times the adults sit in on the children’s class so this isn’t unusual.)

I taught my lesson, about David’s sin with Bathsheba and then his repentance. We talked about how today, at salvation, God gives us the Holy Spirit who helps us obey God and say “no” to sin. I taught about repentance and read portions of Psalm 51. We had prayer, handed out biscuits, then I sat down and the service started.

We had several visitors at Ngarama today. They stood and introduced themselves, then everyone sang to them in greeting.

(I often wonder how visitors in American churches would react if, when introduced, everyone in the church burst into song welcoming them. 😉 I’m not sure they’d have the same pleased reaction of visitors here.)

The first visitor stood up and shared how she’d already enjoyed listening to me preach and she was eager for the rest of the service.

I should probably mention the fact that, when I was a child, I longed to be a preacher and was devastated to learn that I couldn’t be “the husband of one wife” and so was not qualified. That was when I was about six or seven.

This morning, James and I grinned at each other with her words. “You’re gonna get it,” he whispered to me. “I’m telling that you preached!”

They say confession is good for the soul. I guess I just told on myself. 😉 I personally prefer the title “teacher,” and I love teaching children. Yet, all believers are commanded to “preach the word; be instant in season, out of season.” (2 Timothy 4:2)

Then, at Isanja, this happened:

This little guy let me hold him!

Normally babies here are scared of me and scream their heads off when I hold them, but recently they’ve started warming up. A few weeks ago, a little girl not more than 5 or 6 years old came dashing into church with a screaming baby. She thrust the baby into my arms and ran off. To everyone’s great surprise, the baby stopped crying! Then, a couple weeks ago another baby let me hold him and check him over to make sure he had clear lungs and wasn’t dehydrated. He even started to fall asleep before I gave him back to his mom.

Today, this little fellow was fussing while his big sister held him. She was tired of holding him but the mom wanted to listen in church. So the little girl handed him to me when I offered to hold him. He snuggled right into my arms. I think he was tired because before long he’d gone to sleep.

Ah, sweet baby cuddles!