A multi-cultural church service

I'm afraid I don't have much time left to write tonight but I did want to tell you about the church service this morning. It was great! Our driver and interpreter, Jean-Claude, and his wife helped found a church on the edge of Cotonou, almost to the Nigerian border, 20 min. car ride from the ship. It has grown from a membership of about 15 children to over 100 men, women, and children. He said that the children would go home and tell their families all about what they were learning until their whole family would be coming to church regularly and come to know the Lord! Jean-Claude and his wife, originally of Congo, left after one year to continue travelling with Mercy Ships, but the other couple stayed on to pastor the church. The children are still largely involved with the church but their parents are getting more involved themselves now.

We started out with music--drums, gourds with bead netting over them, a piece of old pipe hit with a stick, and tin plates with rings clipped all around the edge to make a type of tambourine. And dancing--you could tell by their faces that it was more than just a movement but their own worship and praise for the Lord. They had something like a few different samba lines that would dance past the offering box so that the congregation could discreetly slip in their offerings during the dance. The languages were a little bit of a problem as most of the people speak a native language of Fan (pronounced "fawn") and a few spoke french. So the service was already being translated between those two languages. Jean-Claude then also translated it into English for us and they had a special choir number and dance in yet another tribal language! The pastor was away this sunday but the elder who spoke had a very simple but challenging sermon about why, if we have already surrendered our lives to God, would we then continue to surrender ourselves to the works of the devil and the importance of God's word in fighting those temptations. Afterwards, though none of us spoke French, the children all came by to give us hugs and the pastors family shared coconut juice and meat with us to refresh their visitors before we started home. It was a very neat experience but exhausting as I had to concentrate so hard to follow all that was going on! Well, our evening service here on the ship is starting and I need to go. May the Lord's teaching reach your heart this week!