Mission Africa Begins!

Its been a long, but great day.  We started off this morning going to the Evangelical Praise and Worship Center.  I did not know what to expect where we were going.  I expected to be in a normal church, but when we pulled up we were all amazed - we were having church under a tent.  It looked like a big circus tent.  Church had already begun when we got there and it was packed with around 300 adults (the children were in another tent with around 50 kids.  We were taken to a place of honor in the front row and were recognized and welcomed by the congregation.  These people know how to worship.  It was an amazing experience to watch these people praise our God.  While I did not understand what they were saying - I could see WHO they were loving.  Scott did a great job preaching today.  I know it was difficult to preach with an interpreter, but he did really well.  During the invitation 32 people came down to make professions of faith!  It was a great morning!

We went to lunch at Mugg and Bean (probably my favorite place so far), I had Alabama Chicken - I had to - it was called Alabama Chicken)!  It was good too.  We went to the opening rally of Mission Africa.  Stephen Lungo gave his testimony - wow what a testimony.  He was born to a 14 year old mom and his dad was in his 50's.  His dad beat his mom and Stephen ended up an orphan.  He joined a gang as a young man and was going to a crusade with his gang to assassinate the pastor and place bombs throughout the tent.  A woman gave her testimony before the pastor spoke and Stephen accepted Christ.  During breakfast this morning, he was sharing with us some incredible stories of growing up black in Africa - I will share those with you in another post - I am amazed and so blessed to have met this wonderful man.   Scott did a great job again preaching the Gospel - we pray that lives were changed for eternity.  These people amaze me with their worship, I know I keep saying that over and over again - but its just something you have to experience.  Hopefully I can show you a glimpse of it through photos and videos this week.

Please pray for Joey, Scott and Scott as they will all be speaking tomorrow.  Joey and I will be going to the University here.  Joey will be speaking three times and I will be going to document the events.  Scott D, Scott L and Mike will be going to a maximum security prison, please remember them in your prayers as they share with these men who feel like they have no hope but they do have Hope in HIM.  And tomorrow night we will be spread out over three areas speaking.  Scott L, Scott D and Joey will all be preaching tomorrow night under tents.  Pray for the lost to come to these events.  Its very different here than it is in the US.  There aren't billboards, yard signs, tv commercials and banners to promote these events - a lot of it is word of mouth - please be in prayer for the word to get out and for lost people to attend.
  
I have video and photos to show you of the day but we are trying to limit our uploading because it slows our internet down and we aren't able to skype with our family and friends very well.  I am going to try to upload a couple overnight and post them tomorrow.  Tomorrow will be a long day as we have events beginning at 8 AM, going throughout the day with the last event beginning at 6 PM (African church events can last up to 3 hours), but I will try to blog tomorrow night and let you know about our day.

Here are your African fun facts:

• diet coke is called coke light (that's for you Mayfield and Sloan)
• a truck is called a bakkie
• a grocery cart is called a trolley

I did manage to get my favorite photo of the day uploaded though - this is me and my sweet friend I met at the church today.  She could not understand a word I was saying but she knew we were friends!  She was precious!  Love love love it!