Our Church Family

 I thank God for our church we are a part of.  It is a blessing to belong to the family of God. 

I love our churches worship.  There praise is joyous and expressive.  They sing, clap, cheer, dance, jump and sweat for Jesus!  And sometimes they don’t.  There is freedom in the worship.  And it isn’t crazy, it’s real.  They also have slower, very meaningful worship songs.  There are lifted hands, sometimes people bow down, cry…  I experience the presence of the Holy Spirit.  I also love how they pray.  There is no shame.  Often we all pray together out loud.  It isn’t distracting because I am talking to God.  I don’t hear others because I am focused on my prayer to the Lord.  I wonder why in our traditions we think we all need to pray together silently.  Maybe we are too private, too orderly, or too afraid.  I love the openness and togetherness I have found in our church. 

I am thankful for the leaders of our church who lead in humility, joy, in God’s truth and in His strength.  They are not paid and it is a hard job with long hours – no off hours actually.  They are trusted and so everyone wants them to help or lead their committee or project.  We are privileged to partner with them in doing the Lord’s work.  Serving with them has been a joy for us. 

 I am excited about the youth in our church.  Our church also had one Saturday a month for prayer and fasting and one of the prayers was for one of the young boys to come to know Jesus because he was slipping away from the church.  Then in August when our church had a youth conference and many youth committed their lives to Christ at the conference and I know God began to work in all of them.    One of our pastors and neighbor, Charles and his wife Margaret, started a Bible study for youth on their school holiday.  I called it their youth group.  It began each night around 10pm!  (At the end of the day after all the work was done and people had eaten.)  Every night we would hear them worship, so we started going (if we hadn’t fallen asleep by then).  It was fun joining the 20 or so youth in their enthusiastic worship under the stars.  Charles taught them using the Freedom in Christ Discipleship Manual.  We continued to see evidence that they were growing through of their youth group. 

The youth group also did service projects.  Two different Saturdays they went out in four groups to visit and serve the elderly in our village.  Each youth took either fire wood or water to the home of the elderly they visited.  At the compound they swept, cooked or just sat with the elderly person and their family.  I love seeing our kids be part of this and proud of them for participating in such cultural things.  They are laughed at sometimes but they don’t seem to mind.  I am not sure they see themselves as different at all.

It seems the friendships our kids have aren’t crossing cultures so much, because our kids were raised here and are completely comfortable here.    They have true friendship and enjoying being with their friends.  They giggle, laugh, tease, play games, walk together, talk, help each other with their work…true teenagers who just like hanging out.  I am thankful our girls are a real part of the youth here – and love it!

The youth are now more involved at church.  Actually they are usually the ones who are always there whether it is the service, choir, cleaning, Bible study…they are there showing they want to grow in the Lord.  The youth are also taking leadership.  They are now teaching Sunday School most weeks, have led worship at church and taken leadership at our evening Bible study.  I am excited to see what God is doing in the youth in our church and how He is going to use them!

I am particularly excited to see boys in the youth group stepping up and now challenging other boys to join.  God has gotten a hold of Tom and Samson and is growing in them and working through them to bring other young men to the group.  I enjoy getting to know them and see them learning, singing, take leadership in Sunday school, Bible study and the worship at church, and being together with the believers.  There are so many young men lost, in trouble and following the ways of the world here. . I pray for Tom and Samson and the other boys that they will remain in the Lord and continue growing in Him.

                                                                                                                                  

I love our evening Bible study at church.  Three months ago our pastor announced that we would be starting evening fellowship.  He told everyone that we need to come together and know Truth so we won’t be deceived.  Jesus is coming and if we don’t know the Truth we will be led astray by what is false.  So every Sunday we have Bible study.  We went through Ephesians, Philippians and now are in Colossians.  The pastor assigns a different person to teach a chapter each week.  I have enjoyed teaching.  I love studying God’s Word together.  I learn and grow.  After one of my teachings I received a note from one of our church members saying I taught God’s Word boldly and she was growing from learning.  Yeah!  Our kids really like Bible study and don’t want to miss a Sunday.  Luka likes to read the verses and answers questions.  Our Bible study is casual and interactive.  Luka still talks about the armor of God that we dressed up with.  I feel our Bible study group is the core group of believers.  We are all there to seek and grow in the Lord. 

I am thankful for the church choir which has consistently been growing.  Rose is the leader of our church choir and she writes most of the songs from scripture verses.  Through her commitment and using her gifts the choir keeps growing.  Every Saturday the group gathers to practice for Sunday’s choir.  The youth are very involved in the choir as well and I love hearing the young men sing.  Our girls love being in the choir and sing most songs in Ateso.  Sometimes there are motions with the songs too.  I am so proud of our girls!  Recently the choir even recorded to make an album and be on the radio!  But that is for another blog to comeJ.  I love listening to the choir sing!  It is beautiful praise, enthusiastic and causes me to worship.

Hebrews 10:25 tells us not to stop meeting together but to continue to encourage one another and all the more as the day of the Lord’s return is near.  May we find blessings meeting together with our church families.  And may we all prepare for Jesus is coming!