Cake Mix and Other Lessons

Got up Sunday morning and got all dressed up like church ladies!  You should have seen us all with our long skirts and school teacher shoes...a sight to behold...and behold they did when we entered the Presbyterian Church   of Zambia at Chelston.  A bit more raucous then our service back at home, they had a full choir. (Yup, more than four) keyboards, guitar, and bass. The lead singer sang it all out and the chorus backed her up in four part harmony.  They danced and clapped and sang with great joy and spirit.  We at APC are going to have to work on some of those moves!

The church here meets the needs of the people, Jesus give these people strength and hope and the power to overcome obstacles in their lives.  Can I hear an Amen?  Members of the congregation respond when they feel the spirit or agree with the message.  The pastor's voice raises up the roof and back down again...there is no sleeping in this church!

The Sunday School kids got up and sang a song and literally marched out the door to Sunday School, which was held outside in the church yard.

At the end of the service , the pastor asked Kevin (our 25year old host, missionary, tour guide, and fearless (truly, would you drive a van full of white church ladies into the bowels of the compound?  Would you drive a van full of white church ladies anywhere?). Anyway, the minister pointed out that the only difference between him and Kevin (a Canadian, no less) is the amount of time that God spent baking them....you see God used all the same ingredients for both of them (except maybe a little more on Kevin who was a foot taller than the pastor) but he took Kevin out of the oven when the timer went off, he however was left in the oven a little longer until he was a deep brown.  An analogy that we all understood.

As we left, the pastor shook our hands at the door, then we joined the line and people shook our hands, then they joined the line....until everyone in the congregation was in the "receiving line" out of the front of the church.  We were asked to sign the visitor's book (which we do everywhere we go) and invited to join their coffee hour.

We did notice that the Catholic Church had a few more people in the lot....somethings are universal!