Sunday begins with worship

Church flies by, there is so much movement, colour, music, and pagentry. Two hours starting with the pictured choir leading the congregation in about 20 minutes of hymn singing, while we stand and dance. The sound of hundreds of young people singing in English and in Swahili while there is much dancing is a joyful sound onto the Lord, as we are wont to say in the Presbyterian Church. Between readings and anthems by various choirs there are passionate prayers by fast speaking devotees. When the congregation sits to pray individually, the cacophony of voices in many language allows you to hear snippets of pray words, like Oh Jesus, Praise God, Thank you O God and so on. The atmosphere has its own charge, so much so one can imagine the earth opening up and some mystical divine entity rises up to embrace. From all their hearts to God's ear.

The worship service was facilitated skillfully mostly by the High School students themselves. The prime officiant was a boy about 16 who kept the order of the service moving smoothly. Church usually ends with the sermon, benediction, announcements, introductions of visitors, and then choir sings as all 500 students file out in front of the guests, which today included Jesse and me. It takes about 10 minutes for the chapel to empty itself.

Before I had a chance to unpack upon arrival, Pastor Mercy had asked me to preach the service today. I chose to focus on how to keep one's eye on things above and minimize the impact of things worldly like greed, power mongering, and self-centredness.

I used the congregation, including Jesse by having them toss a ball around at random with the clear direction to keep your eye on the ball, failure meant dropping the ball. Worked well. After the sermon I was delighted to introduce Jesse my grandson who took the opportunity to thank them for their hospitality and how thrilled/grateful to get to know so many of his fellow students

The rest of the day was equally powerful. I had a great time discussing with Paster Mercy about MCF, world events like the impacts of curtailing USAid.

A rest to cool down was added to the afternoon as the sun was brutally hot driving everyone who could to shelter in the shade. The students work on their school preparations during this Sunday afternoon until about 1600, then it is time for socialization, pick up games and just hang around.

Just hanging out

I found myself hanging out with these fine grade 11s. They wanted to laugh at things, relaxing and enjoying each others company, often at each others expense. Suddenly the girl on my right announced she wanted to sing and they rendered the title song from Lion King. Spontaneous, joyfull, lyrical, acapella, about six voices in perfect harmony. Thank you for the music and the photo!

Grade 10 choir

Grade 12 Choir

Grade 11 choir

Grade 9 Choir

Sunday evening everyone gathers for a show and tell kind of night. It is filled with tremendous zest, joyful laughter, music from choirs, a duet by two of the girls in the picture with me (above), and the ongoing play from the drama club. The grade 12 students dragged Jesse and me to the stage. They sang and danced and we did the best we could, much to the mirth of the rest of the family. Truly we had so much fun we were laughed out.

Bedtime came about 2200. Tomorrow another great adventure as we will tour MCF Yatta.

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