This morning we attended church at the early service at St. Andrew’s Cathedral (at 6:30 AM) and then again at Mwilamvya Church just on the outskirts of Kasulu. (Say Mwilamvya 10 times fast!) Mwilamvya Church is a relatively new church plant. They started back in July by meeting underneath a group of trees. Now the Church is over 200 strong and growing. It was a fabulous time of worship together. Shaw gave the sermon with Daudi acting at interpreter. Cathy and I sang the two songs that we mentioned in yesterday’s post and got everyone singing with us on the choruses. I really like doing that when I have the chance to sing here. Getting the people singing and praising God along with us is a must for me. And wow, did they sing! The church had over 200 in attendance today.
Afterwards we went back to the compound rest. It was a pretty early morning for us. A short while ago, we went for a short hike with Alastair and Helen. It was nice to get out into the countryside for a bit. It’s a beautiful country, but we spend most of our time in the cities, towns and villages, so we don’t get to experience the nature around here that often.
So far, it’s been a great trip, and somewhat of a vacation up to now. Tomorrow I’m looking forward to getting down to business and putting in a good long work day (how American of me). But with only one week to complete all the work left, I want to do what I can to move things along. I’m just trusting the Lord that all the parts and pieces will fit together and everything we brought with us will work as designed. Please continue to pray for us as we work on the computers and also pray for Shaw as he talks through his plans for on-line education for the Bible College with Daudi, Helen and Bishop Makaya.
Karibu sana for all of your prayer support.
Bill
It’s Saturday, so today we took it slow in the morning and eventually made our way out of the compound with Daudi to see his son’s Frank and Jonathan, who are away at primary boarding school. The school is about 20 minutes away from Kasulu. 
Some of you may remember when Daudi and Olivia were here at St. Paul’s Church with their newborn Frank. At that time Daudi was attending Nashotah House Seminary through a grant and with support from St Paul’s Church and others. Frank was baptized at St. Paul’s and Cathy and I became his God parents. So it only fitting that we got a chance to see him, if only for a short while. Cathy brought a small gift for him (pencil’s and a coloring book).
From there we visited the Saturday Kasulu Market. It was crowded as you can see. It’s an amazing spectacle of items that are for sale by people who walk here from villages all around the region, some of who started their journey in the early morning hours to get here.
After visiting the market we visited a new church in the Murusi area of Kasulu. Murusi already has a large and very strong church in the vacinity, but even so, people come from long distances to get there, so a new church plant was started in the area. It has grown to a congregation of about 300 worshipers on Sunday morning. The church building is basically a built on the bare ground with wood posts that hold up the sills for the roof to rest on. The shell is then closed off with materials such as big blue tarps. At the moment the church needs to find a new location so they are in the hunt for land that they can use to move the church building to and eventually build a brick building with cement foundation.
Afterwards we came back to the compound to relax for the afternoon. < I worked some songs with Cathy and Shaw worked on his sermon. Shaw is going to preach at the 6:30 AM service at the Cathedral Church in Kasulu and Cathy and I will sing two songs, including the congregation in while we sing with some lyrics that we translated into Swahili. The two songs are “Sing for Joy” and “Forever Reign”. The chorus to the first song is:
Sing for Joy to God our strength
which translates to:
Imba qwa furaha na Mungu nguvu yetu
The second song has a bridge which says:
My heart will sing (no other name), Jesus, Jesus
Which we translated to:
Moyo wangu utaimba, Yesu, Yesu
I mention this because I want to give my friends back at St. Paul’s fair warning. I will be leading many of the worship songs on the Sunday after we get back (May 12). And we will be singing these two songs, ALSO with the Swahili words for the choruses. Don’t worry, they are very easy to learn!!!
It’s time to go to bed for the evening. We have an early morning and two church services to attend tomorrow. The Lord bless you all in your worship also tomorrow. Until the next post!
Bill