Day 6

Hello everyone!! I am typing this blog right now while watching Lion King in KENYA!!! How amazing!! I know, right?!?


Well, today was another awesome day of cultural firsts. Obviously it's Sunday, so today we went to church at a Kenyan church. We got up a bit earlier than normal and had breakfast here at Heart. Then we all loaded up the bus and headed to Parklands Baptist Church (click here). This church would be considered a mega church in the US with over 10,000 attendees on any given Sunday. The youth ministry, which is standard 8 (or 8th grade) through young adults (age 25), is about the size of Graceland when the high school students are not away at boarding school.

Going to church in Kenya is basically an all day experience. We arrived at the church at around 8:45am. We started with going into the main service. We entered during worship and sang some songs in both Swahili and English. There was another mission group at the church today from Sevierville, TN as well. They had been working in Kibera with the kids so they brought them in to sing one of the songs they had prepared. They also had a concert at 3pm this afternoon at the church. They performed for the church and it was precious to see them all there and smiling and so joyful. 












After we were introduced in the main service, we left to head to the youth tent. This is literally a tent in the parking lot that the youth group meets in. No rooms, no central air conditioning, no heat...just a tent in the middle of the parking lot. Now, to be far, it is a gi-normous tent that holds hundreds of chairs and has a stage and a kicking sound system, but it's not like any other youth room I have ever been in. We got to the tent and took our seats. In fact, we got there in just enough time for me to get up to speak and give the message.

It was an interesting experience. Four years ago I spoke at the church that Sylvester was the youth pastor at. It was an incredibly different experience. I am used to preaching and teaching at home where everyone knows me and knows American culture. Here, that's not the case at all. It is such a different experience, so I just hope God used me to talk about His grace and how it impacts their life! I used John 1:14-18. We ended the first service at about 10:30am.

Then we headed to the reception that Sylvester had setup for us. We had Kenyan tea and these fried dough things. They were awesome! We sat for a bit and then headed back to the youth tent for the second service. We had four of our students share their testimonies (Morgan, Tyler, Megan, and Chad). Then we had two students from Scott's church lead a couple of worship songs. It was an awesome experience. They are very lively in their worship to say the least. We broke it down a couple of times. Rachael Bailey is a very good dancer during worship by the way!!

We were in the second service from 11:30 to 1:30 and then headed out to the bus to leave. If you think leaving Graceland on Sunday morning is crazy, you haven't seen anything. We all waited in line and at times, we were about 1 cm from other cars...literally! I was sitting in the front seat so I knew all about it. There were some tense moments but that's driving in Kenya! 

Once we were out of traffic, we headed to Java House to eat lunch. This place is a little slice of America for us. When we got there we all sat down and looked through the menu; however, we almost all ordered burgers! It was one of the best burgers I have ever eaten! It was so incredibly good. After purchasing some gifts for family members and then some coffee and tea, we loaded back up the bus and headed to Heart House.

Once back, we went to our rooms and began packing for safari! It is a tradition to watch Lion King on our trip at some point but this time we decided to watch is right before we leave to go on safari. It is an awesome experience. We are going to see so many of these animals in the next couple of days: hyenas, lions, warthogs, monkeys, giraffes, etc. And the best part is...there are NO cages!!! It's SO awesome!!!

We leave tomorrow morning very early and won't have internet (that we know of). So the blog will not be updated while we are gone. The next post will come on Wednesday night. Thanks for following along and keeping up with our trip! We miss you all back home and can't wait to see you all again. We will be changed in so many ways when we get back but God is at work and it is amazing! 

I love you Mallory!!!