The day started with breakfast, which is included in the price of the room – a rather nice omelette, with veg mixed through it, a sausage, and chips. And the inevitable cup of tea.
Then we travelled quite a distance to the church where the conference is being held. Bishop Thomas’s own church, and his home, is a long way from the city centre, and their meetings are held in a school, which is obviously not available on week days. The conference will run over four days, including church services tomorrow, so all up I will have seven meetings over the four days, doing one of the things I love most, ministering to mostly pastors and leaders.
This is some of today’s congregation as they came in for the service.
Of course, African time meant that the first session started somewhat later than the planned time, but once we got going it was a great time, with wonderful African worship and a very responsive congregation when it came to the message.
The ladies made us lunch before we went to the second session, which also went very well. Bishop Thomas took plenty of notes at both sessions, and said that he will preach from them in the future.
Bishop Thomas is a former school teacher, so has excellent English and is also very organized. His burden is to train up pastors and leaders, and he has a two-year training program that recently graduated over 60 students. I’m quite impressed with him.