Well, today has been interesting. As most reading this blog will know, my standard sermon preparation is “Lord, what do You want to say to Your people this time?” – and then listen to what He says. This morning I had nothing – or almost nothing. Just two verses: “Break up your fallow ground” (Hosea 10:12) and “I will restore to you the years that the locusts have eaten” (Joel 2:25) I had absolutely no idea what God wanted to do with them, or even if they were meant to be in the same message or two separate messages. I needed the Holy Spirit to do His thing, or this was going to be a disaster.
The ground in Mongu is sand – it’s like driving on the beach, except that the sand is finer. The car that took us from the hotel to the church bogged – fortunately it did so at the gate of the place we were going, so it was not really a problem for us, but I couldn’t help wondering how long the poor driver took to get out. For our return this afternoon we used a four-wheel drive, and even it battled at times.
The welcome when I arrived was amazing – the ladies all came out singing and dancing, and all wanted to hug me or shake my hand. That was repeated in the service, with everyone crowding out to welcome me, until the ushers finally managed to get them into a semi-orderly line. I felt quite overwhelmed.
The building was a simple structure – tin roof held up by some poles, bamboo walls, mats covering the sand on the floor. For those familiar with Moe church, I felt at home as it was L-shaped, and I was preaching to two different sides.
As for my message, the Holy Spirit did His thing (of course!) and it led into a time of repentance, after which I ended up praying for almost everyone in the building (of course!)
There was supposed to be another session this afternoon, but the delegation that came from the other outreach church had some problems with their lunch being delayed, and by the time that was sorted it was too late for the second session. African time strikes again!
Just finally for today, I mentioned in yesterday’s post about my flight with South African Airways being cancelled, and the need to change the second leg of the flight so I can connect. I had an email from SAA saying that instead of rescheduling my first leg to Thursday, they could put me on a Fastjet flight on Wednesday going at almost the same time as my original booking. I responded, but because of the problems I have been having with email, I was not sure that it had gone through. So when I discovered that they have a WhatsApp number, I contacted them through that. Even though it was outside of office hours, they got back to me this morning and assured me that it is all fixed, I just need to turn up at the Fastjet check-in on Wednesday. Praise the Lord, and top marks SAA.