We had a pre-church session…as in some kids just sat in the church and a 9 year old (appx.) girl led worship songs until one of the evangelist guys decided that church should actually start. Kids leading worship before church:
Church started and there was more singing and then a time of prayer. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the singing in Gabon…voices are absolutely beautiful!
During the singing, the little girl (maybe two years old) next to me just kept staring at me. I don’t think she has seen many white people because she kept running her hand over my arm and caressing my skin. Then she took her little pointer finger and touched every mole and bug bite on my arm in complete fascination. Then, she took my hand from my lap and slowly stretched out my fingers. One by one, she touched each finger and then stared at my finger nails and poked them. I stood up to sing and all of sudden, the little girl was at my feet on her hands and knees. Her little finger reached out and touched my big toe and then all my other toes. She ran her fingers over the nail polish on my toes. She then crawled under the bench to my other side and repeated the same procedure with the toes on my other foot. She would touch my fingers or toes and then hers, as if to compare them. It was absolutely adorable and I had fun watching her figure things out…For the rest of the service, she slipped her hand into mine and wouldn’t let me out of sight:
I later learned that my little friend is named Japrisa…After singing and praying, children were dismissed for Sunday School (l'école du dimanche) with Mama Lisa & Mama Christina…You are probably wondering why the title “Mama” in front of Lisa’s name and mine?...I promise you that neither of us magically had children. Mama is simply a title of respect.
I never knew one could hold the hands of six children at the same time, but today I learned that it IS possible. Each kid wants to hold your hand directly, so they grab a finger or any appendage and just hold on to you…so, Lisa and I each had a mob of children around each hand as we walked from the church to the Sunday School meeting place.
We used the same lesson from the Marembo Sunday School and did Genesis 22 with the kids. Once again, I was Isaac…this week, I was strapped to bamboo as the sacrifice. Lisa and I have become quite good at acting out this story’s skit (or, as they say in French “sketch”). The kids were kind of A.D.D. We sensed a general spirit of distraction amongst the kids and even adults…as if for some reason, they could retain only very little. Lisa had printed little handouts with a Bible verse and picture. The older kids received the handouts and colored the picture with crayons Lisa brought. The little guys got stickers that I brought from the U.S.…That was so sad for me, because I gave the kids a little sheet of stickers each and they didn’t know what to do with the stickers because they’d never seen them before. I spent quite a bit of time putting stickers on their arms and faces…soon, I had a whole line/crowd around me with a million little hands holding out their sticker sheets to me. I showed each one how to peel off the stickers and soon every little one was covered head to toe in Disney stickers.
Covered head to toe in stickers:
Little Japrisa and I:
(Note: It takes alot of work to get children or adults in Gabon to smile for pictures...just because they don't smile does not mean they are miserable..its just they way picture-taking goes here)
Lisa and I walked the kids back to church…they were just finishing. The adults leaving Doussala church:
Mama Karen, Mama Lisa, myself and the two evangelist guys along with some members of the congregation made some house visits after the service to pray for two widows and another very sick elderly lady…I could go on and on with stories and impression of Doussala, but that would take whole webpages.
We left Doussala around 1pm and got back to Bongolo around 2:30pm…On Saturday, Lisa and I decided that we need to take full advantage of our time together and so we made a dinner date for every single night of my remaining stay. Today, it was “Sauce Sunday” and we had leftover pasta and sauce with meat. Mhmm. Lisa said she can tell I’m Cuban because I am forcing her to eat more than she usually does. At 4pm, I met up with Rachael Thompson and headed down to the hospital to color with the kids in the pediatric ward. Those little faces stole my heart. The five kids that colored with us were all under the age of eight and were the most serious bunch of children I have ever encountered in my life. One little girl in particular just made me want burst into tears…I was talking with Rachael about this and she said that at their age, these kids don’t know yet that coloring can be fun. Their moms treat coloring as school since they haven’t gone to school yet and warn them to do well. So, these children color under pressure and in fear that they might mess up :- (
While we were coloring, I heard beautiful voices echoing through the little ward. There was a bunch of teenagers sitting together singing worship songs in French and I even some in English…its funny, here I am in Africa and all of a sudden, I hear “You are My All in All,” “Heart of Worship” and other familiar songs.
How far does the love of God go? Today reminded me that the love of God goes to the ends of the earth. The love of Christ penetrates every corner of this world. Whether it is a small village on the border of Gabon and Congo or a pediatric ward or the USA, there is not one place that the love of God cannot reach. There is not any situation to which the love of God cannot give hope. There is no individual which is unloved by the God who created them…because Jesus came to this world because he LOVES all.
<3 love following your adventure.
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