Sunday's long church service

Church was to start at 9 am and end about 12:30. Today they had a record number of choirs, and the service ended at 1:30 pm. The leaders for the church wanted us to sit in the front on the platform but I begged off and said I wanted to sit in the congregation so I could take pictures. I got some decent pictures of the choirs but many were were blurry because the choirs here don't just stand and sing; they have choreographed dance moves and put on elaborate performances.

By sitting in the congregation I got to see lots of what was happened among the people who attended the service. There were quite a few mothers with babies on their backs. Young girls of 7 to 10 years would carry younger siblings on their backs; the young children who could walk exited and entered often. They would play outside and then come in for a bit. One side of the church had benches and the other side where I was sitting had chairs. The ushers kept seating more people on the benches. They moved the children to the ends and some had about an inch of the bench left for their seat. Finally they realized there were too many people so they brought in a large carpet and set it on the floor in front of first row of chairs and they had all of the children go sit on the carpet.

Paul Almquist preached and it was interpreted. We are lunch at the church and they fed over 50 people which included some of the visiting choirs. This afternoon we are at the guesthouse. All of us were given gifts

for helping with the library. The women got lovely baskets and the men were given nice carvings. Currently it is raining as hard as it did in Kuala Lumpur during a heavy downpour and the electricity is out. I was sitting on the covered wide porch in front of my room at the guesthouse and had to move inside because it is raining so hard I was getting wet on the porch.

When David Thomas arrives from Kigali we plan to go out to eat tonight and get some Western food. That will be a welcome treat after a week of Rwandan food. I'll hope the electricity and Internet are up sometime tonight before I head to bed. But yesterday the Internet never came back after the rain storm. - Nancy