The Sounds of Heaven

Last Sunday, Abi and I decided to go to a different church. My first Sunday here, we had gone to the chapel service that is held at the hospital every Sunday. This was a great experience and it was neat to worship with the patients that we are serving. However, we wanted to experience a more typical Kenyan service. So, we headed to Roroc, a church that is about a 5 minute walk from my house.

Roroc is held in a school and when we first arrived (we were told to arrive about 30 min late, as church never starts on time), there weren’t many people there. We were ushered to the front and given prime seats. As the service started, someone quickly realized that we probably weren’t understanding much and so he jumped up and started translating. Throughout the service, different people took turns translating, something I’m sure they don’t normally do. Also, soon after we arrived, a little girl who looked to be about 4 or 5 came up to me, sat down next to me, and held my hand. She stayed there for the remainder of the service.

It was a wonderful service, full of vibrant singing (lots of songs) and wonderful testimonies from various people. The sermon was encouraging as well. During one of the songs, the youth of the church had come up in front to sing, and one of them boisterously encouraged everyone to sing with all their hearts. The singing sounded to me what I imagine heaven will sound like one day. It was beautiful! At one point, they asked for any visitors to get up and say something. After several Kenyan visitors got up, they said “Are there any more visitors?” and looked right at us. We figured that meant we should go up, so we did.

After the service, we were greeted warmly by many people and invited to stay for soda and bread (yes, slices of bread). It was a special day, because all the children were headed back to school the next day. So, at about 2pm, we finally headed home. Church is definitely an event here! It was wonderful, though, and I think that on my weekends off, that is where I will be attending.

Later that afternoon, I kept my promise to the girls on the station and made them popcorn. It was quite a hit and 5 little girls downed 2 huge tubs of popcorn.