Africa Part 5

Today we attended church at Jubilee Christian Center in Nairobi. The church was celebrating their 12^th anniversary and approximately 6,000 people were in attendance. The service lasted for 6 hours…that was not a misprint…6 hours!!!! Did I say 6 hours?!? Needless to say my rear is still sore today. I don't want to hear anyone at FBCC complain about the length of our service! The sermon was 1 ½ hours too…so no complaining if I go beyond 30 minutes either!

It was an interesting service in which the Bishop (more to come on that title in a later blog) introduced special guests including a Kenyan Supreme Court Justice, a grammy award winning Kenyan Christian artist, and the group from California. Yep, you got it. We are treated like dignitaries here. Pastor Gilbert was called to the stage to bring greetings from America. After the service we were escorted to a private area to meet the Bishop and the First Lady…yes that's what they call the Pastor's wife. We had a very pleasant lunch with a wonderful couple and learned some more very interesting things about the nation of Kenya.
A few of us went with Ben, our driver to the town of Karen to do some souvenir shopping and Tom was pleased to get some weapons to add to his collection. Tom collects swords and shields from the various places he visits. Kenya is well known for its coffee and it is quite good, so both Tom and I purchased several bags. The place where we shopped wraps all purchases for visitors for travel, so they have wrapped our coffee in white paper with brown packaging tape. It looks as if we are carrying several kilos of cocaine with the scent of coffee. So, with Tom's weapons and our packaged coffee, we may have a very interesting time when we go through US Customs.

Last night we said our tearful goodbyes to the four young guys who run the Faraha Community Foundation. I hope we can further develop a relationship with Dan, David, Kerry, and Chris. This morning we are packed and headed to breakfast and then to the airport for a nine-hour flight to London then on to Glasgow. The remainder of the week will be spent meeting Gilbert's family and friends and exploring his homeland of Scotland. Tom and I are anxiously excited about our dinner and overnight stay on Wednesday at the Dalhousie Castle just outside of Edinburg. We've had a wonderful time in Africa and feel as if we have a better grasp on how blessed we are and the responsibility we have to be more of a blessing to others.