My Name Is?

Not too much has happened since the last post. (I)Lauren wanted to take a little break, so Brynne will be the guest blogger for the day!

Hey y'all! I love Africa! It is so much more than I expected. From the beauty that I saw from the plane to the excitement of main street it is wonderful! Yesterday we had a chance to interact with the people a lot, and the language barrier was fun/interesting. We met many kids as they exited from the seminary church and one girl Jaele came to meet us first. After we exhausted the traditional greetings, we stood there trying to remember something else to say and finally we thought to ask if we could take their pictures. After we took a few group shots we showed them the pictures, and they got very excited. They all smiled and laughed and wanted more. We took more pictures and then had to say goodbye. When we said "kwaheri" (goodbye) they still followed us up the steps! So we took a few more pictures, I taught them some silly faces and they had a blast seeing what they looked like!

In the afternoon, we went to an English service at on of the local churches. The service was so exciting and very sincere. I was most impressed with the singing, it was so passionate and we all sang so loud that we couldn't even hear ourselves! After some singing and Scripture reading, they opened up the service for people to share praises or requests to God. This was the most exciting part, the people who shared were so genuine and seemed so excited about God. The first man who got up shared a praise for his wife's survival from breast cancer. After praising God he led the congregation in "I will call upon the Lord." After praise the worship leader invited all guests to stand and introduce themselves and, upon seeing the amount of guests, said "we are TRULY blessed." Then they gave us all a traditional African clap greeting and blessing. Uncle Gregg gave the sermon and then service was over. We met a few people and then headed home for dinner.

This afternoon we will have the orientation for camp and will get to meet our small groups for the rest of the week. Pray for us as we do not exactly know how this will work. Right now we are also headed to the UN market to buy traditional African head scarves.

Our love to all and a quick fact: Jessy found her African husband, tall, skinny and wearing Ralph Lauren!

- Brynne for the team

Russell here again... as we are sitting in the computer lab at the seminary there was an outburst of cheering, singing, and clapping as one of the students finished their oral exams. They are quite expressive in their praise and encouragement for one another.