Old and New Friends

In the afternoon we drove to the South B slum to visit Pastor Paul and his church. Three years ago, Pastor Paul had a vision: to start a church in the middle of the slum to share the love of Christ to these poverty-stricken people. The original Lighthouse team were touched by his calling, and provided the financial means to allow Pastor Paul to rent one small room for his church, the Kayaba Free Baptist Church. A year later, Pastor Paul needed more room as his congregation grew. He wanted to purchase the adjacent room to expand his growing church, and so Lighthouse helped him once more. And again this past year, Lighthouse funded Pastor Paul’s church to knock down the walls to expand the church ones more. The floors of the church were cemented and plastic chairs were bought, and an altar for the Lord was built. And today the church is thriving, the people worshipping in such a genuine and passionate way as to shame us conservative Americans back at home. The people of this church are so joyful and loving, and their worship inspires me.

During Trenton's message, Pastor Paul helped translate, and he did it with as much passion and energy as last year. During the altar call, eight women dedicated their lives to Christ. What an amazing God we have! He is truly at work in South B, and His presence is strong in the people of the Kayaba Free Baptist Church.

Unfortunately, with me being sick, I had to drink a lot of water, and consequently had to use the restroom. Leoneia (sp?), one of the women who helped guide us from our bus to the church, led me to the outhouse, if you can even call it that. It was basically a stream, and there was a wooden board you could stand on. I was so confused! It took me a while to figure out how to go in this new bathroom, because last year I refused to use any public bathrooms and successfully made it through while only using the restroom at our guest house and at clean restaurants. When I was finally done, Leo laughed at me, and we laughed together at my struggle. At one point, after laughing at how different our worlds were, Leo said, "This is our life." And it made me embarrassed and sad. Last year I did not use any of the restrooms because my own sense of personal hygiene would not allow me to, and it was simply unfathomable to me. But what Leo said is true. That was how all the people in slums live, and here I was, albeit unconsciously, thinking that I was better than them in some way, not allowing myself to experience their world.
Praise the Lord, Leo wasn’t angry with me. She just thought I was funny. She liked me enough to make sure that we got a picture together and to hold my hand while walking back to our bus after we ended our time together with the Kayaba Free Baptist Church.

While some of the team helped serve food to the people in the slum, I had a chance to talk to four girls. I said hi shyly at first, and just as I had passed them one of the girls, Monica, reached out and said I was cute. We all laughed, and then got to talk more. Monica’s sister is Agnes, and their two friends were Cynthia and another girl whose name I can’t remember, probably because I couldn’t pronounce it either. I didn’t get a chance to ask how old they were, but I would have guessed they were my age or older. They all attend Kayaba Free Baptist Church and were all very sweet. One of the girls, Agnes, had an email address, so we exchanged, and we plan to be facebook friends soon! Haha. Even better, I got to take a picture with them too! It’s crazy how connected our world is through the internet, and while many look down on sites like facebook, I think here it has proved to be a blessing.