Weekend Part 2

On Sunday morning, I skipped church, since Richard had to go the airport. He's going back North to finish some work up there. Of course, once we got to the airport, there was a little sign, written with an old magic marker, which indicated that the flight would leave later in the day. So we got back in the truck and came home again. Good thing we live near the airport! I listened to a sermon on my MP3 player, which was really good. It was about perseverance, which seems to be the topic of just about anything that I pick up to read or any sermon or devotion that I hear lately! I really hope God's not using it to prepare me for something that's going to require some serious perseverance on my part...

Anyways, it was a great sermon, and I had a wonderful quiet morning in the house. It's SO nice to have a house! I think I really have the best of both worlds now - my own space and privacy in a house, but yet if I want to find someone to talk to, there are always people in the guesthouse! Zane seems to like the arrangement just fine, as well. Anyways, it was good to just sit and be quiet and to be alone with God for a while in the morning. It's hard for me to make time to just sit and be quiet in his presence, so it was refreshing to do it for a while yesterday. Funnily enough, our evening fellowship devotion was on that very topic, too!

K spoke about Elijah, and the story of when he was all tired out and running and then God spoke to him, not in the wind, not in the fire or earthquake, but in a quiet whisper. As she was talking about that, I was wondering why God bothered to send all those powerful noisy bits first - why didn't he just speak to Elijah in the whisper in the first place and save himself some trouble? I'm still not quite sure of the answer to that. I'm a rather distractable person, so I sort of puzzle over these seemingly intentional distractions that God put in the way of Elijah hearing his quiet voice. Why did he do that? What was he trying to teach us in that whole thing? If you have any grand ideas on this topic... please feel free to share!

Anyways, part of the evening's worship service was to just sit in a quiet place on the compound and be still, and to listen. Goodness, it was good. I really need to make more time to do that.

Before the fellowship, though, we had a wonderful BBQ in the compound! K and Chris had gone to the market on Saturday to try to find some meat to throw on the BBQ. However, they went too late in the day to find any meat. On the way back to the compound, though, they spied with their little eyes, three little goats tied up behind a restaurant! So they went and bargained with the cook to buy two of the goat legs :) And I have to admit, it was some of the best goat I have ever eaten! I made some guacamole, we had a ton of salads, some wonderful fresh bread from the woman down the street... it all just felt like such an afternoon outing in the park! I really felt like we had gone out to play in the park. We even had a game of badminton afterwards!
As you can see, our BBQ was lovingly crafted by our neighbors out of two metal drums that they use to store airplane fuel in!

I love these sorts of gatherings on our compound - we had about 12 people from all over the world - Sudan, UK, Canada, the States, the Philippines, South Africa, the Netherlands... quite a few countries were represented, and yet we all have a great time together!