Sunday May 24, 2015

Yet another day filled with exciting activities and memorable experiences!  After breakfast this morning, we hopped on the bus and headed out to church.  The church we went to, Makeni Assembly of God, was a Pentecostal church in Zambia so it’s safe to say we had NO idea what to expect.  We were very happily greeted by the pastor and took our front row seats given to us by the ushers just in time for worship to start.  You can’t put three hours of church into words, but here’s our attempt…

From the moment the first song began, it was so easy to see that these people love to worship, are full of joy, and aren’t afraid to express it.  Everyone was dancing, clapping, singing, shouting, and just praising Jesus.  Some songs were in the African language (Nyanja), but there were also a few that were in English so we were able to sing along!  For any of you who know the song, we sang “I’m trading my sorrows for the joy of the Lord.”  For me, it was so powerful to hear people shouting (because their singing is loud!) “yes, yes Lord” and to be able to join in.  Jesus transcends culture and difference and language; He is the same wherever you go in the world, and to be able to praise Him with people from a completely different part of the world was indescribable.  The congregation also asked us to lead two songs of worship.  They were just as excited to join our songs as they were their own. 

The pastor delivered a message on Psalm 29 about the voice of the Lord and the power of the voice of the Lord.  There was a translator the entire time, so the message was given in both English and Nyanja.  After the sermon, we were invited up to the stage to sing more songs.  We started singing songs that we usually sing in the locker room before games.  One of these was the hymn “Sanctuary”.  We sang it a few times through, and the people in the choir recognized the song.  The third time we were singing it through, we noticed some extra harmonies were added and saw that the choir spontaneously joined us onstage to sing “Sanctuary” with us!  It was so powerful.

Finally, after the service ended, we squeezed into the pastor’s office for a visitor’s reception.  They were all very excited to hear that we have accepted Christ and are able to share that faith together.  After church, we all piled into the bus and headed off to a national game between the women’s teams of Zambia and Zimbabwe (the winner would get a spot in the next Olympic games)!

We were treated like VIPs, escorted into the stadium seats and with special parking for our bus.  It is so interesting for us as we encounter soccer here because it is a much different style than we are used to playing.  The players are tough, scrappy, and just love to play.  We cheered for the Zambian team along with the many other fans (most of which were wild children with paper hats on).  And yes, Zambia won 2-1 so you will be seeing them in the Olympics soon!

We gathered in the bus to leave the game, and as we were pulling out, children were running up to our bus to give us high fives and wave.  Some member’s of the girl’s team we played a couple days ago were really excited to see us, and we were just as excited to see them again!  The people here are so friendly, which is something I admire about the culture.  We drove home while the sun was setting and the whole landscape was just silhouettes (half the team was asleep on each other on the bus because of the busy day).

After a delicious carb-loaded dinner prepared by our awesome Push the Rock staff, we are about to go to bed before our game tomorrow!  You can continue to pray for health for our team; a couple people have had minor sicknesses but don’t worry Moms we are all doing WELL J.   We will be traveling to Macha tomorrow (a 6 hour bus ride) so you can prayer for safety for that as well.  Thanks J

Shout out to Holly…the PRG says mega mega...  We miss you and love you!!!!

Love, MWS (Court and Reese)