June 14, 2009

Today was Sunday! Church day!! We were so blown away by an amazing worship experience!!! We Methodists in America could take a lesson or two from our Methodist friends here in Morogoro! We were so blessed to have been able to take part in a worship service that was so moved by the power of the Holy Spirit!!! The music, the drama, the singing, dancing and the testimonines were overwhelming. If you talk of community you would certainly have been amazed by the receiving line that is formed outside the door of the Church after service and where everyone walks down the line to shake hands and offer blessings. The entire Church waiting to greet each other. Think what that would look like in our own Church. Very impressive!! We have video of the entire service and we hope to be able to share it with our friends when we return.

Our Team spent the afternoon today on a shopping expedition in the center of Morogoro. We initially started at the Center Market which more resembles an outdoor seafood, meat and vegetable market. The smells were unique to this combination of open air selling on a warm Sunday afternoon. Very pungent and overpowering at times!! After the Central Market we had the opportunity to visit the market known as "Saba Saba" which is a Sunday only Flea Market that covers several blocks lined inside and out with small tents full of every conceivable item for sale. The biggest inventory of things for sale were used shoes of all kinds collected from who knows where. You cannot imagine the piles and piles of shoes along the blocks that you could dig through to try and find something that may appeal to you. There were so many people trying to crowd there way down the narrow walkways that it was virtually impossible to not bump into someone. Very interesting experience for all of us.

Our trip continues to be full of unique experiences that sometimes are comical. Tonight on the way to dinner at Pastor Umba's house one of our vans managed to run out of gas right on the busy highway into town. The other van was resigned to taking a one gallon plastic jug down the nearest gas station and deliver the much needed fuel. The funniest thing about the entire experience is that the van continued to take us on to Pastor's house with just the one single gallon in it!! But, we made it safely and we laughed for quite a while afterwards.

Tomorrow is concrete day with our Team having the opportunity to mix something close to 14 cubic yards of concrete by hand and pour a foundation for the new santuary of the new Church!!

More to come on that tomorrow!!!!