Back in Arandis

February 29th, my favorite day of the year. It’s almost like a holiday, like Christmas or Easter or Free Text Friday. Enjoy today, it only comes around once every four years!

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Bible studies this week went well. I love teaching the kids at the secondary school even though they tell me I use “hard grammar.” The other day I taught them the word indictment. The Firm Foundations curriculum flies through the history of kings and prophets with only a passing mention, so I thought I’d go back and fill in some of the details. It’s been fun and I think very important in pointing toward the kingship of Christ. Thursday morning at the woodcarvers market we continued in Romans 11 talking about how God had hardened the Jews to bring the Gentiles into God’s family in order to then make the Jews jealous so they too would believe.

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The crusade in Arandis started Thursday evening. After taking in some of Pearl’s dance class we started moving the equipment over to the amphitheatre around 4:30pm. Many of the churches in the community are involved so it truly is a community crusade. The speakers are quite…shall we say…Pentecostal. After the music team had finished and sat down, they called us back up again, and then a third time, until they finally felt we had moved to a place where we were “ministering to God.” For his message he read out of Numbers 19, the story of the bronze snake in the wilderness, and spoke about Jesus being the answer to everyone’s problems. Then came time for the alter call. As we played “Hold On To Me” over…and over…and over, the benches emptied and just about everyone came forward. (That’s when Don & Jackie bailed to the preacher saying, “I can feel the demons leaving now!”) The community pastors prayed with different people and the Pentecostals brother was pushing people over “slain in the Spirit.” The whole night was pretty wild, very different from what I’m used to. I finally got home that night at about 10:30pm quite exhausted from a long day.

This morning I went over to the secondary school with Boniface to attend his Scripture Union club. I saw many familiar faces from when I was here last July. (For those on that team, I saw Charmaine, Raymond, Maria and Maria, Rebecca, Jesme, and others whose faces I remembered but names I did not.) They remembered the girls from last year and wanted to know when they’re coming back. Then it was off to play photographer again, capturing pictures at the preschool and the Talitha Kumi primary school to use for the Hope’s Promise website. Molly and Jaime, this pic's for you. Revival became a quick favorite for them last year. :)