Pastor-y Things

Another worshipful day in Nairobi! Wednesdays are always office days so we spent the morning at the church. We began the day with the staff fellowship (aka weekly staff meeting that is pretty much just worship and not much administrative stuff). Once a month, they spend the whole fellowship singing. Today was that day and it was so fun! Even though half the songs were in Swahili, I knew quite a few of them and was able to sing along. This has been an oral culture pretty much as far back as anyone can tell. The same goes with music. Nobody knows how to read music - not even the music director. While singing in fellowships or even in worship, the chanter picks the key and everyone else sings along. The musicians scramble to match pitch and play completely by ear. It is very interesting and they are actually pretty good at it! After the staff fellowship had office hours. A member came by to discuss the details of her son's wedding. It's super complicated because he and his fiance were raised here but live in the U.S. There are lots of rules regarding who can get married in the church but eventually we got it figured out so that the couple will be able to get married at Sukari Parish when they come home in December. Then, we traveled into the city to visit two members who were in the hospital. One was the patient in the CCU that we visited Monday. When we arrived, he had just found out that he would be discharged today. Bwana Asifiwe! The other patient was the mother of one of our Elders. Her grandson is getting married soon so we are hopping she will heal quickly and be able to attend the wedding next month. The highlight of my day was preaching to the young men at Sukari Presbyterian Secondary School (SPSS). I've attended their Wednesday chapel service once before and I preached to them the Sunday before last. The young man in charge of the service was happy to welcome back their "favorite international preacher." That threw me. Now that I'm more assimilated into this culture, I keep forgetting how odd it is for other people when I'm around. Being called an international preacher makes me sound way more legit than I actually am. I mean let's face it.... my only credentials are that I have one year of seminary and three previous sermons under my belt. Despite being thrown off by my introduction, I think the message went well. Florence accompanied me and had positive things to say. I am usually a manuscript preacher, but since I went off-script so much when I preached there before, I decided to preach from bullet points today. The boys at SPSS were particularly attentive. Only 2 fell asleep which is better than my supervisor's record so I'm thrilled! Lately when I've been praying or preaching, there have been moments where I stop and realize that the words I'm speaking aren't words I came up with. I have experienced so many spirit-filled moments while leading various services and fellowships. The prayer I keep coming back to is one that my former youth pastor says a lot before he preaches. "Almighty God, open our hearts. Open our minds. May your Word be found in my words. Amen." While I've prayed it before, it has taken on a new meaning since I arrived here I had several of these moments while preaching and praying today. What a gift. 

In the evening, we went the Imani (faith) district to finish up a few home visits and have a fellowship. Again, this part of the day was filled with worship and the spirit. While tonight had a smaller group, it was a very successful meeting. I also met a woman pastor (whoop whoop) and am going to get to spend the day with her at some point in the coming weeks. She works as the chaplain at one of the local universities and she specifically noted that she wants to share her experiences as a woman in ministry with me. So looking forward to that. 

Today we did all the pastor things. Well, a lot of them anyway. In doing all these "pastor things" it dawned on me how many incredible opportunities I've been getting here. While this religious culture is so vastly different from the one I come from, it's helping me understand my own faith and practices in new ways.

~ much love from Nell in Nairobi 

PS: This is Andrew and he’s 4 years old. When I went to shake his hand, he kissed mine. His father later told me it was because he thought I was a princess. His dad suspected that it was because he had never seen a mzungu before and that the books they had about princesses all had white characters. We made silly faces at each other during the lesson and I think it’s safe to say we are buds now.