more Adjumani weekend

At church Saturday evening 28 people received the Holy Ghost AWESOME! and 17 had received it the night before.  Greatest birthday gift ever :).   More people than that raised their hands that they had gotten a healing of some kind when we prayed for them during altar call.  About 50 or 60 got the Holy Ghost during the entire crusade that weekend.

On Sunday we had service all day again.  Instead of an evening service, though, we had a baptism service.  I could have gone with them to see the baptism, but I was EXHAUSTED and anyway, all the little kids were staying at the church and so I wanted to stay with the kids :).  I was sitting on a chair in the shade with Bro. Tolstad and the kids were standing there staring at us, haha, until one little girl, maybe 6 years old, got brave.  She came up to me leader her tiny sister by the hand (here it is the job of the older sisters to care for the littler ones).  She pushed her sister towards me and chattered something at me in Ma'di.  I smiled at the tiny girl and started touching her little ears and her nose and her eyes, saying what they were in English.  When that didn't scare her away, I took her hand and slowly led her around my chair and sat her in my lap.  She didn't mind at all.  I had Bro. Tolstad take a picture and when the other kids saw that, they rushed over to get a picture, too.  So I took the camera and took as many pictures as they wanted, turning the camera around to show them the screen.  They kept crowding closer and closer, getting brave enough to lean on me and touch my hands.  Pastor Robert came over at one point to shoo them off, but when I grinned at him he just smiled and walked away.  I was getting very hot with all those chattering, sweating little kids and I knew probably half of them had some kind of sickness that I could catch, but I didn't care.  I loved it.  Oh, I loved it.  Finally we had to leave and as I approached the car, the kids started coming up and taking my hand.  The little girls would hit their knees or bow when they took my hand, and two children in particular took my hand and touched it to their chins and their foreheads.  Pastor Christia told me later, "It means they love you.  That's a sign of very high respect." 

That night I noticed that the reason the bats were in my room was because of a large hole in my ceiling, which is also why my walls were crawling with spiders.  So I lay in bed that night I was drenched in sweat because the entire village has no electricity, and my hair was a mess because I couldn't wash it.  And I knew there were spiders all over my walls and I could hear the bats making that horrible high pitched screaching they do (that you can feel more than you can hear) and I knew that my room was probably full of them.  And I also knew that I had to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to spend 16 hours driving, hot and sweaty, on an unpaved road back to the city.  And I should have been miserable.  But all I could think about was a tiny black hand clutching my index finger as a chubby little girl stood barefooted in the dirt, absentmindedly swinging my arm back and forth.  And two tall, skinny pastors wrapping their sweaty arms around me to join me in their worship dance.  And Pastor Robert handing me a tree branch and indicating that I should follow him in a march around the church (waving branches is a sign of celebration) and all the little kids running to march beside the muzungu in worship.  And I thought of my translator, black face dripping with sweat, smiling at me as he waited for my next Bible verse to give to the church.  And the image of some 30 people walking off into the bush, carrying their belongings on their head, to start the 3 kilometer walk to the water so they could be baptised in the beautiful name of Jesus Christ.  And the lamentation choir, dancing in traditional Ma'di and crying in lament for the lost souls and in lament for revival.  And Pastor Deo claiming victory in Jesus' Name over the holds of witchcraft in his village.  And instead of being miserable, I realized that in my entire life I've never felt more content.  Before I left the States, I prayed that I would have a love for these people that was strong enough to overpower any discomfort or homesickness I may have, and that's exactly what God has done for me.  I've never felt more at home.  I love this place.  I love these people. I love these people.