weekend festivities

Greetings bloggers. This is my first visit to the blog for posting purposes, so yeah I know im a slacker but im here now. Im here to report our festivities for the weekend. If you would like a setting for my current position, I am sitting in our guest house/apartment place, slightly perspiring due to a small dance party that just occurred as the power flickered on and off for a bit (and I know what you’re thinking—a natural strobe light!) and its now approaching 10 pm and peeps are settling in to the journaling/sleep prep time.
Sooooo, time traveling a bit back to Saturday. We had a rest day but we got to practice our hospitality skills all day as we visited with various all stars of the mission field. We had visitors from the LIA international board meeting come by on their way out of town, and eventually got to meet Dr. Florence at last. It reminded me of the awesome opportunity God has given each of our team as we get to spend the summer surrounded by people doing big things for God’s the kingdom. We also had a life-changing experience Saturday in town. We all went to java house and had some ridiculously delicious milkshakes—I mean you cant come back from that. But seriously I felt like Saturday was very challenging and eye-opening as we heard intense stories from the various mission fields of our visitors.
Here in Africa, Sunday is the day after Saturday, I mean I know there are time differences between here and America and it confuses me a bit so regardless of the day, it was awesome. We went to church (same one we did last week) and it was amazing once again. The sense of community never ceases to amaze me. The congregation is so welcoming and was even sad to hear we wouldn’t be around next week. We heard a sermon on worship being a lifestyle and having a divine appetite. It was very challenging—as is everything I encounter here. The faith of the people I am surrounded by simply blow my mind, I just feel like crumbling to the ground in comparison. I am so small and so far from living how God wants me to. And if you were to ask any of our team I think they would agree that the general theme of the time here has been prayer. Everything is soaked in prayer, as it should be, and it is so refreshing. Which brings me to today (Monday), our day of prayer and fasting. We got to spend somewhere between 4 and 5 hours in prayer for LIA ministries, departments, nations of influence, staff and even snuck in some personal prayers. It was an amazing way to kick off the week. This weekend provided a lot of thinking time, which I usually don’t like, but it was amazing to look back and see all the things God has already started working in my life. He is simply blowing my mind and we’re not even two weeks in.
So that’s the weekend, as far as I can remember. God’s doin big things fo sho.
Blessings,
Molly Russell and team