Well - after an interesting evening of sermon writing I fell into a deep and restful sleep, and when my alarm went off at 5.15am I bounced out of bed full of energy. Not!! I got to bed later than I’d have liked and dragged myself out of bed with ‘sufficient’ time to prepared myself for leading morning worship in the college chapel. I did actually sleep well, helped by the fact that I knew others were also praying about the service I would be leading later.
Morning worship was good. I enjoyed leading the students and was glad that one of them had helped me choose a suitable Bemba hymn. Like any congregation they seem to have their favourites because I recognised the one he chose as one we’d sung a few times!
The day felt quite relaxed as I pottered about the house and then went for a cup of tea with a neighbour. It was good to chat with her about her family and life here, and what had brought her to this place.
I decided to get to church nice and early so that I could make sure I was organised in good time. I had a look around with Boniface so he could make sure I was happy with things. I checked out the steps into the pulpit and stood there looking out over an empty church. Massive!!! So many seats!!!
Ok. As I came back down the steps Trudy, an elderly member of the congregation came in and wandered up to greet me. She had the most wonderful smile, and she shook my hand vigorously. Then she said she wanted to pray with me and proceeded to pray with great passion and enthusiasm.
The service went well, and all of those present seemed to appreciate having the opportunity to come together. I found it a bit strange for a few minutes when the man who had a video camera started filming me, but I just focused on what I was saying and soon forgot he was there. I didn’t see a reporter taking notes so maybe the paper will not be running a story after all. Whew! That’s good.
I had to do a neat bit of time management though, as the political leaders who were praying offered very lengthy prayers and the Mayor spoke at great length about the importance of coming before God to pray for the elections!! Still. I managed to ensure we were finished in time - with just ten minutes to spare before the evening service started.
I’m sure there a lots of things I’m going to remember about m time in Zambia. And this service will feature because of something pretty unexpected. Near the end of the service I realised afresh just how much I love my husband’s thoughtfulness and support. And now you are asking yourself what triggered that thought, aren’t you? Well, as I was preparing the service I had chosen two hymns that fitted well with the theme of the service and checked with ‘XXXX’ and ‘XXXX’ that these would be ok. Now, as you can see, I’m not mentioning names here because I am too kind to embarrass anyone deliberately, but both of them assured me these were well known and would be fine. The first hymn was not too bad – I started singing and then people took a few seconds to join in, but that seems fairly normal here. Someone usually leads the singing and then, after the first line or so, the others all join in. So that was fine - one hymn sung ok, and just one more to go at the end of the service. There are usually only two hymns because choirs play such a big part in worship.
And at the end of the service the second hymn was well known indeed – but only by me!!! I started singing, and I thought ’they’ll join in …in a minute ... just keep going… they’ll join in…keep going…’ Nope. How wrong was I? Not a soul joined in, and I ended up singing a complete solo from the pulpit. Now that definitely was NEVER in any of my plans. As I ‘kept going’ I was so grateful to Albert for gift of the singing lessons he had organised for me because he thought they might be useful and help me to feel more confident in leading worship. Well those lessons certainly proved invaluable, as I was able to ‘keep going’ and do something that I could never have imagined myself doing in a month of Sundays. He’s just brilliant in so many ways, my Albert, and always so supportive of me and what I am doing. And I can’t put into words how much that means to me.
I think I must have been more tired than I realised because after I got back and had a quick chat on Skype with Albert I promptly fell asleep and missed my dinner appointment with Jenny!
Oh dear, sorry Jenny.
But thanks everyone for your prayers – I had a real sense of peace throughout the preparation and the service itself.
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