(clever title goes here): Africa- Prayer and Baby House

On the first Friday there we went prayer walking through the city. We divided up into small groups and each group took a different street. We all met up at the Baby House, I'll get to that later. While prayer walking we also had flyers about the Global Day of Prayer to pass out and ask if we could put up in stores. I wasn't one of the people walking with Mariana, I'm not sure who was, but this is what happened to the best of my knowledge. They had one flyer left. Mariana told them to pray about who to give it to. They keep walking. They pass people. Mariana goes up to a car at a stoplight and gives it to a man. She talks to him some and gives him her number. The man, Levine, calls her for a ride to church on Sunday. She tells him a time and place to meet her on Sunday to pick him up. Sunday morning comes around and he is there waiting! More on Levine later.

Band at Global Day of Prayer

So this Global Day of Prayer. I don't know why but in my mind I pictured this big stadium, not like Tiger Stadium or anything but still kinda big, and lots of people. It was a one sided stadium and not nearly as many people as I imagined. There was a good number of people though. There was a band, and prayer for different things like the government, schools, families, churches, workers, etc., there was a questionable flag routine, and a choir. Most everything was done in Afrikans. One or two prayers or songs were in English and every other topic we prayed for was prayed for in small groups and the others prayed for by one of the leaders of the GDofP. I call the flag routine questionable because there wasn't much to it and there were music problems. The cd skipped and repeated and got stuck. Hopefully it can all be attributed to the music problems and if that would of worked then they would of had a kickin performance. Hopefully. Guess we'll never know. At one point when someone was praying the guitar player was playing music in the background, just like often is done here. Such a simple little thing, the guitar playing, got me thinking. We often look at all the differences and ignore the similarities. Yes there are differences that can't and shouldn't be ignored. They are part of what makes up the different cultures. We pray and we worship, maybe in different ways, to the same God. We are worshiping the same Lord. One world. One God.

Choir at Global Day of Prayer

Flag routine at Global Day of Prayer

Levine. Levine is from Burundi. I never got the chance to really know him but Morgan, Megan, Lindsay, and Ethan did. He's been through a lot in his life. There are many immigrants at the place where he lives, a house with many rooms rented out. A church was started there. The first and only time we were able to go the lights went out so we met outside on the porch with about 1 or 2 candles. There was singing and Petrus spoke and I shared my testimony. (After the church we went star gazing, Ethan doesn't know, shh! He was sick and didn't come to church and it was a last minute thing. There were so many stars, it was incredible!)

Levine and Megan (Megan's photo)

Baby House. The Friday we went prayer walking we all met up at the Baby House. There were 4 sweet babies there we got to hold and feed. There were 3 boys: Adri (3 weeks old), Dani, and Daniel, and 1 girl: Joseline (who they said was "special"). I got to hold Adri and feed him some and hold sweet Joseline. I guess the baby house is a safe house where people who don't want their babies can bring them. I don't remember how long the babies stay there. It could be until they find a foster home or are adopted but then again I could be totally making that up.

Feeding Adri (Whitney's photo)