French Church and other worldly things

Hello again!

We've had a great week. One of our highlights has been to visit a French Congolese Church last Sunday. When they began to sing it was not only in French but with some African language as well. While singing during worship we heard some of the women making high pitched sounds with their tongues. It was quite wonderful when you add the bongos and all the other instruments. Throw in some movement up and down or from right to left which was a great way to praise. They put their whole selves into it. This is a mission church with 50 or more attending of all ages. Most of the women were dressed like they were going to a special event but they had accepted our culture and it was in the western style. I couple of the women were in beautiful African style dress. Either way they look beautiful. The meeting place is in an industrial area and they fixed their room up very pretty. Our hosts were very loving and wanted us to introduce ourselves. They did have the service translated in English along with French because their District pastor was coming to preach that day. He and his wife are helping them with their mission. We will return for the next couple of weeks and join them in prayer for one of their mid-week services.

We have begun Language Acquisition learning and will meet with our French LRP (language resource person) today as we learn new techniques to help us in our learning and also learn some French phrases and sentences. There are many new friends in our midst as we have 40 folks doing the same thing we are. Did you know Papua New Guinea has 900 different languages? I was amazed. Wycliffe has 600 people that work at their center in Papua and half of the people in our cultural training are going there. 200 of those 600 people are Nationals. Yesterday we learned about the Theology of Suffering. Very powerful as we saw a video from a couple where the husband and one of their teammates  had been shot while serving in Uganda with the Olangi people. The Lord let both of the men live but now the man we heard testify lives with serious chronic pain and they were not able to go back to the field after that. And yet, he has a powerful teaching ministry here in the states.

Many of us will be in areas of the world where the spiritual darkness and forces of evil are very powerful and some of those people don't want those serving God in their midst. But thankfully we serve a God who is all powerful and He has overcome this world of darkness and he loves them! I'm so thankful that we are overcomers and I'm thankful for our friends who want to help us bring the light of Christ to a dark world! Thank you Lord, Thank you!

Carol