We had two very good meetings today with churches. The church this morning was a good size and very active. We had to ride down this very narrow "street" to get to the church. It is in the middle of a residential area and has reached very many people. The pastor of the church was very touched and excited by the weeklong conference and by the workshop. He has offered to pay for the "photocopies" of the lessons from the conference (about 90 pages) for the other churches who did not attend the conference but attended the one-day workshop on building a marriage ministry. He spent most of the day going to get the copies made.
Our meeting this afternoon was in the home of the pastor rather than in their church. We always like going to their homes and see more about how they live. One of the people in the meeting was a woman, who is the female leader of the elders there. She was very expressive and had some very good questions. She wanted to know more about our own testimony about why we were coming to Africa and how we got involved in marriage ministry. I told her that, if I could speak Swahili, she was the kind of person that I would like to have as a friend.
She also asked our interpreter a couple of questions about America and didn't want him to translate it to us. So, he spoke to her first, knowing a lot about us and our views before he told us about the conversation. She wanted to know if it was true that Obama supported abortion legislation. She also wanted to know if we supported that view or supported him. She also asked about divorce in America and the condition of the family. She said that Africa is learning from America. She communicated that what Africans see Americans doing, then they think it is right for them also. We were very clear about our support of Obama, because he is our president, but that he has some views that we do not agree with. It seemed to help them a lot to get a bigger picture of the culture of America.
Thanks for your continued prayers for us.
