New York Trip

Pastor Chris and the mission team left for Africa on Dec. 24th. On the same day Zach and I left for New York to visit Simon and his wife Dilia. Our plan was to spend Christmas with Simon before they left for Florida. While they were gone for the weekend, I “dog sat” for them. I didn’t realized how much work was involved in taking care of dogs. Ike and Stella started barking around 5 am. That meant they wanted out to do their thing. The first day was Okay. I let them out to their back yard and they did what dogs do. But on the second day I didn’t hear them barking. When I came out from bedroom about 8 in the morning. I saw two piles of gold (that is what Simon called it) at the doorstep. When Simon called later that day, I told him about what happened at home, he told me this never happened before. I felt guilty. What did I do wrong? I fixed their meal as Simon prescribed to me; mixing rice with dry dog food with a drop of vitamins. I felt like I was taking care of babies. Actually those dogs were like Simon and Dilia’s babies. They called two or three times a day from Florida to check on the dogs and me. But enough about the dog story.

Here is about a church story. I wanted to attend a church on Sunday. I Googled the Internet and found two churches that I could walk to. The first church I walked to was a Baptist church. People were standing at the church door, laughing and talking to each other. I took few steps toward them, but no one paid attention to me. They were too busy talking. I felt awkward and unwelcome. I decided to pass that church and walked to the next church. This one was called the “New Testament Church of Christ”. A man greeted me with a big smile at their parking lot and invited me to the service. I followed him to the church, and two women at the door welcomed me with big smile. People inside sanctuary seemed to be happy to see each other and some of them approached to this stranger with warm greeting. It was a small congregation about 50. It reminded me of our church, and immediately I felt home. I wondered if our church was more like the first or the second.

January 2008 CASA Conference

2008 CASA conference, from Jan 2 to Jan 6th, went very well. The theme of the confrence was "Joseph in Egypt". Chris, Rob, Frank, Lelia went from US. About 250 students from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania attended. Sadly, students from Kenya couldn't attend because of the war that broke out on Dec. 30, 2007. Also students from Congo were turned away at the Rwanda border because of the Ebola breakout in Congo. Dealing with wars and diseases are the reality of everyday African life. To change that, African Christian students are doing something about it. They are crying out to God to help them, then put their faith into action. They lift their hearts to God and their hands to help poor people. Here are future leaders of Africa who will find solutions to their problems.
Here is the foreign minister of Rwanda, he was the confence keynote speaker. The purpose of CASA is to help students to be like him who can serve their people with Christian heart.