Sunday (3/9/08) in Ouaga

Sunday was a great day. We spent the morning at Eliel Church, where Josh spoke on Psalm 73. Clearly, God has given him the gift of teaching and his word to the church was well-received.

After lunch we went to an open-air market where the vendors were incredibly aggressive. This market faced a concrete waterway that was dry (like everything else here this time of year), and once we got past the first few shops, we had a feeling of being pretty “caught” by them. They were grabbing our arms and doing everything in their power to get us into their “shops,” which were cubbyholes about 5 feet wide by 8 or 9 feet deep. They had no concept of “personal space.” In-your-face hawking of their wares, yelling “Excuse me, Excuse me!” grabbing our arms and actually trying to push us into their shops. Daniel told us later that it was in the very same place that he had been cheated by the vendors. I think we got lucky! They actually had some pretty nice stuff. As far as souvenirs go, that is. I think the prices we got from them were at least fair, if not good.

Sunday night was great. It was over an hour of pure singing. There’s nothing like a whole building full of singing and dancing Africans. Part way through the meeting, they asked Julie and Josh and me to sing, which we did – and then Julie did a solo. Wow! What a voice! I had no idea she could sing. But what really surprised me was how she could dance! At the end of the service, Elienai (Daniel’s youngest daughter – about 20 yrs old) called her out to the floor in front of the podium and she danced with about 12 of the ladies and a handful of men. She got game!

I can’t imagine much more encouraging than a church full of Africans dancing and singing praise to the Lord for what He’s done . . . except the arrival of my first granddaughter! VIOLET GRACE PRINCE made her appearance at 8:16am, March 7th. She weighed 8lbs, 6ozs and was 21.5 inches long. Mom and baby are doing GREAT.