Tea time, church services, & thunderstorms

Well, before I begin today’s entry, I wanted to share a story with you all. As I think I’ve mentioned, we have tea time every morning and afternoon and during afternoon tea today, I had two…well, lets just call them mishaps. First, as I was pouring my tea and adding sugar to it, I dropped the entire sugar packet into the cup. The whole pack. About 10 minutes later, I was eating one of the cookies they set out for us. I was lifting the whole thing into my mouth and right before it reached my lips, it broke and fell directly into, you guessed it, my cup of tea. Oh, and did I mention that both times, I let some profanities slip out? Not my best moment :)

In other news…actually, in very other news, I went to church this morning for the first time since I’ve been here. It was called North Hills and I really liked it. It honestly was not as different as I was expecting. I recognized most of the worships songs we sang. It really just felt like a charismatic American church.

And halfway through the sermon, I realized this church reminded me very much of the church I visited while in England, Soul Survivor. Everyone was so friendly! I felt so welcomed and as though I could’ve gone up to any person there and talked to them. During the worship, it felt like people who were there genuinely wanted to worship the Lord. It was a passionate thing, not forced. And that was something I noticed while in England…their love for Christ seemed to be overflowing out of their hearts. And then talking to people after, you could feel it in the way they treated us and loved on us. During the service, they had a time where people share praise stories for the Lord, mainly of healing that He’s done. And they allowed room for the Spirit to move. Even in the structure of the church here, it is more about relationship than schedule. Instead of planning every single minute of the service, they genuinely wanted to meet with God and allow time for Him to control the service.

And it was interesting to me that it so strongly reminded me of Soul Survivor, because it made me wonder what that says about the church in America. And truthfully, I really don’t know what it says about the church in America, but it just made me wonder…Anyone have any good thoughts? :)

ALSO! I am currently sitting through my first South African thunderstorm!!! It’s the most legit thing ever. The lightning literally lights up the ENTIRE SKY!!!! I can’t even explain it. God is so big and beautiful! What a wonderful gift to end this first week in Pietermaritzburg. I am truly blessed.

With love from South Africa,

Alex