Day 3

Hey from Africa!! So, today was so amazing! As you all know, it is Sunday. This morning we started off by visiting Gaba Community Church during their time of worship. It was amazing to see all of the people praising The Lord and just to feel His spirit fill the Sanctuary. We sang a couple of songs that all of us on the team knew. One of the songs really hit home with me today. We started singing Shout to the Lord, I immediately teared up. That is a song that I grew up listening to and I usually just sang not understanding the words and singing because everyone else was. Today, I really listened to the words and took in what they meant. I was processing all of this as I was trying not to cry my eyes out. It was so special to me to sing that and to actually understand and process what it all means. We then sang 10,000 Reasons. That is also one of my favorites and I can't ever sing it without thinking of Brian belting it out. That song has always been a favorite!! After worship concluded at Gaba, we traveled to participate in worship and listen to the message at Buloba Community Church. These two churches have different styles of worship but they are both so incredible. At Buloba we sang many songs and watched as the children particpated greatly by dancing and jumping around! To me it was neat at Buloba because you could feel the Holy Spirit in the midst of all the worship. Mr. Wes said tonight that at Buloba this morning you could tell that the people weren't there to see friends or to just hang out. The people of Buloba were there to truly worship and desired to be there. I could not agree more. You could just feel the Holy Spirit. It was amazing! After we concluded worship, they asked us to introduce ourselves! So, everyone gets up there and introduces themselves, naturally. The congregation of people were so welcoming and so loving. A big thing that has tugged on my heart this trip is that I did not know how much of an impact Cornerstone and the people/families of our church sponsoring kids meant to them. After we introduced ourselves Pastor Mark came up and gave an awesome message about the importance of being the church and the importance of the family in that setting. He really expressed that without God in your family you have nothing, which is so true. During the service I got antsy on and off and I situate myself a lot in the chairs. I noticed that the children didn't move at all during the service. If they had to go to the restroom they got up quietly and without making a sound walked out and then returned. The kids of Buloba are so incredible. When the service was concluding Pastor Mark called our team up to the front and said that they were going to pray over us. Everyone in the Sanctuary, all children included, stretched their hands toward us and everyone begin to pray. And, once again, all I could do was tear up. I just felt so loved and so unworthy. I felt the spirit of The Lord in that place. Honestly, there are just no words for the feeling I had. The service concluded and then we got to just hang out and talk to our sponsor children and meet some of the adults within the community! It was so awesome and they treated us just like family! You can't help but just get attached to every one of the children there. We got with our sponsor children and gave them the gifts we had brought them and the look on Karen's face when we gave her the bag of goodies did nothing but fill my  heart with so much joy.  And it is the things like that, that have been tugging on my heart strings this week. She never stopped thanking mom and I. It's just the little things and it is incredible! We left Buloba and went to lunch at Pastor Eva's house! The food and fellowship was amazing, as all of it has been! This afternoon we just had a chill afternoon! We went to the market after lunch and it was so awesome! All of the individuals working there were so incredibly sweet and there was so much to purchase. I wish I could've bought one of everything! After going the market we went to a coffee shop, sat around and just chatted and ate pastries and drank coffee! It was a great time to just relax and hear about everyone's experiences so far on the trip. Today was so incredibly and I cannot wait to see what The Lord has in store for us during the rest of our time here! Please continue to pray for our team! We love y'all so very much!!

Kathleen Hand