Sunday - Mavuno Church

I accidentally made arrangements to go to two churches on Sunday. I was going to try out Miriam and David's church in Nairobi but when Miriam was sick all week with typhoid and an amoeba infection, I made plans to go to the Karen Vineyard again with Scilia's family - also in Nairobi. I had gone there the week before and absolutely loved it. It has the same flavor of any other Vineyard and the Pastor is Canadian so I could fully enter into the worship and could get lost in the sermon with no strange accents to overcome. This Vineyard is actually a pretty wealthy church that is located in a private school for privileged children. Most of the people attending it are businessmen, those involved with the United Nations or embassies and many missionaries that have come from all over the world. I felt so at home there that it was a great short term escape from my life at the base. Oh, and they offer free coffee with cream during the break between the two services so that gets it a thumbs up right off the bat!!! I can count on one hand the number of times I have had coffee since arriving here. Late Saturday night I found out that Miriam and David did want to go to church and had made arrangements to use the YWAM base's car so they needed a full vehicle to help pay for the gas. I altered my plans and went to Mavuno Church for a 9:00 A.M. service. This church is huge - between 3,000 & 3,500 attend each week. Most of the people who attended it were in their 20's & 30's so the praise and worship was very lovely but a bit too loud for me. ( I never thought I would say that - I must be getting older.) It really was a great church for this age group and the Pastor had an excellent, practical sermon on love and dating. They are even playing parts of his sermon on one of the radio stations in Nairobi because it has caught the attention of some outside the church. The church is housed in a number of huge tents. We were in the main one that probably holds about 1000 people but they had other ones where you could watch the service by remote TV. They had a restaurant and drink bar at the church so Miriam and David headed off theree after the service while 3 of us went to another meet and greet tent for visitors. We were given large glasses of mango juice while they told us about their church. I was really impressed with the level of organization at this church because it is distinctly unusual for Kenya. After church, Miriam and David asked us if we would like to go out for lunch. Of course we wanted to get some good food so we headed off to the Java House for chicken burgers, salad and coffee. The food there was fantastic! We finished off a beautiful day with some window shopping in one of the malls. It is so uplifting to get off the base on the weekend for a change of scenery and some good food.