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Post #9 Blair's Blog: Throwing a LifeLine
Mission Report Fri Feb 15, 2008, 3:36 pm by Blair Ritchey
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1) Round 2 of the Indvumiso Celebration is now history. A light but enthusiastic crowd braved the hot sun, and in spite of an amp that didn't like the heat any more than the crowd, we managed another great night of praise and witness. We keep adding a few prospects to the church plant and Pastor Jim Machuku is encouraged, predicting that Saturday will be the best day. We go from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM, so any prayers you can offer for our stamina would be appreciated. A few clouds and a light breeze wouldn't be too bad either. Knowing this team, we'll be giving it our all. I just hope the rickety stage lasts as long as we do! When the speakers are swaying with the choir, that's a problem! I think the guy built a 3-day stage -- I just hope he didn't cut any corners. A 2-and-a-half day stage would be disastrous!
2) The Swazi's love WOW! By far, the favorite song of the concert is WOW! We save it for the finale, but we've created this cult of African women who started chanting for WOW half way through the concert. Then when we finally did play WOW, they went crazy. The band hit the last chord and they started chanting: WE WANT MORE! A WOW encore ensued. We do this CD giveaway at the end of the concert and when one of these ladies wins a CD it's like mayhem -- they mob each other in celebration. You cannot have more fun at a concert than this little African WOW Cult -- at least not legally!
3) Africans have cool names. The lead singer of the Manzini worship team is Senzo. How cool would it be to go through life as Senzo! When I go to heaven I hope to have a voice like Senzo's. It's even more awesome than his name. If I can't have his voice, maybe I can have his name! Senzo is assisted by Cosmo and Salviso. Guy's names are cooler than the the girl's names -- I can't pronounce the girl's names.
4) Throwing a LifeLine: 4 years ago I was flying over Africa and God gave me the LifeLine Vision. Tonite I preached about the LifeLine to our Swazi audience. The LifeLine is a cross-cultural principle -- God's Spirit, God's Word and God's People coming together in a park in Manzini, Swaziland. Yea, God!
5) One of the American missionaries has adopted a Swazi orphan. Matthias is a 4 year old who aspires to be a preacher. Today, he stood up in his living room (He has this little pulpit in his house) and informed his mother that he wanted to preach like Pastor Blair. Then he started, "Howdy, y'all. Christ didn't die for the godly -- he died for the ungodly." I like this kid!
6) 9:00 PM is known as "Missionary Midnight" over here. Tonite we are all so tired that we are all missionaries. It's 9:05 PM and time for bed! Thanks for praying, Collin Creek!
Love,
Blair
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