Golnamne Church of the Nazarene

This morning we were off to a bush church at a place called Golnamne.  Not hard to pronounce once you practice it a couple of times.  It's the home village of our friend Apa.  We shared his story in April, 2010.  Our friends Simon and Esther Tausi (we've talked about them too many times to link to all of them) and Simon's brother Nason and his wife Neom are here, both for the recent Women's Conference, and for the upcoming National NMI Conference, and they all came along as well.

Golnamne is in an area we've never visited before.  The church people worked on the road, so it would be easy for us to get there.  The road must have been pretty bad before!  Going down a hill, at one point the mud was so slippery that even in 4-wheel drive, the steering had no effect on the direction of travel of the cruiser, and the left tires slipped right into a drainage ditch.  That wouldn't have been so bad if the ditch had been going our way, but it was clear that I couldn't continue to follow it indefinitely!  Apa is a very strong man, and he was surrounded by his strong relatives.  In a few minutes, they had brought a couple of big planks and built a ramp out of the ditch.  I drove right out, and the rest of the road went by without problem.  However, Judy and several of our friends had decided to walk down the hill.

The folks who walked down the hill arrived a few minutes after we did.

 The congregation had prepared welcome signs on the ground made of flower petals. 

The church lined up to receive us with warm handshakes and a welcome song.

 Me preaching

 Visiting after the service

Some people had no confidence in the car, and walked back up the hill.  There was no trouble getting up in the car!

Here's a little video, shot with my pocket camera of the welcome, then of the Tausis and a few other friends singing a special song in the service.  There's also a brief shot of Simon giving a testimony.  It was so moving that I wanted to share it, but I was disappointed to discover that his voice had been too soft for my camera to record.  His face and gestures say a lot.