Last blog from Sedhiou

A Day of Worship and Praise (and relaxing!)     My comment to Jefferson this morning was (actually yesterday morning now), "Sometimes it does not long to spend the night." It was close to 1 a.m. when some got to bed, others came in later. But we enjoyed an evening meal of grilled meat Brazilian style with fried potatoes, onions and Dijon mustard. All of these were eaten by the fire with your fingers. The evening was cool outside under the stars … there was no electricity so I think this was all that we ate! The power came back on just as we were heading inside. Thank you Roy and Mary who prayed specifically for the electricity at the time it was needed. 　 Sunday, March 06, 2011, has been a wonderful experience of worship and praise unto the Lord. During the early part of the service, I got to post the blog telling of our experience on Saturday. Pastor will not let a pastor sit in the congregation so I was not able to get a picture of Buddy preaching. He did a great job. At the conclusion of the message and comments by the pastor, he gave and invitation inviting them to respond to the message Buddy preached. He preached that God has a plan for your life: a plan of salvation, a plan of spiritual growth and a plan for service. There were 6 who came forward for prayer. 　 Following the service, we came and got ready for the baptism while the congregation walked the 11-12 blocks from church. The baptism was held near the market area where the fishing boats are on the river shore. Many of the members set in the boats playing the drums and praising God. Two were baptized from Bamakounda. They are Balant believers. We believe that Bamakounda will be a strong congregation some day. Our goal is to reach the Mandjak. However, we will share the gospel with everyone and praise Him for those He saves. 　 After the baptism, we hurried back to down load pictures, resize them and got them ready to post from the USB thumb drive. When this was done, we went back to post on the blog and send them to folks that could down load them for the service. 　 This afternoon after lunch we went to pray for a girl who got hurt at school that Monique (spelling) was concerned about. She was not home but had returned to school to do study. So we returned to the house … after stopping by the Boutique … to sort of lay around, enjoy ataya, do email, etc. It was sort of what we saw a lot of other folks doing. The young widow lady whom Pastor Ngore has been helping has been doing our laundry. She had done our clothes each day. She came to do what we had gotten dirty today. This is the only way that she is able to make some money. We pooled the clothes so that she has enough to do for about $4 a day. 　 Today now  will be a busy day during the morning. Paul Mendy from Dialandingkoto is coming in early to meet with Jefferson. He wants Paul to oversee the cleaning of his property, setting of boundary lines and begin preparation for construction. While he is doing that, I hope to meet with Pastor who will have Fatu at the hospital to change her dressing. I plan on getting pictures for the docs at home to see the progress of the grafts they did. After that we will have a session on discipleship with Paul, Pastor, Joseph, Emmanuel and whoever else wants to participate. These are the leaders and I am hoping to expose them to levels of spiritual growth and how to help someone to move to a more mature level. 　 When this is done, we will start our return trip. We plan on going to Tambacounda to spend the night and then on to Dakar early on Tuesday. We may have our evening meal at the Brazilian restaurant that a missionary started to get young men off of the streets of Dakar. 　 Wednesday we hope to arrange a meeting with others who are working with the Mandjak to learn of what has been happening with them, their plans and other concerns. 　 Bro. Sam   PS: the Big excitement in Sedhiou this morning was me riding behind Pastor on his moped from the house over to his church where we will teach.