A New Page in a New Journal

Don't you love it when you get started on something new?

Oh, sure, you probably enter in with some hesitation, perhaps a few jitters...but then the fun begins.

Well, this morning in church I began taking sermon notes in a brand new journal--not just one of those cheap-o spiral bound notebooks, but a real, genuine, leather (like) bound volume. If you're like me, you want to write something down that is significant, something that a person could conceivably benefit from ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred years from now.

And that was one of the points this morning's guest speaker had on his agenda. His name is Naphtally Ogallo and he is a Reformed Baptist pastor from the land of Kenya.

Pastor Ogallo was, I believe, the first black preacher to preach from our church's pulpit in the eleven or so years I've attended there. When he opened his mouth to speak, you could tell he wasn't from around here, but that didn't matter. He began by apologizing for his accent, but to me, everything he said came across with crystal clarity.

The Sunday School hour was spent showing us projected images of his home church and the flock he leads in Africa in a village called Eldoret. Aside from the tent-structure of their sanctuary and the dark skin of the men, women and children in the church, it appeared to be very much like our own congregation. But one of the sharp contrasts that will stick in my mind was the fact that over 80 percent of the attendees at this pastor's church are among the unemployed.

This fact alone is enough to give me pause as I consider the use to which our support funds are being put as they cross the ocean and find their way into the hands of the Eldoret church. Pastor Ogallo must see to the needs of his own family (a wife and two children), as well as care about the survival needs of the vast majority of families who gather with his own to worship God.

As he drew instruction and encouragement from the Scriptures this morning, he told of Paul's experiences, motivations, warnings and encouragements when addressing the Ephesian elders at their final meeting, as related in Acts 20. During that council, Paul instructed the elders in the expectation that they would never see his face again in this life. I'm sure that fact alone was enough to make those early church leaders give greater attention to what the great Apostle had to say.

Perhaps the same might be said about our meeting this morning as Pastor Ogallo passed Paul's instructions on to us. Our church has supported this wonderful African gentleman for some 20 years and never had seen him face to face until today.

I, for one, am determined to put his exhortations into practice, as if they are the final ones we will ever hear.

Standing in the Gap...Coram Deo,
Mark